Arts news

• English National Opera's new music director Mark Wigglesworth resigns after just six months

  22-03-2016 23:59
  
  Mr Wigglesworth says company is 'evolving now into something I don't recognise'
  
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• American Academy of Arts and Letters Names Art Award Winners

  22-03-2016 22:01 via artnews.com
  Joan Synder and Anthony McCall are among the honorees Read More
  
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• Why China's tradition of copying is becoming a creative force

  22-03-2016 22:00
  
  China’s copycat culture is equal parts famous and infamous. Blatant imitation was an integral part of the international trade that launched China’s emergence on the world stage three decades ago, and, despite improvements, it remains a problem for the Chinese government, international and local companies—and artists. Yet out of south China’s rapid development and massive-scale manufacturing, a strange space between copying, appropriation, hacking and original creation ha
  
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• What is Encounters? Curator Alexie Glass-Kantor tells us at Art Basel in Hong Kong

  22-03-2016 22:00
  Our editor-at-large Gareth Harris speaks to the curator of the Encounters section at Art Basel in Hong Kong.
  • Click here for more stories from Art Basel in Hong Kong 2016
  
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• Tatsuo Miyajima transforms Hong Kong's tallest tower into a metaphor for life

  22-03-2016 22:00
  
  The Japanese artist Tatsuo Miyajima has a lot to live up to with his large-scale light installation Time Waterfall, which will illuminate the 118-storey International Commerce Centre (ICC) building in Hong Kong’s harbour.
  The annual light show, commissioned by Art Basel and the ICC, is a high point in the city’s art calendar. Last year, the Chinese multimedia artist Cao Fei stopped city dwellers in their tracks with her work Same Old, Brand New, which included icons from 1980s video
  
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• Six key works from the M+ founding collection

  22-03-2016 22:00
  
  The exhibition M+ Sigg Collection: Four Decades of Chinese Contemporary Art, held at Artis Tree (until 5 April), provides visitors with an introduction to the founding collection of Hong Kong’s museum of visual culture. Pi Li, the Sigg senior curator of M+, who has organised the exhibition, chooses six key works fr om the 80 now on show. These are drawn fr om the 1,463 works that Uli Sigg donated and another 47 that he sold in 2012, after more than 20 years of collecting and researching C
  
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• Project to preserve Venice’s Jewish heritage, 500 years after the first ghetto was created

  22-03-2016 22:00
  
  Five hundred years ago this month, the Venetian Republic created the world’s first ghetto. Now, an €8.5m campaign to preserve the city’s Jewish heritage, backed by the fashion designer Diane von Fürstenburg, among others, is in full swing.
  Von Fürstenburg and the property investor Joseph Sitt launched the Venetian Heritage Council, a branch of the New York- and Venice-based foundation Venetian Heritage, in 2014. The organisation hopes to complete fundraising to restor
  
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• Leading German museum director, Max Hollein, heads to San Francisco

  22-03-2016 22:00
  
  The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, one of the largest art institutions in California, has chosen Max Hollein as its new director. The appointment of the Austrian-born, Germany-based director—who has experience at US art museums, having worked in New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum earlier in his career—was announced late yesterday, 22 March.
  Hollein will replace Colin Bailey as head of the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of
  
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• How China's tradition of copying is becoming a creative force

  22-03-2016 22:00
  
  China’s copycat culture is equal parts famous and infamous. Blatant imitation was an integral part of the international trade that launched China’s emergence on the world stage three decades ago, and, despite improvements, it remains a problem for the Chinese government, international and local companies—and artists. Yet out of south China’s rapid development and massive-scale manufacturing, a strange space between copying, appropriation, hacking and original creation ha
  
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• Hirst and Koons: now what

  22-03-2016 22:00
  
  What's a little market massaging between friends? Damien Hirst is organising an exhibition of works by Jeff Koons—all drawn from Hirst’s Murderme collection. It is the first major show in the UK for Koons since his 2009 Serpentine Gallery exhibition but it is already raising eyebrows for potentially boosting the value of Hirst’s collection, given that the former YBA is reported to sell Koons’s art, as well as buy it. Now, as the show is called, is due to open at Hirst&rs
  
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• How This Dance Center Learned To Thrive After It Lost Its Government Funding

  22-03-2016 21:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The loss of funds meant staff cuts and a shift away from the performance activities that Heritage had supported, towards more of the creation-support and artistic-development activities the Studio had always done. “We really developed our services to artists more.”
  
