Arts news

• Robert Williams: 'My stuff is way kitsch – to an abstract level'

  01-04-2015 23:34
  
  The artist who provided cover art for Guns N’ Roses’s Appetite for Destruction may still not be accepted by some in the art world – but that’s the way he likes it Nonconformity comes as second nature to Robert Williams. Famed as one of the original Zap Comix artists alongside Robert Crumb but perhaps best known for his 1979 painting Appetite for Destruction, which provided both the title and cover art for Guns N’ Roses’ debut album, Williams is a West Coast art icon and underground c
  
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• Following Canceled Nitsch Show, Museo Jumex Appoints New Chief Curator and Interim Director, Julieta González

  01-04-2015 22:34 via artnews.com
  Mexico City’s Museo Jumex announced today that it has appointed Julieta González to the position of chief curator and interim director. The appointment happens in the wake of a canceled Hermann Nitsch exhibition and the resignation of then-director Patrick Charpenel. In … Read More
  
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• Mary Boone and Swizz Beatz Hung Out Recently

  01-04-2015 21:51 via artnews.com
  Mary and @therealswizzz admiring the black and white works of @kaws and #tomoogokita. Always a treat when @therealswizzz stops by! A photo posted by Mary Boone Gallery (@maryboonegallery) on Mar 31, 2015 at 3:32pm PDT Swizz Beatz is, of course, … Read More
  
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• ‘A Kaleidoscopic, Animated World': A Review of Jacob Lawrence’s Early Work, From 1939

  01-04-2015 19:26 via artnews.com
  In 1941, Jacob Lawrence, only 23, made what would become his magnum opus—”The Migration Series,” a 60-work group of tempera paintings that chronicled life after the Great Migration, the movement of black Americans from the rural South to the urban North … Read More
  
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• When ‘Simpsons’ Co-Creator Sam Simon Pulled Out of a Portrait Commission, Simon Dinnerstein Made a Few Changes

  01-04-2015 18:28 via artnews.com
  What do you do if a very wealthy TV producer commissions you to draw a portrait of him, his fiancée, and their dogs but then quashes the project after the couple breaks up? If you’re Brooklyn artist Simon Dinnerstein, you … Read More
  
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• Now They’ve Done It: Steinway Makes A Piano That Doesn’t Need A Pianist

  01-04-2015 18:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  “When you buy a Spirio—not you, necessarily; they run upwards of $110,000—it comes with an iPad loaded with a Spotify-like app. This app communicates with the piano via Bluetooth, prompting the piano to play any one of the 1,700 songs recorded specifically for the instrument. New songs will sync every week. By itself, an iPad-controlled […]
  
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• You Want Privacy? It’s Going To Cost You (Seriously)

  01-04-2015 17:51 via feedproxy.google.com
  “We increasingly live in a world in which our own personal data subsidizes our purchases and the services we use. Programs like Facebook’s now-defunct Beacon, which monitored users’ browsing activities all over the Web, have increasingly become the norm, with shadowy companies like Acxiom amassing profiles on hundreds of millions of consumers.”
  
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• 247365 Gallery Moves Manhattan Location

  01-04-2015 17:37 via artnews.com
  New York’s 247365 gallery has announced that they will be move their Manhattan outpost from a modestly sized basement space on Eldridge Street location to a larger two-floor location less than a mile away at 57 Stanton Street. The new spot will be christened with a group show called … Read More
  
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• A Boy and His Magic Pebble

  01-04-2015 17:32 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  There once was a boy who found a magic pebble. Whenever he threw it, the boy would travel wherever the pebble landed. The boy delighted in his new toy. He used it to sneak behind his mother to snatch cookies from the kitchen. He would slide it in the space between the bathroom door and ... Continue ReadingThe post A Boy and His Magic Pebble appeared first on Zouch.
  
