Arts news

• Why Zadie Smith Will Not Keep A Diary Ever

  19-02-2015 23:48 via feedproxy.google.com
  “I realize I don’t want any record of my days. I have the kind of brain that erases everything that passes, almost immediately, like that dustpan-and-brush dog in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland sweeping up the path as he progresses along it. I never know what I was doing on what date, or how old I […]
  
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• When Virtual Reality Becomes Good Enough, Will Masses Of People Just Give Up On Real Life?

  19-02-2015 23:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  “The appeal of these environments is not so much that they help us totally escape reality. Rather, it is that they make us believe that we can recreate and change our own.’ In that way, rather than forcing a mass rejection of society, virtual worlds may open new ways of examining our own.”
  
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• Intersecting Tributaries In A Delta: Alex Ross On The Music Of Björk

  19-02-2015 23:14 via feedproxy.google.com
  “It overruns the boundaries separating art from pop, mainstream from underground, primeval past from hi-tech present. … It is as though, in a reversal of tectonic drift, isolated land masses of taste were re-forming as a supercontinent.”
  
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• The age-old art of musical page turning is under threat from the accursed iPad

  19-02-2015 22:00
  
  Sam Haywood, a leading British concert pianist, was in dazzling command of a particularly challenging piece when the chair to his left "got too close to the edge of the stage," he recalls. The unnamed woman, who had been sitting on it with rapt attention, dressed inconspicuously in black, "just… disappeared. One moment she was there and the next she wasn't".
  
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• Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now's the Time review – financial value sadly trumps artistic merit

  19-02-2015 20:51
  
  Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
  The artist died aged 27 and his best work still excites; but in burnishing the legend, and even revealing the prices his paintings sold for, this show risks trivialising the art
  If he were alive today, Jean-Michel Basquiat would be 54 years old: an artist comfortably in mid-career, maybe forgotten, maybe looking forward to a retrospective or two. Would his star have faded? Would he have moved on from his early style, or would he still be making the hotheaded, vola
  
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• Larry David Hates Working With Scripts

  19-02-2015 20:20 via feedproxy.google.com
  “It’s one of the reasons I didn’t like acting. I don’t like not being able to interject. I don’t like waiting to talk. You have to wait for the other person to finish with his lines.”
  
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• Brian Dennehy On The Hard Work Of Acting Eugene O’Neill

  19-02-2015 20:05 via feedproxy.google.com
  “You feel like crap, you’re exhausted, you may be sick, you may have a cold. I’ve got arthritis everywhere. … But it all disappears the minute the lights come up and you start walking down a small dark hallway or climbing down into this tunnel. I have no idea what the attraction is. I cannot […]
  
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• James Turrell Allowing Limited Visitors to Roden Crater for $6,500 a Person

  19-02-2015 19:51 via artnews.com
  On May 14, 15, 16, and 17 this year, the Roden Crater, artist James Turrell’s unfinished but still legendary piece of land art in the Arizona desert, will be open to a select group of people for a fundraising event–meant … Read More
  
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• Met Opera And ENO Commission Second Work From Nico Muhly

  19-02-2015 19:50 via feedproxy.google.com
  The two companies, which developed and premiered Muhly’s recent Two Boys, will work with the composer on an adaptation of Marnie, Winston Graham’s 1961 novel (made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock) about a woman blackmailed into marrying one of her bosses after she gets caught embezzling.
  
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• Joyce Pensato’s New Petzel Show Has a Charming Video Trailer

  19-02-2015 19:49 via artnews.com
  The exhibition trailers just keep coming! In recent years, major exhibitions, like the “Made in L.A.” biennial and the Carnegie International, as well as a number of artists—Korakrit Arunanondchai, Cory Arcangel, and Artie Vierkant, among them—have made short videos to whet … Read More
  
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• Your Pocket Guide To This Year’s Oscar Controversies

  19-02-2015 19:35 via feedproxy.google.com
  “While we all know about the major controversies underpinning this year’s [awards race] – such as the shameful lack of diversity in this year’s #OscarsSoWhite nominees – no film is immune from its own internal drama. Here’s a look at some of the specific quarrels and criticisms that have plagued 10 of this year’s nominated […]
  