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• The World’s Biggest Street Dance Competition

  22-03-2016 20:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Dancers from all over the world compete in the international tour of Juste Debout in the hope that they will get the chance to battle in the preliminary rounds in France and perform at the finals in Paris. This year, for the first time, the judges are all women who have previously won in the four main categories: popping, locking, hip-hop and house.” (video)
  
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• Stratford Festival Roars Back With Box Office Attendance Of 475,000, Surplus

  22-03-2016 19:43 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “While attendance has yet to rise back to the half a million Stratford has as an internal goal, this year 102,000 tickets were sold to patrons who had never been to Stratford previously, suggesting a healthy level of renewal in the festival’s audience base.”
  
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• The art of war artists: Capturing the 'organised chaos' of conflict in Afghanistan

  22-03-2016 19:29
  
  Official Ministry of Defence artist Jules George explains how, no matter the circumstances, he has sought to capture reality, in paint, pen or the crudest of pencil marks
  
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• Batman V Superman: World's most valuable Superman comic stolen from Nicholas Cage to go on display in London

  22-03-2016 19:06
  
  Hollywood star Cage - who has a son called Kal-El, Superman's birth name - reported his copy stolen in 2000
  
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• Why It Puts People Off When Politicians Cry

  22-03-2016 19:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “While ‘turning on the faucets’ may humanize a politician, there still seems to be a lingering threat behind such outbursts. Perhaps we prefer it as a performance more than as a real display of feelings – cynically planned outpourings rather than spontaneous displays of emotion. There is, after all, something at stake for us in these moments: we have something to fear in a politician’s tears. But what?”
  
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• Mary Griffiths obituary

  22-03-2016 18:33
  
  My mother, Mary Griffiths, who has died aged 87, was the determined and dedicated administrator of the 56 Group Wales, a collective of Welsh avant garde artists. For 27 years she worked with Arthur Giardelli and David Tinker, to form the group’s long-term driving force. “I know we still exist largely due to your efforts,” Giardelli wrote to her in 1971. They exhibited extensively both inside and outside Wales, notably in the Netherlands, France, West Germany, Italy and Czechosl
  
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• Why Hollywood Can’t Stop Making Sequels, Spin-offs And Reboots

  22-03-2016 18:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The problem with contemporary commercial cinema (epitomized by Hollywood) is that it’s more concerned with making money than it is with telling quality stories or creating indelible characters.
  
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• ‘To Be Boring Online Is a Terrible Thing’: BAKOON on Twitter, Politics, Horror, and So Much More

  22-03-2016 18:16 via artnews.com
  Extracurriculars is a recurring feature in which artists discuss their interests that are not art.One of the best accounts on Twitter belongs to @BAKKOOONN, the handle of San Francisco–based artist and photographer Oliver Leach. Having amassed a substantial art following … Read More
  
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• Aliens explain art at The Art Newspaper Russia’s awards ceremony

  22-03-2016 18:15
  
  The Art Newspaper Russia’s fourth prize-giving ceremony, on 17 March, was held (as in previous years) in the vast Manege next to the Kremlin. It was an artistic spectacle in itself, as well as a discriminating sample of Russia’s art life in 2015. Inna Bazhenova, the owner of The Art Newspaper group, again employed the film director Alexey Agranovich and the pioneer of Russian video art, Kirill Preobrazhensky, to produce it. Aliens, dressed in fluorescent Avant-Garde costumes by the
  