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• As its director quits, Tate Britain must find the fun factor – or shut its doors

  01-04-2015 16:53
  
  Now Penelope Curtis is leaving, the intellectually impoverished cousin of the Bankside behemoth is free to flourish ... if only it can start seducing usTate Britain has been in the news this week – but the biggest story was the least reported. Amid all the excitement about Tracey Emin’s My Bed returning “home”, the Millbank museum more quietly revealed that its director Penelope Curtis is to leave after just five controversial years.Curtis had become the focus of interest at Tate Britain
  
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• Colouring in can free your mind. Let’s learn how to play again | Philippa Perry

  01-04-2015 16:49
  
  It’s cheering that a colouring book for adults is topping bestseller lists, because as we get older it’s easy to forget about the joy – and learning potential – of playAs George Bernard Shaw once said: “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”Secret Garden, a book by Johanna Basford, has sold more than 1.4m copies and hit the top of Amazon’s bestseller list this month. What is it? Ninety-six pages of black-and-white drawings of flowers, lea
  
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• Masterpiece of ancient Egyptian art could be a modern forgery

  01-04-2015 16:41
  The “Meidum Geese” in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum may have been painted by a 19th- century curator
  
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• Simon Schama announces portrait gallery displays with attack on selfies

  01-04-2015 16:39
  
  Historian will help to create displays exploring portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery in London in the autumnSimon Schama would like people to start looking intently at the faces of strangers – preferable, he believes, to the “quick dumbness” of selfies.The historian was speaking at the launch for new displays he will help to create in the autumn at the National Portrait Gallery. Continue reading...
  
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• Battle Raging For The Soul Of Country Music

  01-04-2015 16:24 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Today the debate about the soul of country music has extended far outside Nashville, and it’s now safe to say that the genre has a serious image problem. It’s not just stalwart country fans that see country being overrun with chauvinist posers in skinny jeans – it’s everyone.”
  
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• Museum Director: There Should Be A Time Limit On Restitution Claims For Art Looted By Nazis

  01-04-2015 16:18 via feedproxy.google.com
  “The international community should decide on a sensible time frame of 20 or 30 years from now,” says Klaus Albrecht Schröder. “If we don’t set a time limit of around 100 years after the end of the Second World War, then we should ask ourselves why claims regarding crimes committed during the First World War […]
  
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• Red, White, and You: Atlanta’s High Museum Considers the Coke Bottle

  01-04-2015 16:15 via artnews.com
  After Apple and Google, Coca-Cola is the most valuable brand on Earth. Its parent company, traded as KO on NYSE, has a market capitalization of $200 billion, about the same as Facebook. The beverage was originally invented in 1885 as … Read More
  
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• When Arts Donors Get Too Much Control

  01-04-2015 16:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  “I have observed over the past 10 years, as the need for major donors has grown, that when one donor provides a substantial percentage of total money raised, too many beneficiary organizations are ceding far too much authority to that donor.”
  
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• Old TV Shows Getting New Life In The Digital Marketplace

  01-04-2015 15:59 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Many cable networks abandoned classic TV shows once the baby boomers who watched them moved out of the 18-to-49 age group that advertisers covet most. That’s created an opening for multicast TV networks — the channels that viewers can watch over the air for free with a digital antenna — to come to their rescue.”
  
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• Wondering If The Show You’re Seeing Uses Union Actors? Here’s How To Find Out

  01-04-2015 15:55 via feedproxy.google.com
  Actors’ Equity has been aiming to educate the consumer and protect its members with an “Ask If It’s Equity” campaign that today expanded to Washington and eight other cities. (It tested earlier in Chicago.) The website www.askifitsequity.com will allow visitors to check touring shows city by city, and the D.C./Baltimore market will be seeing a […]
  
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• USArtists Is Back In The Business Of Supporting Artists

  01-04-2015 15:50 via feedproxy.google.com
  USA, as it’s known (is there a branding doctor in the house?), was launched in the prerecession happy days by four major funders—the Ford, Rockefeller, Prudential, and Rasmussen Foundations. Together they donated $22 million in seed money for a new organization with a double mission: to “invest in America’s finest artists and illuminate the value […]
  
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• Report Details Digital Failures Of Library Of Congress

  01-04-2015 15:43 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Taken together, the reports reveal library mismanagement costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, and outdated and inefficient systems in the U.S. Copyright Office. And despite the library’s reputation as an early Internet pioneer, various reports have found that it hasn’t kept up with the rapidly evolving digital times.”
  
