Arts news

• A History Of How The Word Processor Took Over as The Writing Machine Of Choice

  29-06-2016 23:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “One thing that was really different about word processing is that there were dozens and dozens of word-processing options, dozens and dozens of systems and software and formats, all of them incompatible and comparatively expensive. If you made a bad choice, that would have been a real setback for a writer. So realizing what you needed, and shopping for a computer—that in and of itself was a barrier as much as any big sense of technophobia.”
  
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• Who was the real Bruce Conner?

  29-06-2016 23:00
  The title of the exhibition Bruce Conner: Its All True, organised by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, comes from a letter the artist wrote, late in life, in which he listed 61 labels the media had attached to him and his work. These included artist and anti-artist, feminist and misogynist, spiritual and profane, accessible and obscure, realist and surrealist.
  Its all true, Conner concluded. This welter of contradictions hints at why
  
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• The sedulous Stanleys: power at Knowsley Hall

  29-06-2016 23:00
  
  The Earls of Derby have a long tradition of cultural patronage, as this collection of essaysArt, Animals and Politicsdemonstrates. Edited by the indefatigable Stephen Lloyd, it is the product of a conference that took place at Knowsley Hall in 2013, described by contributor David Starkey as a little bit like Knowsley itselfa huge accumulation of various bits and pieces a statement of the variety of a great aristocratic house, all the things they get into and do.In fact, the book is less pieceme
  
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• Thaddaeus Ropac defies Brexit and commits to London

  29-06-2016 23:00
  
  The Paris and Salzburg contemporary art dealer, Thaddaeus Ropac, has finalised plans to open in Mayfair in Spring 2017. The news, while long in the pipeline, gives a much-needed boost to Londons art market following last weeks Brexit vote. The investment comes at a time when other investors and businesses, including Vodafone, have threatened to pull out of the UK.However bad [the Brexit situation] is, London is the quintessential centre of the art world, I am absolutely committed to it, Ropac s
  
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• Six things to see at Masterpiece London

  29-06-2016 23:00
  
  The turmoil that has followed the UKs decision to leave the EU has affected global financial markets and the strength of the pound, now at its lowest level against the dollar since 1985. International art sales in the capital, however, seem to be a different story. Perhaps spurred by the search for a bargain due to the currency exchange rates, confident buyers buoyed the contemporary evening auctions at Sothebys and Christies, while sales at Masterpiece London, now in its seventh edition, were r
  
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• International Council of Museums conference: institutions asked to think beyond collections

  29-06-2016 23:00
  
  Twenty-first century museums have moved beyond their traditional core functions of conserving and promoting their collections, says Alberto Garlandini, the president of the Italian organising committee of Icom Milano 2016, the triennial conference of the International Council of Museums (Icom) due to be held in Milan from 3 to 9 July. They have new social goals and larger territorial responsibilities than in past times, he says, adding that museums should promote the landscapes they are part of
  
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• Christie’s keeps calm and carries on despite withdrawal of £14m Richter

  29-06-2016 23:00
  
  An anonymous US collectors decision to withdraw the top lot an hour before Christies sale last night made for a jittery start in an already uncertain market. The 1994 Abstraktes Bild (811-2) had been estimated to sell in the region of 14m; its recall meant Christies had its lowest-value June auction since 2009.But a run of good prices for artists including Sean Scully, Adrian Ghenie and Jean-Michel Basquiat helped banish Brexit blues and contributed to a decent result of 33.7m (39.6m with fees)
  
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• Baselitz’s Hero paintings come to Frankfurt

  29-06-2016 23:00
  The 27-year-old Georg Baselitz was an angry man in 1965, says Eva Mongi-Vollmer, curator at the  Stdel museum and the co-organiser, with the former museum director Max Hollein, of Georg Baselitz: the Heroes. The young artist revelled inbut then rejectedthe path offered by the Western canon of 20th-century art to which he was exposed upon leaving East Germany for West, having lived up until his 20s under the Nazis and then the German Democratic Republic. The work he was making was completely
  