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• Those Who Stay: The Lives Of Writers’ Companions

  19-02-2015 19:20 via feedproxy.google.com
  “We often know very little about those who live closely and share the lives of the writers about whom we apparently know so much. Part of this is wilful mythologizing. We like to think of the writer as indestructible as the text, preferring not to imagine who might make them breakfast in the morning or […]
  
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• Multicolored Birds, Giant Flowers, And Heads With Wings Are About To Devour Philly

  19-02-2015 19:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  Well, its museums, anyway. The Museum of Art, U. Penn, the Free Library, and Winterthur are all featuring Fraktur, the wildly colorful and whimsical Pennsylvania German folk art: “Drawings of hybrid fish with the heads of men. Humans mottled like snakes. Long-tongued lions.”
  
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• When They Were Still ‘Younger Than Jesus': Revisiting the First Two New Museum Triennials

  19-02-2015 18:58 via artnews.com
  Named “Younger Than Jesus,” for its group of 33-year-old-or-under artists, the New Museum’s first “Generational” triennial was met with mixed reactions when it opened in 2009. Was it a response to the Whitney Biennial? Was it a provocation? What was … Read More
  
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• Skeuomorphism at the College Art Association Conference: Or, the Unexpected Virtue of Instagram

  19-02-2015 18:53 via artnews.com
  “I want to ask you what you think of the new Instagram feature, the one that allows you to control how filtered your photos are. I wonder what you think of the user being allowed to manipulate the degree to … Read More
  
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• Florence Shuts Down Its Ballet Company – For The Second Time

  19-02-2015 18:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  Two years ago, the Teatro del Maggio Musicale, facing the same cash crises that afflict most Italian opera houses these days, announced that it could no longer afford to maintain its ballet company, called MaggioDanza. Supporters put together a private entity intended to maintain the troupe at the theater. It didn’t work (and they’re all […]
  
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• How The L.A. Phil Is Facing The Future

  19-02-2015 18:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  “‘Our audience is segmenting. There isn’t such a thing as a classical music audience. There are dozens of classical music audiences,’ said Chad Smith, the Phil’s vice president of artistic planning. ‘We want to be seen as relevant to what’s happening in our world. L.A. is the most contemporary city. You miss a beat and […]
  
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• Who'd marry an artist? The women painted out of the picture

  19-02-2015 18:18
  
  Pollock’s wife put his genius first, Picasso turned his photographer-girlfriend into the weeping woman and Rodin stole his lover’s ideas … modern art is littered with love affairs, but how many are actually fruitful and fair?British painter Sheila Girling, who died on 14 February, was married for 63 years to sculptor Anthony Caro. They supported one another’s work – two artists happily living and working side by side for more than six decades. How rare is this? Are there other notable
  
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• Sotheby’s Acquires Stake in Collector-Car Specialist RM Auctions

  19-02-2015 18:00 via artnews.com
  Sotheby’s and RM Auctions have announced the formation of a new strategic partnership, RM Sotheby’s, in which Sotheby’s will acquire a 25 percent ownership interest in the car-auction company, with the opportunity to increase its stake. (The market for collector cars, … Read More
  
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• Italian art restorer denies damaging medieval frescoes

  19-02-2015 16:42
  
  Newspapers quoted an expert saying he had noticed significant changes to works by Giotto and others in the Basilica of Saint Francis in AssisiA leading Italian art restorer has denied his team has permanently damaged a series of medieval frescoes by Giotto and other artists.
  Sergio Fusetti, lead restorer at the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, said claims by an expert reported in the Italian press over damage to the frescoes were completely unfounded.“The problem doesn’t exist. We carr
  
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• Tatiana Trouvé, sculptor: 'What I really like is to stop moments using materials that are fragile'

  19-02-2015 16:00
  
  Tatiana Trouvé moved into her current studio in Montreuil, a suburb of Paris, two years ago, having completely renovated it "from the ground up". It was formerly a factory, making parquet floors. The basement is now used for storage; the ground floor has been transformed into a large, light open sculpture space, with her drawing studio upstairs and a living area on the top. "I like to live and work in the same space. Increasingly the area has attracted artists and young families as it is che
  