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• Music Director, Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East, Bennington, Vermont

  01-04-2015 15:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  The Music Director provides artistic and educational leadership, oversees the annual Conference proceedings and the work of its faculty, and provides guidance and feedback to faculty and participants.
  
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• Michael Craig-Martin, The Godfather of British Conceptual Art, Comes to Dallas

  01-04-2015 15:30 via artnews.com
  “I’m going to madness,” said Michael Craig-Martin, when reached at his studio in London in late January. “Every day I’m on the verge of being overwhelmed.” At 73, Craig-Martin, a former teacher who several so-called Young British Artists (YBAs) have … Read More
  
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• ASSISTANT CURATOR, Drawings and Prints

  01-04-2015 15:25 via feedproxy.google.com
  ASSISTANT CURATOR, Drawings and Prints. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Manages the Prints Study Room and storage areas. Res (Word) by May 1st to [email protected] with “Assistant Curator, Drawings and Prints” in the subject.
  
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• The US Tax Code Lands On Artists

  01-04-2015 15:23 via feedproxy.google.com
  “The biggest offender is still the alternative minimum tax, despite the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which brought long-overdue reform. Two provisions of the A.M.T. hit a disproportionate number of actors, screenwriters and directors: In calculating it, taxpayers can’t deduct employee business expenses, nor can they deduct state, local and property taxes.”
  
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• Morning Links: Money Laundering Allegations Edition

  01-04-2015 15:11 via artnews.com
  The director of the Tate Britain, Penelope Curtis, is leaving to head the Calouste Gulbenkian museum in Lisbon. She had been director at the museum since 2010. [The Guardian] Royal Bank of Canada’s wealth-management subsidiary in the Bahamas is reportedly involved in tax … Read More
  
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• Rhapsody in blue – or pink? Share your artworks about music

  01-04-2015 12:38
  
  When you hear music, do the sounds evoke images for you? Here’s a chance to connect your senses and share your art inspired by musicCrustacean invasion and London under water: your visions of the futureYour chance to be exhibited in London and New YorkGeorgia O’Keeffe was fascinated by “the idea that music could be translated into something for the eye” – and she is one of many artists who have succeeded in doing just that. From Picasso’s Three Musicians to Kandinsky’s Wagner-inspi
  
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• Crustacean invasion and London under water: your visions of the future – in pictures

  01-04-2015 12:38
  
  From rusting cities to a tenants’ revolution, here are your artworks that show the shape of things to comeRhapsody in blue - or pink? Share your artworks about musicYour chance to be exhibited in London and New York Continue reading...
  
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• Palestinian man 'conned' into selling Banksy Gaza mural for $175

  01-04-2015 11:02
  
  A Palestinian man claims to have been tricked into selling a valuable Banksy piece titled 'Bomb damage, Gaza City' for just $175 (£118).
  
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• Man 'conned' into selling Banksy mural 'Bomb damage, Gaza City' for just $175

  01-04-2015 11:02
  
  A man from Gaza claims to have been tricked into selling a potentially valuable Banksy piece titled 'Bomb damage, Gaza City' for just $175 (£118).
  
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• Gaza Banksy mural sold to 'conman' for just $175

  01-04-2015 11:02
  
  A man from Gaza claims to have been tricked into selling a potentially valuable Banksy piece titled 'Bomb damage, Gaza City' for just $175 (£118).
  