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• A portrait of Hockney ahead of his RA portraiture show

  29-06-2016 23:00
  The British artist David Hockney returns to the Royal Academy of Arts, London, next week with a new show 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life (2 July-2 October). His last exhibition at the institution, A Bigger Picture (21 January-9 April 2012), was one its most popular shows ever with more 600,000 visitors. This more intimate showin the Sackler Wing rather than the main galleriesis of new works made since the last show and after the artist moved back to Los Angeles. This trailer is for the documentary
  
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• ‘Caught in the Trees’ at Galerie Gregor Staiger, Zurich

  29-06-2016 22:50 via artnews.com
  Pictures at an Exhibition presents images of one notable show every weekday Read More
  
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• Christie’s Delivers $52.8 M. Haul at Postwar and Contemporary Sale in Post-Brexit London, Buoyed by Johnny Depp’s Basquiats

  29-06-2016 22:19 via artnews.com
  The London sales continued with a strong £39.6 million ($52.8 million) total at the Christie’s postwar and contemporary evening sale, projecting more confidence following Tuesday’s successful contemporary sale at Sotheby’s—all despite the economic uncertainty caused by England’s vote last week to exit the … Read More
  
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• Scientists Do A Detailed Exam Of The Body Of One Of The Greatest-Ever Castati

  29-06-2016 22:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Among the castrati, Gaspare Pacchierotti was probably one of the most famous. The remains of Pacchierotti were exhumed for the first time in 2013, for a research in the reconstruction of his biological profile, to understand the secrets behind his sublime voice and how the castration influenced the body. “
  
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• A “Young” Explains How To Get Young People Into Our Theatres

  29-06-2016 21:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  I’m really a nobody. But I believe that we have arrived in a world where if we want to be relevant, we must “art” as big as we can. We must be overly ambitious, and damn the consequences, because if we aren’t, our souls die for sure, and if we are we may simply fail and hit another mark.
  
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• Lesedi La Rona Diamond Fails To Sell At Sotheby’s London Evening Auction

  29-06-2016 21:15 via artnews.com
  Just in: the Lesedi La Rona, which was set to be auctioned off at Sotheby’s London evening sale today, has failed to find a buyer. This is quite the surprising result, considering the enormous amount of hype this diamond received from … Read More
  
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• Vancouver Opera Director Steps Down After 17 Years And Reinventing The Company

  29-06-2016 21:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “If the opera world has changed, VO is trying to change with it. Last year, in a shocker, the company announced that it would be moving after the 2015-16 season to a festival model. While some people understood the rationale and acknowledged the company’s tough position as well as the budgetary – and other – advantages of a festival model, others were vehemently opposed – most notably and vocally, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra music director Bramwell Tovey.”
  
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• Tacoma Public Radio Station Buys Its Independence

  29-06-2016 20:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “We received 24,000 donations,” KPLU station manager Joey Cohn said. The deal, he said, stipulated that KPLU pay “$7 million in cash and $1 million in ‘in-kind’ support,” meaning spot ads promoting PLU.
  
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• Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Announces 2016 Artist as Activist Fellows

  29-06-2016 20:03 via artnews.com
  The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has announced the winners of its 2016 Artist as Activist Fellowship, a two-year program that funds U.S.-based artists and artist collectives whose work addresses critical social issues. The 2016 awardees are Maria Gaspar, The Graduates, Titus … Read More
  
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• How Should We Respond To Evil? Destroy It? (Good Luck With That)

  29-06-2016 20:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Recent history and philosophy have taught that violence is the surest outcome of blithely ascribing the quality of evil to another. At best, this process may supplant the thing we brand evil for a time, but the notion that evil can be ‘destroyed’ is an ethical version of a fool’s errand. “
  
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• Gender Breakdown: Here’s Who’s Working In America’s LORT Theatres

  29-06-2016 19:32 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Phase two of the LORT designers study continues to collect data on gender of designers, and begins to look at directors and artistic directors, partially in relation to designers.”
  