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• Medieval frescoes have fallen victim to overenthusastic restorers, say experts

  19-02-2015 15:09
  
  Lecturer Bruno Zanardi says he noticed ‘significant changes’ to works by Giotto, among, others in the Basilica of Saint Francis in AssisiA series of medieval frescoes by Giotto and other artists has fallen victim to overenthusiastic restorers, permanently damaging one of the most sacred pieces of Italian art, according to experts. Little over two years since art experts celebrated the discovery of Giotto’s signature on the medieval works, heritage experts are mourning what they claim to be
  
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• Morning Links: The Art of War Edition

  19-02-2015 14:54 via artnews.com
  Jessica Hagy has illustrated Sun Tzu’s The Art of War using simple ink-on-index card drawings of Venn diagrams and x-y plots. [Harvard Business Review] Tejumola Olaniyan founded Africacartoons.com, the first continent-wide digital encyclopedia of political cartoons by African artists. [The … Read More
  
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• Forgotten Portuguese Modernist gets Grand Palais show

  19-02-2015 14:45
  
  Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso’s survey in Paris will be largest ever outside Portugal
  
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• Comic-book heroes deserve better than a trashing

  19-02-2015 14:25
  
  The long history, abundant diversity and visionary quality of comics produced in the English-speaking world are too rarely appreciated by mainstream critics
  Related: When did the comic-book universe become so banal? When pop culture icons burst from the underground, critical commentators tend to cocoon themselves in snobbery or flail around trying to understand their significance. This week, the Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones joined in with a blogpost titled: “When did the comic-book uni
  
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• When Your Countrymen Turn On Your Best-Foreign-Language-Oscar-Nominated Film

  19-02-2015 10:23 via feedproxy.google.com
  Pawel Pawlikowski (Ida): “It’s not a nice feeling, and I also feel a bit embarrassed for my country, which I’m very proud of in most ways. When it happens, and they said Ida is an unpatriotic embarrassment, I think, ‘My movie’s not embarrassing. This is embarrassing.'”
  
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• Guthrie Theater Names New Artistic Director

  19-02-2015 10:05 via feedproxy.google.com
  “His name might not have been on the handicappers’ shortlist, but Joseph Haj’s appointment Tuesday as artistic director of the Guthrie Theater brought waves of acknowledgment and praise. ‘He’s a huge player on the national scene – one of the finest theater artists working in America today,’ said [former NEA head of theater] Ralph Remington.”
  
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• If Too Many Arts Professionals Come From “The Elites”, Well, Whose Fault Is That?

  19-02-2015 09:52 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Judi Dench, David Morrissey and Julie Walters have all lamented [working-class folks’] absence. But, interestingly, they each talk about the opportunities for working-class kids that existed 20, 30, even 40 years ago, when they were establishing their careers. What has changed between then and now has nothing to do with the socially and ethically conscious […]
  
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• A Different Sort Of Mardi Gras Tradition: Exploding Sledgehammers

  19-02-2015 09:09 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Brazilians celebrate the day before Lent with dancing samba in skimpy outfits. In New Orleans, revelers throw beads at Mardi Gras. In this dusty central Mexican town, they have a different kind of a blast. … Even amid the inexhaustible tally of quirky rituals that communities anywhere hold dear, the Fat Tuesday frenzy in San […]
  
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• US museums capitalise on baby boomers’ desire to write big cheques

  19-02-2015 08:55
  
  “Quietly does it” pays off as fundraising is put on a fast track, with Houston’s millionaires in a particularly generous mood
  
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• Tate website reposts landscapes by convicted child abuser Graham Ovenden

  19-02-2015 08:54
  
  Images of children still available to view at gallery “by application”
  
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• A Children’s Cartoon Landed This Man In An Iranian Prison

  19-02-2015 08:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  “In 2006, the Iranian artist Mana Neyestani sat down to draw a children’s cartoon for a weekly magazine called Iran Jome. The image showed a 10-year-old boy named Soheil trying to have a conversation with a cockroach in a nonsensical cockroach language. The insect didn’t understand the boy and responded, ‘Namana?’ – which means, ‘What?'”
  