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• Radio France Network In Turmoil As Strike Enters Third Week

  01-04-2015 10:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Radio France, an umbrella group for several stations, including France Inter, France Info and France Culture, is 90% state funded through licence fees. After announcing a projected budget deficit of €21.3m (£15.6m) for this year, there are fears of widespread redundancies amid threats of outsourcing production and cleaning contracts.”
  
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• Head Of Philadelphia Cultural Fund Has Not Had An Easy 12 Years

  01-04-2015 09:58 via feedproxy.google.com
  “When June O’Neill took over as executive director of the Philadelphia Cultural Fund 12 years ago, she barely had time to find her desk before Mayor John F. Street announced he was slashing the fund and eliminating the city’s Office of Arts and Culture. That was followed by the 2008 fiscal crisis, which saw the […]
  
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• “A Standing Rebuke To Classical Music’s Hierarchies”: Ian Bostridge Writes On Schubert And The Lied

  01-04-2015 09:56 via feedproxy.google.com
  “By the beginning of the twentieth century, because of Schubert, song had become a musical form to rival the symphony, the string quartet, and the piano sonata. … Its aesthetic claims are complex and multifaceted: the response to text, the compression of drama (the thrill of the opera in a matter of minutes), a melodic […]
  
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• Mary Clarke, Doyenne Of London Dance Critics, Dead At 91

  01-04-2015 09:55 via feedproxy.google.com
  “An article in Dancing Times in December 1943 eventually led to her editing that journal for 45 years, and to serving as the Guardian‘s dance critic for 17 years. There were books, too, and she became one of the most influential writers on dance during the second half of the 20th century.”
  
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• How “Sleep No More” Went From Avant-Garde Theatre Experiment To Thriving Commercial Enterprise

  01-04-2015 09:54 via feedproxy.google.com
  When the British company brought its immersive adaptation of Macbeth to New York in 2011 and parked it at an old hotel on the far West Side, the project was still experimental and risky, good reviews or no. Four years later, Sleep No More has a merch table, souvenir programs, and an associated bar and […]
  
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• There Should Be Time Limit On Claims For Nazi-Looted Art, Says Vienna Museum Director

  01-04-2015 09:53 via feedproxy.google.com
  Klaus Albrecht Schröder of the Albertina Museum: “If we don’t set a time limit of around 100 years after the end of the Second World War, then we should ask ourselves why claims regarding crimes committed during the First World War should not still be valid; why we don’t argue anymore about the consequences of […]
  
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• Walker Art Center Begins $75M Capital Project With Overhaul Of Outdoor Space

  01-04-2015 09:52 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Positioning itself as a neighborhood green space and cultural gateway, Walker Art Center will add a new glass-walled entrance pavilion, groves of trees and acres of new grass … The Walker’s plans are designed to unify a 19-acre cultural’“campus,’ including the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, that stands as an anchor and gateway to the theater and […]
  
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• Ballet Dancers Leap Into Instagram

  01-04-2015 09:50 via feedproxy.google.com
  “The photo-sharing app has become the go-to social-media platform for dancers of all ages, who post photos of bloody toes, mistakes in class, physical therapy and, of course, deliriously beautiful performances shot from the wings. As a virtual portal to the dance world, Instagram has also attracted an enthusiastic audience – and around that, a […]
  
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• How I Re-Choreographed A Classic Of British Modern Dance

  01-04-2015 09:50 via feedproxy.google.com
  James Cousins: “It’s not every day that you get approached to reimagine a piece of choreography that will then be performed at the 90th birthday celebrations of the original choreographer. But this is the position I found myself in a few months ago. The work was Cell by Robert Cohan, which was created back in […]
  
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• Marlowe’s “Jew Of Malta” – Anti-Semitic? Or A Parody Of Anti-Semitism?

