Arts news

• Brussels, European Art’s New Hot Spot

  19-07-2015 22:34 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Brussels has become one of the most dynamic art cities in Europe — an unpredictable and energizing mix of the local and the global in the shadow of the glass towers of the European Union superstructure.”
  
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• Weirdly Beautiful, Otherworldly Underwater Scenes Of WWII Planes

  19-07-2015 21:32 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “It’s a strange thing to see airplanes underwater. Shipwrecks you expect, but not airplanes.”
  
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• The Sneaky Deals Going Down At LACMA

  19-07-2015 21:16 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The email leaks, the Perenchio deal, and other questionable machinations — just how was Zumthor chosen anyway? — should give Angelenos pause. They don’t point to the high road that citizens expect their principal museum to take.”
  
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• ‘Spring Awakening’ Revival Requires Actors Who Can Sign, Not Sing

  19-07-2015 20:19 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “David J. Kurs, Deaf West’s artistic director, said gestural eloquence — clear, articulate signing — was one of the main qualities the creative team was looking for. So was rhythmic ability. Like hearing people, he said, only some deaf people can follow a beat.”
  
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• ‘Selma’ Director Ava DuVernay On Hollywood: “Follow The White Guys”

  19-07-2015 20:08 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Women have been trained in our culture and society to ask for what we want instead of taking what we want. We’ve been really indoctrinated with this culture of permission. I think it’s true for women, and I think it’s true for people of color. … But that time has passed.”
  
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• Australian Artists Outraged Over Government’s Massive Arts Budget Cuts

  19-07-2015 19:06 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “‘We do not know which arts leaders we are cutting out of this nation’s future,’ writes celebrated Australian composer Liza Lim. ‘We damage the vibrancy, the diversity and inclusiveness of this nation’s art making … by attacking the seed-beds of arts endeavour through cuts of this scale.'”
  
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• The Mining Town That Ruined Van Gogh For Religion And Made Him A Painter

  19-07-2015 19:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The impassioned young lay preacher felt compelled to live like local people, dressing in rags and sleeping on straw in a small and squalid hut at the back of the local baker’s, where he was heard sobbing at night. The church was not impressed and criticised him for ‘undermining the dignity of the ministry.'”
  
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• Why Is Der Spiegel Calling Berlin’s Museums ‘Haphazard And Uninspired’?

  19-07-2015 18:53 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Few other places are in possession of so many treasures that are so poorly exhibited as Berlin. It’s as though cultural institutions here go out of their way to keep people from visiting.”
  
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• What Do Ballet Companies Need To Do So Misty Copeland Isn’t A Lone Black Superstar?

  19-07-2015 18:40 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Right now, unfortunately, I would probably point to Europe. … In Europe, they’re actually looking for diversity. There is a lot of opportunity.”
  
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• Fiona Tan: Depot review – mementoes from the deep

  19-07-2015 11:45
  
  Baltic, Gateshead
  Fiona Tan’s elegiac films of undersea creatures, contemporary Asia andneoclassical artefacts are truly mesmerisingIn the autumn of 1827, a blue whale was seen swimming off the coast of Belgium. The exact nature of what happened next is debated, but within a matter of weeks its preserved skeleton began a European tour that reached London in 1831. Visitors could enter through the open jaws and sit inside the ribcage, like Jonah.Fascinated by this tale, Fiona Tan has produced a
  
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• William Gear: the painter that Britain forgot

  19-07-2015 10:45
  
  He studied under Léger and was shown alongside Pollock before dictating cultural tastes on Britain’s south coast. So why has William Gear been erased from art history?In 1958, the artist William Gear arrived in Eastbourne to take up a position as curator of the Towner Gallery. Alas, not everyone was thrilled by his arrival, at least not after he began acquiring art on the town’s behalf. “I think this sort of painting is decadent,” lamented an enraged councillor of Harold Mockford’s Ea
  
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• Words fail us: dementia and the arts

  19-07-2015 09:00
  
  With nearly one million Britons in the grip of dementia, it’s hardly surprising that writers and artists should increasingly tackle the subject. But can the arts ever illuminate a condition that by its very nature resists all understanding?Losing it: dementia on film, stage and page I am not myself. What is it to be “oneself?” What is this self, this “me”? What do we mean when we say “I”? When we lose our mind, where is it to be found? When we go out of our mind, where do we go?Day
  
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• Think Like an Artist review – where’s the big picture?

  19-07-2015 09:00
  
  Will Gompertz’s romp through art history and the creative mind is full of entertaining anecdote but lacks coherencePerhaps I should have known more about Rembrandt’s midlife crisis. Thanks to Will Gompertz, the BBC’s endearing mad-professor lookalike of an arts editor, I now do. The great Dutchman was running out of money; his creative juices were no longer flowing and the nurse employed to look after his young son was suing him for not marrying her. Any visitor to Amsterdam’s masterfull
  
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• The Stirling prize 2015: the virtues of quiet craft

  19-07-2015 08:30
  
  The shortlist for this year’s Stirling prize is dominated by ‘whispering’ candidates – scrupulous designs of brick and timberSadly, it turns out there are limits to the Observer’s omnipotence. The selectors of the shortlist for this year’s Stirling prize have scandalously ignored the hint dropped last week, that the swimming pool of Alfriston School in Beaconsfield should be included. Which is a shame, as it shows a considerably better understanding of the uses of structure and mater
  
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• For sale: one handmade yellow aircraft

  19-07-2015 00:00
  
  A stand-out at this year’s Arles festival, Thierry Bouët’s series Personal Affairs are witty portraits of sellers from a French version of eBay, together with the unusual items they have put up for saleThierry Bouët’s photographs of strange items for sale online – in pictures Like many independent elderly people, Olivier’s grandmother had bought her own coffin in advance. Made of solid oak with champagne-coloured silk cushioning, it cost ₤3,500. At the last moment, though, she deci
  
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• Thierry Bouët interview: 'With every personal item, there comes a story'

  19-07-2015 00:00
  
  A stand-out at this year’s Arles festival, Thierry Bouët’s series Personal Affairs are witty portraits of sellers from a French version of eBay, together with the unusual items they have put up for saleThierry Bouët’s photographs of strange items for sale online – in pictures Like many independent elderly people, Olivier’s grandmother had bought her own coffin in advance. Made of solid oak with champagne-coloured silk cushioning, it cost ₤3,500. At the last moment, though, she deci
  
  Read more

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