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• #JeSuisBruxelles: artists respond to the Brussels attacks

  22-03-2016 18:10
  
  Artists are expressing their solidarity with the people of Brussels on social mediaBruselas #bruselas #brussels #belgica #belgium #illustration #ilustracion pic.twitter.com/CZXre5xwXH#JeSuisBelge pic.twitter.com/yQSoqvqepM#Life & #Art must go on ... F*** #Terrorism ! #Art #JeSuisBruxelles #Zaventem #MannekenPis #NoAK47 #NoWar pic.twitter.com/IuC40efj4vMy ode to the people of #Brussels #brusselsattack pic.twitter.com/JpmKBAN87n Continue reading...
  
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• Is The New Pee-Wee Movie Gayer Than The TV Show Was? Only If You Weren’t Paying Attention

  22-03-2016 18:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “There was Tito the lifeguard, who rarely if ever saw the need to wear a shirt. Lawrence Fishburne played Cowboy Curtis, Pee-Wee’s best friend, who confessed to sleeping in the nude and having ‘big feet.'” (Pee-Wee’s response: “You know what they say: Big feet — [pause] — big shoes!”) “And there was the time Pee-Wee married a fruit salad, about which very little needs to be said.”
  
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• Anton Kern and Andrew Kreps to Open Temporary Space in San Francisco

  22-03-2016 17:54 via artnews.com
  Just two weeks after the news that Gagosian Gallery is opening its 16th space, in San Francisco, Anton Kern and Andrew Kreps announced that they, too, will join in on the action by opening a joint space in the city. They’ll … Read More
  
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• Glyndebourne preview: Seats at Britain's best known opera festival this summer will cost up to £300

  22-03-2016 17:27
  
  As she previews the coming season, Jessica Duchen wonders how opera fans will react
  
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• Miriam Schapiro at National Academy and Eric Firestone’s Loft

  22-03-2016 17:23 via artnews.com
  Through May 8; through March 6 Read More
  
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• Why Hollywood Is Reluctant To Let You See Movies At Home The Day They’re Released

  22-03-2016 17:16 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The tech disrupters would clearly gain. But the old-fashioned communal theater experience remains extremely powerful, both culturally — Would “Star Wars” be “Star Wars” without the midnight lines at the multiplex? — and as a business. And with that kind of money at stake, Hollywood is more than happy to continue looking stodgy.”
  
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• How ‘Bookchat’ Came To Devour Literary Discourse

  22-03-2016 17:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “There are listicles of books or about books: there was even one recently about ‘The Top Ten Squirrels in Literature.’ There are interviews and aspirational how-tos. There are publicity statements, which are circulated and regurgitated into light critical opinion – as much as any book review. There is the relatively new phenomenon of the author self-testimonial: upon publication of his novel, the author will write a piece about writing the novel.”
  
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• More And More, Machines Are Making Art. What Happens When They Get Really Good At It?

  22-03-2016 16:47 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “While it might seem tempting to pit man against machine to determine artistic mastery, perhaps the better approach involves combining human and AI skills, allowing real and artificial neural networks to flex their creative muscles in tandem. As they say, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
  
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• Another Brueghel Gets The Virtual Reality Treatment

  22-03-2016 16:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The project, which brings to life the Flemish master’s 1562 The Fall of the Rebel Angels, is viewable on YouTube but is best experienced on headsets such as a Google Cardboard mask.”
  
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• Meticulously charting Marcel's chess moves

  22-03-2016 16:22
  
  The British artist Tom Hackney, unlike Marcel Duchamp, has not given up on painting. But like the French Dadaist, Hackney has a reverence for chess—and specifically for Duchamp's approach to the game. Hackney's current show, Corresponding Squares: Painting the Chess Games of Marcel Duchamp at Francis Naumann Fine Art in New York (until 29 April) includes 18 abstract pictures that map exactly various games between Duchamp and his opponents. (Incidentally, an archive of Duchamp's games, whi
  
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• Is This The Best New Opera House In The West?

