Arts news

• The Getty’s Associate Director for Collections Is Retiring

  26-02-2015 22:34 via artnews.com
  Thomas Kren, the J. Paul Getty Museum’s associate director for collections, is retiring after 35 years with the museum, the Getty announced today. He joined the Getty in 1980, first as an associate curator of paintings, then senior curator of … Read More
  
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• Westminster Abbey To Add First New Tower In 270 Years

  26-02-2015 22:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  The addition “will create public access to a museum of treasures and curiosities housed in the triforium, the church’s attic gallery. At present, the public can get only a distant glimpse of the spectacular and shadowy space through the stone arches 70ft up at the top of the walls above the high altar.”
  
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• BBC Will Have To Give Up Licence Fee, Say Lawmakers

  26-02-2015 21:40 via feedproxy.google.com
  “The BBC should reduce its output and the television licence fee should eventually be scrapped, a parliamentary committee has said after considering the role of the publicly funded broadcaster in the wake of a string of scandals and industry changes.”
  
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• Stop The Licence Fee? Shut Down The BBC Trust? Drop A TV Channel? What-All Is In This Committee’s Report, Anyway?

  26-02-2015 21:39 via feedproxy.google.com
  “The Guardian read the 164-page House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee report on the future of the BBC so you don’t have to.”
  
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• Toronto’s Massey Hall Begins $135M Renovation

  26-02-2015 21:20 via feedproxy.google.com
  “For all its past glories, the hall has a shopworn feel, with those odd reclining seats and scuffed brass railings. The goal of the expensive facelift, paid for largely by corporate and government cash, is to do some sprucing up without sanding away the antique beauty of the place.”
  
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• China to ban ivory imports for one year

  26-02-2015 21:15
  
  The block on all trade comes after international pressure from celebrities including Ricky Gervais and David Attenborough
  
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• The Designer Who Became Apple’s Biggest Asset

  26-02-2015 21:05 via feedproxy.google.com
  Jonathan Ive “establish[ed] the build and the finish of the iMac, the MacBook, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. He is now one of the two most powerful people in the world’s most valuable company” – on whom 100,000 employees and a not-insignificant chunk of the stock market depend. Says Steve jobs’s widow, “Jony’s […]
  
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• Leading Swiss art broker arrested over alleged price-fixing scam

  26-02-2015 20:55
  
  Yves Bouvier arrested in Monaco over overpricing of artworks with Russian tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlev among alleged victims of fraud A high-profile Swiss businessman and art broker has been arrested in Monaco over alleged manipulation of prices on the art market, in an investigation that could spread across several countries and shed light on the secretive world of fabulously wealthy private art collectors.Yves Bouvier, who runs a major international art shipping and storage business, remained in p
  
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• ICP Gives Infinity Awards to Graciela Iturbide, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Mario Testino, More

  26-02-2015 20:10 via artnews.com
  The International Center of Photography has announced its eight 2015 Infinity Award winners, all of whom will be honored at an awards ceremony—which doubles as ICP’s largest annual fundraiser—on April 30 at Pier 60 at the Chelsea Piers in New York. … Read More
  
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• Artifical Intelligence Conquers The Video Game Arcade (This Is Actually A Big Deal)

  26-02-2015 18:58 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Whipping humanity’s ass at Fishing Derby may not seem like a particularly noteworthy achievement for artificial intelligence” – think of Deep Blue beating Garry Kasparov at chess and Watson walloping Ken Jennings on Jeopardy! – “but according to Zachary Mason, a novelist and computer scientist, it actually is.”
  
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• Why London? Four Expats—Artist, Curator, Gallerist, Scholar—on Working in the British Capital

  26-02-2015 18:49 via artnews.com
  London Art Pitch is a monthly column by Jamie Sterns, a New York curator and writer attending school in the British capital. London. Say the word, and many things come to mind: bad weather, double-decker buses, fish and chips, his … Read More
  
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• Why British Political Satire On TV Stops Being Satirical When It’s Adapted By Americans

  26-02-2015 18:38 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Failure is a wellspring of British comedy, but its American counterpart rewards ‘optimism [and] a refusal to see oneself in a bad light’.” Christopher Orr looks at how Game of Thrones changed from savage political parody to dramatic thriller as it crossed the Atlantic, and how The Thick of It morphed into the farce of […]
  
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• Nineveh gate and Mosul museum attacked by Islamic State fanatics

  26-02-2015 18:31
  Extremists post propaganda video today showing contents smashed with sledgehammers and drills
  
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• Ninevah gate and Mosul museum attacked by Islamic State fanatics

  26-02-2015 18:31
  
  Extremists post propaganda video today showing contents smashed with sledgehammers and drills
  
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• Is This The Banksy Of Iran? Or The Shepard Fairey?