  01-04-2015 09:48 via feedproxy.google.com
  “This toxic cocktail of alienation and murder is laced throughout with deadpan black comedy. Think Wolf Hall reimagined by Quentin Tarantino, and you begin to get the feel of it. … It is a provocative or [Charlie] Hebdoesque piece of religious cartooning that challenges the complacencies and credulities of his audience.”
  
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• They Dug Up Richard III’s Bones – Why Not Shakespeare’s, Too? Here’s Why Not

  01-04-2015 09:47 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Inspired by the revelations about Richard III, recently liberated from a car park in Leicester, professor Francis Thackeray of Wits University, in Johannesburg, claims he is ‘very interested by the possibility’ of subjecting Shakespeare to the same treatment.” Andrew Dickson explains why he thinks that wouldn’t be worthwhile. (And no, it’s not the curse.)
  
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• Where Complex Black Characters First Integrated Into Mainstream TV – Soap Operas

  01-04-2015 09:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Daytime, before primetime, provided valuable space for black characters to be layered – and for viewers, black and otherwise, to appreciate their complexity. Every time I see these new-school characters, I remind myself of where I’ve seen them before.”
  
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• Brecht’s Epic Theatre And “RuPaul’s Drag Race”

  01-04-2015 09:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  Nadine Friedman: “On RuPaul’s Drag Race, every capitalist wink to iTunes and each meta-musical number conjures Brecht’s Epic Theatre, teaching that pop culture zeitgeists can be fronts for transformative ideas about society. Drag Race, and its role in creating more intersectional media, stimulates what Brecht called for nearly a century ago through his V-effekt: “a […]
  
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• Pope Francis Hosts Private Viewing Of Sistine Chapel For Homeless

  01-04-2015 09:44 via feedproxy.google.com
  The group of 150 received a tour of the Vatican city-state and several of the Vatican museum galleries as well as the Michelangelo masterpiece – followed by a special dinner. It’s the latest of several initiatives – practical as well as symbolic – for Rome’s homeless by the pontiff’s top charitable officer.
  
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• Unity Spencer: my father Stanley was naive

  01-04-2015 09:00
  
  She is the daughter of the great painter Stanley Spencer, and she has put the trauma and tragedy of her life into her own paintings. As she publishes her autobiography, Lucky to Be an Artist, Unity Spencer talks about breakdowns, losing her son – and her father’s marriage to a ‘predatory lesbian’In an elegant claret-coloured anteroom, a heated discussion is taking place: a tangerine scream of a painting has been rejected by the curators hanging Unity Spencer’s life’s work. It must go
  
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• Leading art libraries pull together to make research available on the web

  01-04-2015 08:41
  
  Joint project to place 31.5 million images on a single website would “revolutionise” art history, says Frick Collection’s Inge Reist
  
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• Gallery pulls out of Lima fair in protest against mayor’s ‘attacks against freedom of expression’

  01-04-2015 08:41
  
  Event organisers end sponsorship agreement with city officials after complaints from arts community, but “damage is done” Andrea Ferrero says
  
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• Imagining Ned: exploring the truth and myth behind Australia's Che Guevara

  01-04-2015 07:09
  
  The image of the steel-helmeted bushranger revolutionary has inspired generations of artists and film-makers. Now, a major new exhibition brings some of the most important works together to ask why Ned Kelly’s story still enduresNed Kelly has assumed a saint-like status – somewhere between Robin Hood and Che Guevara – in the 135 years since he was hanged, aged 25, in Melbourne. Rather like a holy statue, his story has been rubbed for luck so often that its original shape and attributes hav
  
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• The future of loneliness | Olivia Laing

  01-04-2015 07:00
  
  As we moved our lives online, the internet promised an end to isolation. But can we find real intimacy amid shifting identities and permanent surveillance?At the end of last winter, a gigantic billboard advertising Android, Google’s operating system, appeared over Times Square in New York. In a lower-case sans serif font – corporate code for friendly – it declared: “be together. not the same.” This erratically punctuated mantra sums up the web’s most magical proposition – its exist
  
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