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• Mark Leckey Installation Site for Liverpool Biennial Damaged by Arson

  29-06-2016 19:29 via artnews.com
  Last Friday, a building set to be used as the site of a Mark Leckey video installation for the Liverpool Biennial was damaged in a strong fire, which now has been confirmed by Liverpudlian police officials as a deliberate act … Read More
  
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• Simone Leigh's The Waiting Room: art that tries to heal black women's pain

  29-06-2016 19:05
  
  The artist’s new exhibition pays tribute to Esmin Elizabeth Green, who died on the floor of a New York City hospital, by presenting an alternative vision of the US healthcare systemOn 19 June 2008, 49-year-old Esmin Elizabeth Green died in the waiting room of Kings County hospital center in Brooklyn. She had been waiting 24 hours to see a doctor, fell out of her chair, and died on the floor from blood clots that moved from her legs to her lungs. A surveillance video shows security guards w
  
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• How ‘Phubbing’ Went From Rudeness To Normal Behavior

  29-06-2016 19:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “People are phubbed, but they are also phubbers. In an environment where people are constantly switching from being the protagonists and recipients of this behavior, our data suggests that phubbing becomes seen as the norm.”
  
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• Do Some Artists Create Too Much Art?

  29-06-2016 18:41 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  R. F. Luchetti has written 1,551 books. Woody Allen has directed 46 movies. Some artists are incredibly prolific – and successful – at the their work. But is there such a thing as too much? Have Damien Hirst or Stephen King made too much? Here’s a list of high producers in various art forms.
  
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• Arizona Theatre Company Says It Might Have To Close

  29-06-2016 18:17 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “In a memo sent on Monday, June 27, to subscribers and donors, the company said that if it did not meet its fundraising goal by Friday, July 1, it would suspend the upcoming season — which would be its 50th — to give it time to reorganize and revamp its business model, with plans to return in 2017-18.”
  
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• Vincent Desiderio, Whose Painting Was Quoted by Kanye in ‘Famous’ Video: ‘Kanye Saw Things in It That I Don’t Know How He Could’ve Seen’

  29-06-2016 18:09 via artnews.com
  Whew! It’s been a whirlwind few day for Kanye West! Over the weekend in Los Angeles he screened the video for his song “Famous,” which shows various celebrities (Donald Trump, Chris Brown, Kanye, Kim, and so forth) naked in bed, … Read More
  
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• The Hong Kong Booksellers Who Were Kidnapped By Chinese Police: A Follow-Up

  29-06-2016 18:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Five booksellers from Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay Books disappeared in 2015, of whom Lam [Wing-kee] was the fourth to reappear (leaving only one, Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, still in PRC custody). … Reactions since Lam’s release have been mixed. On June 17, he led thousands of protestors through the streets of Hong Kong.” But the three others who were held and have been released have accused Lam of lying.
  
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• Stedelijk Museum Receives Major Donation of 600 Works

  29-06-2016 18:00 via artnews.com
  The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam announced today that it has received a major donation of contemporary art from German collector Thomas Borgmann. The donation includes over 600 works, among them pieces by Jack Goldstein, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Cosima von Bonin. … Read More
  
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• King’s Cross Project brings in two new curators

  29-06-2016 17:20
  
  Two new curators will oversee the Kings Cross Project, an ambitious programme of commissioned temporary and permanent works for the redeveloped 67-acre neighbourhood in north London. The appointment of Tamsin Dillon, previously the interim head of exhibitions at Tate Liverpool, and Rebecca Heald, a tutor in curating contemporary art at the Royal College of Art in London, marks the beginning of the second three-year cycle of the nine-year programme.The art project is part of a vast regeneration
  
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• An Algorithm Says This Book Should Be The Ultimate Bestseller (So Why Didn’t It Make Any Bestseller Lists?)

  29-06-2016 17:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The algorithm looks at themes, plot, character, setting, and also the frequencies of tiny but significant markers of style. The ‘bestseller-ometer’ then makes predictions, picking out which specific combinations of these features will resonate with readers. The authors claim that it is correct ‘over eighty percent of the time’.” But the only book to score 100% from the algorithm has had only middling sales.
  