  26-02-2015 18:18 via feedproxy.google.com
  “[Mehdi] Ghadyanloo has more in common with the metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico than he does with Banksy. Yet in terms of success as a street artist, he is undoubtedly the Banksy of Tehran. Astonishingly, there are over 100 walls in Iran’s capital decorated by Ghadyanloo. … His paintings are not illegal. On the contrary, […]
  
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• Rarely seen painting of Wellington set for National Portrait Gallery exhibition

  26-02-2015 18:00
  
  The piece by Sir Thomas Lawrence was commissioned by society hostess Lady Jersey in 1829 and left unfinished following the artist’s deathA grave portrait of the Duke of Wellington, left unfinished when the artist Sir Thomas Lawrence died, will go on public display for the first time in the UK in an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery marking the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo.The painting, which is owned by private collectors in the US, has scarcely been displayed publicly anywh
  
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• The Great Dissident Soviet Choreographer You’ve Never Heard Of

  26-02-2015 17:58 via feedproxy.google.com
  “How miraculous that amid all that suffocating tulle, a ballet flame-thrower named Leonid Yakobson emerged. … Dancers hungry for a challenge loved the odd body shapes, sexiness and wit of his choreography. Among his disciples were the young Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov” as well as Maya Plisetskaya. Even Richard Nixon was a fan.
  
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• New Website Monitors Ballet Dancers’ Pay And Conditions Worldwide

  26-02-2015 17:38 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Former dancer and ballet teacher Ian Knowles created the site – balletposition.com – which he claims is the first of its type, to compare useful data for dancers looking to join ballet companies in the UK, Western and Eastern Europe and the US.”
  
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• Head of Geneva, Luxembourg and Singapore freeports under investigation

  26-02-2015 17:19
  Yves Bouvier and two associates are detained in Monaco in fraud enquiry
  
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• Who Should Decide How Students Learn About America’s Past?

  26-02-2015 17:18 via feedproxy.google.com
  “This school year, the fury is over the new U.S. History Advanced Placement course – in particular, whether its perspective is overly cynical about the country’s past. The controversy raises significant questions about the role of revisionism in education: How should students learn about oppression and exploitation alongside the great achievements of their country? And […]
  
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• A 21st-Century “Pictures At An Exhibition” (But This Exhibition Is One Of The World’s Greatest)

  26-02-2015 16:58 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Four contemporary classical composers walk into an art museum. No punch line. But after walking in, this quartet of composers eventually walked away having penned four new compositions, which Network for New Music will premiere Friday at the Barnes Foundation – amid the art and spaces that inspired them.”
  
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• Louis Jourdan, 93, Suave French Film Star

  26-02-2015 16:38 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Lithe, debonair and exceedingly handsome, with a tide of dark, wavy hair, Louis Jourdan became Hollywood’s ideal of Gallic charm and seduction in the late 1940s and 1950s. His peak came in the Oscar-winning musical Gigi (1958), which cemented him in the popular imagination as a debonair playboy.”
  
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• Hrafnkell Sigurdsson, photographer: 'My prints need to affect the space they are hanging in'

  26-02-2015 16:00
  
  Photographer Hrafnkell Sigurdsson has been in this same studio, a prime spot on the harbour in Reykjavik, for five years. His current landlord saved the building from demolition and redevelopment during the crazy economic period of 2008. Up a steep flight of stairs and through another studio we enter into a light space, completely empty but for a neat desk and a pile of books. "I prepare things here. I write, draw, sketch and plan when I am here."
  
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• Rock school: World's oldest and best-preserved prehistoric rock art recreated in €55m replica cave in southern France

  26-02-2015 15:56
  
  More than 1,000 drawings and paintings created 36,000 years ago by cave dwellers have been painstakingly reproduced in a state-of-the art cultural attraction in the Ardèche Continue reading...
  
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• Rock school: World's best-preserved prehistoric rock art recreated in €55m replica cave in southern France

  26-02-2015 15:56
  
  More than 1,000 drawings and paintings created 36,000 years ago by cave dwellers have been painstakingly reproduced in a state-of-the art cultural attraction in the Ardèche Continue reading...
  