  22-03-2016 16:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Chapman University opened what might have been a modest, multi-purpose 1,044-seat facility. Instead, thanks to Toyota, the city of Orange now houses an ideal opera house, potentially the best in the West and maybe even something more.”
  
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• Simon Starling review – a fabulist's journey, from burned boats to Babbage

  22-03-2016 15:56
  
  Nottingham Contemporary/Backlit Gallery
  The Turner-prize winner has gone into his alchemist’s workshop for his biggest ever UK show, bringing out steel blobs and magnesium canoes. These layered histories of labour and chemistry are stupendousSimon Starling takes us on long and often circular journeys, real and metaphorical. In the artist’s biggest UK show to date, at Nottingham Contemporary, and with further works across town at the lively, artist-run Backlit Gallery, he takes us to
  
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• Art Against Belgian Terror Attacks

  22-03-2016 15:53 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Artists have taken to social media to express contempt for the terrorists who attacked Brussels.
  
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• Study: Group Drumming Has Mental Health Benefits

  22-03-2016 15:43 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  An “exploratory examination” found 10 weeks of group drumming provided significant benefits for a group of people who had sought help for mental-health issues. What’s more, the improvements persisted for at least three months after the sessions concluded.
  
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• Twitter At 10 – How Should We Take Stock?

  22-03-2016 15:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Robinson Meyer: “After all, there’s been no shortage of chances over the last decade to note How Twitter Has Changed Things. Infinite comparisons can be drawn between Twitter and any other social network. … It also doesn’t seem worth dwelling on Twitter’s shortcomings. (For that, I can wait for earnings day.) Instead, it’s worth seeing Twitter not just as a 10-year-old social network, but as a product of its time.”
  
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• Mitchell-Innes & Nash Now Represents Mary Kelly

  22-03-2016 15:30 via artnews.com
  New York’s Mitchell-Innes & Nash gallery now represents artist Mary Kelly. Kelly, who is based out of Los Angeles, is perhaps best known for her work Post-Partum Document (1973–79), a six-year conceptual performance of sorts that chronicles the birth and early … Read More
  
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• Heartland Film Festival: President

  22-03-2016 15:22 via feedproxy.google.com
  Heartland Film was founded in 1991 with the mission to inspire filmmakers and audiences through the transformative power of film. Heartland Film is a curator and supporter of purposeful filmmaking, honoring a wide variety of cinema and awarding storytellers from all over the world. The films that they select and exhibit – whether they inspire and uplift, educate and inform, or have the ability to shift audiences’ perspectives on the world – all have one thing in common: they ar
  
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• Can Philosophy Work As Therapy? Or Is It Strictly A Search For Truth?

  22-03-2016 15:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Nigel Warburton: “I’m skeptical about this, as in my view philosophy is primarily the attempt to understand, and as such is an activity of enquiry.”Jules Evans: “Personally, I’m not arguing that all philosophy is therapy, but rather that ancient Greeks and Romans viewed philosophy that way, as did many Indian philosophers.”
  
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• Should An Indigenous Group Really Be The Sole Arbiter Of Its Cultural Artifacts?

  22-03-2016 14:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “We need to ask who speaks for the relevant indigenous community, and on what basis. Even who qualifies as indigenous is a vexed question, as is the fact that ‘the indigenous’ rarely speak with one voice. Ethnocentric policies therefore tend to vest authority in anointed chiefs and elders (local equivalents of the privileged white male) … What about those who disagree? And what about those who want to change it, or challenge it from within?”
  