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• Book ahead, Australia: Courtney Barnett, Geoffrey Robertson and Holocaust film series

  19-02-2015 08:25
  
  In our weekly tout of the hottest shows just announced, book now to see the ever-outspoken human rights lawyer and the next big thing in musicThe girl who rhymes “oh, woe is we” with “the irony!” is taking her eagerly anticipated album Sometimes I Sit and Think on the road. Musician Courtney Barnett will play Avant Gardener, History Eraser and more of her witty tunes in almost all capital cities in May. Continue reading...
  
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• At This Lit Festival, Books Really Are A Matter Of Life And Death

  19-02-2015 08:20 via feedproxy.google.com
  “There are obvious security challenges in organising a literary festival in a country where people get killed for the things they write. … [Yet] the Karachi literature festival (KLF) is now in its sixth year, and welcomed more than 100,000 people through its security scanners last weekend.”
  
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• Page-turners: the woman who magics vintage books into art – in pictures

  19-02-2015 08:00
  
  Russian artist Ekaterina Panikanova buys old books in bulk, flings open their pages then paints them with old-fashioned surrealist scenes of badgers doing gymnastics, gateaus riding pushbikes – and a springbok jumping over a candlestick. It all looks familiar, and yet, uncanny Continue reading...
  
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• Top Posts From AJBlogs 02.18.15

  19-02-2015 06:50 via feedproxy.google.com
  Arts Predispositions III: Noes AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-02-18 From Cariwyl Hebert: Reaching the 97 percent AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-02-18 Your Museum as an Essential Community Space AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-02-18 Cleaving to Cleveland: Where I’ll Be on My Winter Workation AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-02-18
  
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• Africa's political cartoons – in pictures

  19-02-2015 06:00
  
  Tejumola Olaniyan founded Africacartoons.com, the first continent-wide digital encyclopaedia of political cartoons by African artists. He talks to African Digital Art about the collection Continue reading...
  
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• Sotheby’s Spring Sales Will Offer 35 Works to Benefit MOCA Los Angeles

  19-02-2015 04:57 via artnews.com
  News of New York’s big spring contemporary auctions is beginning to trickle out, and it seems Sotheby’s has nabbed a fairly intriguing, if philanthropic, consignment. Its evening and day sales, on May 12 and 13, will feature a group of … Read More
  
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• Untitled(He was putting to words his sin and his America that is wordless and walking over it and through it like Satan did the world.)

  19-02-2015 01:10 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  I’m thinking about how moralistic the sex workers I have met can be. You spend far too much time thinking about sex workers in general, A said. It’s your fetish. I can’t get hard without exchanging money. Every exchange involves money. If there isn’t money there is no relationship. The indigent and the very poor ... Continue Reading
  
  
  
  The post Untitled(He was putting to words his sin and his America that is wordless and walking over it and through it like Satan did the wo
  
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• Untitled(Decoy knots)

  19-02-2015 01:06 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  A high cab driver drove me to 60th and Holgate at ten at night. I was able to see the stars. The houses looked like a dysfunctional family. J greeted me in a track suit in slippers outside. As she warned me she had no make up on. She had been hiking in the Gorge ... Continue Reading
  
  
  
  The post Untitled(Decoy knots) appeared first on Zouch.
  
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• Art of the comedy portrait: Idil Sukan's publicity shots capture the serious side of stand-ups

  19-02-2015 00:00
  
  "I'll recognise an Idil Sukan photograph before I recognise the person in the photograph, even if it's me. That's how good she is," says Bridget Christie. The stand-up is one of hundreds who feature in This Comedian, an exhibition of portraits by Idil Sukan, a 31-year-old photographer who works out of a studio in her Richmond home. "I've had all sorts come here," says Sukan. "Hundreds. Julian Clary wore a pink PVC tuxedo and brought his performing dog. Every shoot, there's something..."
  
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