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• Banksy creates street art in Gaza criticising 'world's largest open-air prison'

  26-02-2015 15:15
  
  Banksy has created new street art in Gaza in one of his most provocative political projects to date.
  
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• Michael E. Smith: An Insider’s Outsider

  26-02-2015 15:00 via artnews.com
  Michael E. Smith’s sculptures look like things you might see tangled in a chain-link fence, or gathering around the edges of a Walmart parking lot: a duffel bag, scraps of foam, a satellite dish, sweatpants. But rather than simply presenting … Read More
  
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• Morning Links: Twerking Edition

  26-02-2015 15:00 via artnews.com
  For his new “Producers” series, sculptor Xavier Veilhan convinced Daft Punk to unmask themselves so he could make 3D scans of them, which he then used to create wooden sculptures of the pair. Veilhan also has a double exhibition, “Music,” opening … Read More
  
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• Think on: Banksy's tour of a ruined Gaza

  26-02-2015 14:36
  
  The street artist, who previously created works on the wall of the West Bank, has made a series of new paintings across ruins in PalestineThe Bristolian street artist Banksy has returned to Palestine to create another series of works, following his famous 2005 series painted on the West Bank barrier wall. Continue reading...
  
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• Alex Katz: Black Paintings review – 'A miraculous artist'

  26-02-2015 14:07
  
  Timothy Taylor Gallery, London
  Katz’s magazine-illustrator method seems doomed to fail, yet this sublime exhibition of portraiture exposes the simple truths he paintsThe veteran American artist Alex Katz was inspecting the hang of his new paintings while I looked at them, but I could not ask him any questions. I was dumbstruck. The only thing I could have said to him at that moment would have been a stuttered, “How come you paint so well?”How can simple pictures of faces be so unexpected,
  
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• UK culture secretary outlines the future of English Heritage after split

  26-02-2015 14:00
  
  Funding for the two organisations will be the major question after years of swingeing cuts in government aid
  
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• Richard Linklater Considering Sequel To “Boyhood”

  26-02-2015 10:57 via feedproxy.google.com
  “I wake up in the morning thinking, ‘The twenties are pretty formative, you know?’ That’s where you really become who you’re going to be. It’s one thing to grow up and go to college, but it’s another thing to … So, I will admit my mind has drifted towards [this sequel idea].”
  
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• Henry VIII’s Arguments For Divorcing Catherine Of Aragon Found In Old Mansion

  26-02-2015 10:34 via feedproxy.google.com
  “A book which helped changed the course of English history, part of the evidence Henry VIII and his lawyers gathered in the 1530s to help win an annulment from Catherine of Aragon and ultimately to break with Rome, has turned up on the shelves of the magnificent library at Lanhydrock, a National Trust mansion in […]
  
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• New York City Ballet Uses Art To Draw Younger Audience – And It’s Working

  26-02-2015 10:21 via feedproxy.google.com
  “There seemed to be an explosion of young men in knit caps and young women in leather pants watching as New York City Ballet recently performed a trio of Balanchine classics. In fact, the average age in the David H. Koch Theater seemed to have dropped by years, if not decades.”
  
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• How Ballet Dancers Learn Their Steps: Music, Muscle Memory And Mystery

  26-02-2015 10:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  Jenifer Ringer, late of New York City Ballet, explains the process and the factors that affect it.
  
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• Dutch Restorers Offer To Repair Roman Fountain Damaged By Soccer Hooligans

  26-02-2015 09:55 via feedproxy.google.com
  “A Dutch restoration firm has offered to repair a 400-year-old fountain that was damaged last week when supporters of Rotterdam soccer team Feyenoord went on a drunken rampage in Rome’s historic center.” The Dutch government has rejected any responsibility to pay for restoration, though it says it supports private efforts.
  
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• Hard Feelings: Science’s Struggle To Define Emotions

  26-02-2015 09:46 via feedproxy.google.com
  “The debate over the nature of emotion has been reinvigorated in recent years. While it would be easy to paint the argument as two-sided – pro-universality versus anti-universality, or Ekman’s cronies versus his critics – I found that everyone I spoke to for this article thinks about emotion a little differently.”
  
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• Early To Bed And Early To Rise Does Not Make You More Moral (Take That, Ben Franklin!)