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• Museums and public galleries in Brussels on lockdown in wake of terrorist attacks

  22-03-2016 14:25
  
  Museums, libraries and public galleries in Brussels are on lockdown today after terrorist attacks at the city’s Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station. The Belgian government has not confirmed casualty numbers, but it is feared that at least 26 people have been killed in the explosions. The country has now raised its terror threat to its highest level.A spokeswoman for Bozar, the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts, said the museum is closed “due to today’s tragic events”
  
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• Museums and public galleries in Brussels in lockdown in wake of terrorist attacks

  22-03-2016 14:25
  
  Museums, libraries and galleries in Brussels are in lockdown today after terrorist attacks at the city’s Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station. The Belgian government has not confirmed casualty numbers, but it is feared that at least 26 people have been killed in the explosions. The country has now raised its terror threat to its highest level.A spokeswoman for Bozar, the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts, said the museum is closed “due to today’s tragic events”, and a
  
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• The Largest – And Possibly Cheapest – Chamber Music Series In The U.S.

  22-03-2016 14:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The society has become the largest presenter of chamber music in the country, now giving 60 concerts of major artists each season. It insists on prices from $18 to $24, … though the same concert in New York a few days later goes for three times that.”
  
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• Morning Links: ‘Beast Jesus’ Edition

  22-03-2016 14:07 via artnews.com
  Must-read stories from around the art world Read More
  
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• Cliburn Winner’s Estranged Wife Charged With Murdering Their Daughters

  22-03-2016 14:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Authorities believe Sofya Tsygankova, 31, killed her daughters and stabbed herself before her husband” – 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition winner Vadym Kholodenko – “was scheduled to pick up his children for a regular visit.”
  
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• It Had To Happen: Botched ‘Beast Jesus’ Painting In Spain Gets Its Own Arts Center

  22-03-2016 13:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The center [in Borja] will celebrate Beast Jesus’ journey from little-known artwork to viral meme, featuring stories, photographs, and videos related to the restoration and its impact. Canvases will be available for visitors inspired to paint their own Christ-like creatures, and of course, new Beast Jesus merch is hitting the market.”
  
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• ‘Be Ready For Blood’: Diana Damrau On Covent Garden’s Upcoming ‘Lucia’

  22-03-2016 13:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “I think audiences are going to leave feeling quite shaken. They will see what people in desperate circumstances are able to do and that is actually the basis of this drama. Everybody is desperate and it gets very dark and very sad and horrible. So, I am sorry, be ready for blood.”
  
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• Stoned love: why Tracey Emin married a rock

  22-03-2016 13:29
  
  The British artist has married a stone in her garden in France, which she calls ‘an anchor, something I can identify with’. It’s the latest act in a life that has prized intimacy and soulfulness over lust and the self over the bodyTracey Emin’s new husband may not talk much or do the ironing, but when it comes to fidelity, he’s a rock. Really, he’s a rock. No, you don’t understand. Her husband actually is a large lump of rock. Related: Tracey Emin: sound
  
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• Once Again, Yuri Temirkanov Puts Foot In Mouth About Female Conductors

  22-03-2016 13:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Yes, women can be conductors. I am not against them conducting. But I simply don’t like it. There are women boxing and weightlifting; they can do that. But I don’t like watching. It is only my taste. We all have different tastes. For example, I don’t eat fish.” (includes video)
  
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• Carlos Acosta Readies His New Dance Company In Cuba

  22-03-2016 13:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Since retiring last year from London’s Royal Ballet where he was principal guest artist, the 42-year-old has gone back to his native Havana to found Acosta Danza. ‘My country made it possible for me to become a ballet dancer and I want to pass that on too,’ Acosta told a news conference.” (includes video)
  
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• Hands off, it’s ours: French buyer refuses to return Joan of Arc ring to UK

  22-03-2016 12:50
  
  The French buyer of the Joan of Arc ring is defying the UK authorities, saying that he did not need an export licence. “The ring has returned to France and here it will stay,” declared Philippe de Villiers, the founder of the Puy du Fou historical theme park, speaking at a ceremony to mark the return of the relic at Puy du Fou, near Nantes, on 20 March.The Art Newspaper reported last week that the Joan of Arc ring, which had been sold by London and Harwich-based TimeLine Auctions fo
  
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