  26-02-2015 09:44 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Early birds aren’t ethically superior. And, to the extent that other research suggests that they are, it may just be that they are luckier: modern society, for the most part, is built around their preferences.”
  
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• The Man Who Saved Impressionism

  26-02-2015 09:20 via feedproxy.google.com
  The story of Paul Durand-Ruel, who repeatedly risked bankruptcy to support Monet, Degas, Manet, Pissarro, and their fellows – and created a market for their work, especially in the United States.
  
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• Unknown Harold Pinter Script To Premiere, 33 Years After It Was Written

  26-02-2015 09:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  “The work, discarded by Pinter when plans to make it into a film fell through, has been adapted for radio by the film and stage director Sir Richard Eyre.”
  
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• Russian art historian on trial over forgery

  26-02-2015 09:12
  Andrei Vasilyev claims avant-garde expert Elena Basner and the State Historical Museum both knew the work he bought was a fake
  
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• Ancient Frescoes In Roman Catacombs May Undermine Church Teaching About Women Priests – Or May Not

  26-02-2015 09:10 via feedproxy.google.com
  The wall paintings in the Catacombs of Santa Priscilla “have sparked controversy over the role of women in the Church, and helped scholars re-evaluate the importance of the Virgin Mary in early Christian history.” Some claim that one fresco even provides evidence that female priests served the Eucharist, though others are skeptical.
  
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• Cultural boycott of Israel under fire

  26-02-2015 09:00
  
  Jeremy Deller’s name withdrawn from campaign backed by more than 1,000 cultural figures
  
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• Chinese government promises millions to protect heritage village

  26-02-2015 09:00
  
  Nearly every building in Banpo was destroyed after a mining company excavated 300 tonnes of coal, prompting the government to enforce conservation
  
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• Thai Actors Jailed For Insulting Monarchy With Student Play

  26-02-2015 08:59 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Student Patiwat Saraiyaem, 23, and activist Porntip Mankong, 26, had pleaded guilty to defamation” under Thailand’s lèse-majesté law, the world’s strictest, “following their arrests last August, nearly a year after The Wolf Bride – a satire set in a fictional kingdom – was performed.”
  
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• Artist behind hand-drawn copies of the Guardian revealed

  26-02-2015 08:56
  
  Commuters were puzzled by thousands of replica papers distributed at London Bridge station
  Hand-drawn reproductions of an edition of the Guardian which were mysteriously distributed across London on Monday – four years after the original was published – have been revealed to be the work of a south London artist.On Tuesday, BuzzFeed reported that commuters had been handed copies at London Bridge station, and had come across them on the capital’s buses. Continue reading...
  
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• “Amadeus” The Movie At 30 – And Everything It Got Wrong About Mozart And Salieri

  26-02-2015 08:50 via feedproxy.google.com
  BBC Radio 3 presenter Clemency Burton-Hill reviews the liberties writer Peter Shaffer and director Milos Forman took with the historical record (and the device they used to get away with it) – and nevertheless finds that Amadeus is “arguably the finest movie ever made about the process of artistic creation and the unbridgeable gap between […]
  
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• “Not Useful For Creating Original Work”: Why John Cameron Mitchell Avoids Social Media, Even For “Hedwig”

  26-02-2015 08:40 via feedproxy.google.com
  “It’s hard to keep up with that; it takes a lot of energy and recently [there was] some study that overusing social media can make you depressed and jealous, so I actually chose not to go there. … User comments-culture is not useful for creating original work, I think. I’m all for information diets, which […]
  
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• India’s Famous Cave Temples That Sat Unknown For More Than 1,000 Years

  26-02-2015 08:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  “The Ajanta Caves, 30 spellbinding Buddhist prayer halls and monasteries carved, as if by sorcery, into a horseshoe-shaped rock face in a mountainous region of India’s Maharashtra state, … were ‘discovered’ by accident in 1819 … [after being] abandoned by those who created it as long ago as AD 500.”
  
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• Tehran's answer to Banksy: Medhi Ghadyanloo hits Britain

  26-02-2015 08:00
  
  Flying cars, magic portals, levitating giraffes … street artist Medhi Ghadyanloo’s eye-popping murals make Tehran smile – but his paintings also probe Iran’s turbulent pastThe toast of Tehran: Iran’s superstar street artist – in picturesOn a wall in east London, two giant crows loom over two young women who are swinging a rope. As a child jumps over the skipping rope, he approaches a hole in the ceiling above him. But if he finally jumps high enough to rise above the confines of the
  
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