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• Art Basel Parent Company MCH Group Acquires Online Art-Viewing Platform Curiator

  29-06-2016 16:39 via artnews.com
  The Swiss conglomerate MCH Group announced today that it has acquired Curiator, a digital platform that allows users to share and collect images of art. A news release notes that Curiator will remain a standalone effort.MCH Group has, until now, devoted … Read More
  
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• ISIS Destroys Another Ancient Assyrian Temple

  29-06-2016 16:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The destruction of the Temple of Nabu in the Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq by the Islamic State has been condemned by UNESCO and a leading UK archaeologist. As part of its propaganda campaign, the jihadist group issued video footage earlier this month that appeared to show part of the ancient archaeological site being blown up.”
  
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• The legacy game: Gormley isn't the first artist to worry about his place in history

  29-06-2016 16:11
  
  The sculptor Antony Gormley has voiced doubts about his ‘usefulness to the human race’. But to be an artist, you need a big egoAntony Gormley has been struck down by modesty. The artist who casts his own body religiously, and whose monumental works include not only the Angel of the North but a hotel room whose exterior is shaped like a squatting Lego figure, has been musing about his own place in history.“It’s quite possible that my whole project is very flawed,” he
  
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• World’s Oldest Working Photo Studio Closes After 176 Years

  29-06-2016 16:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Bourne & Shepherd, named for its founding British photographers, Samuel Bourne and Charles Shepherd, officially closed earlier this month, following its last owners’ loss of a 14-year legal battle over the company’s sole space, a building in Kolkata’s busy Esplanade area.”
  
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• Chapter NY Will Move to Larger Space on East Houston Street

  29-06-2016 15:30 via artnews.com
  The gallery real-estate action just never seems to stop down on Manhattan’s Lower East Side! The latest news is that Chapter NY, the gallery run by Nicole Russo out of a modestly sized space on Henry Street is moving to … Read More
  
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• ‘Angels In America,’ The Oral History – How Tony Kushner’s Play Became The Defining Work Of American Art Of The Past 25 Years

  29-06-2016 15:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Twenty-five years ago this summer, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America premiered in the tiny Eureka Theatre in San Francisco’s Mission District. Within two years it had won the Pulitzer Prize … Slate talked to more than 50 actors, directors, playwrights, and critics to tell the story of Angels‘ turbulent ascension into the pantheon of great American storytelling – and to discuss the legacy of a play that feels, in an era in which gay Americans have the right to
  
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• The Beat Goes On: Lawrence Ferlinghetti And Sterling Lord, Still Friends And Business Associates As They Approach 100

  29-06-2016 15:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The partnership between Mr. Ferlinghetti and Mr. Lord, two towering legends in the publishing world, traces back to the heady, early days of the Beat movement … Though neither of them can recall precisely when they first met, their long association dates from the 1950s, when they became acquainted through Jack Kerouac, one of Mr. Lord’s first clients.”
  
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• No More Cutting: The art project making paper vaginas in a bid to stop female genital mutilation

  29-06-2016 15:10
  
  Mandy Smith also wants to reverse the trend for 'designer vaginas'
  
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• A New All-Women Orchestra, Playing Only Women Composers

  29-06-2016 15:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The Allegra Chamber Orchestra, based in Vancouver and open to musicians who identify as women, gave its first performance this week. (includes audio)
  
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• Is ‘Art For Art’s Sake’ Just A Conceit Of The Privileged?

  29-06-2016 14:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Pankaj Mishra: “Artists in America and Western Europe have been allotted a share, however small, in their nations’ wealth and power. … Art itself in [less prosperous and open societies] may seem the prerogative of the socially privileged; but it has to flourish for the sake of much more than art.”Rivka Galchen: “Art that directs our feelings about contemporary events, even when well intentioned, quickly reads as dated, corrupted, almost always wrong. … Art f
  
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• Clement Crisp Remembers The Bolshoi Ballet’s First-Ever Visit To The West, 60 Years Ago In London

  29-06-2016 14:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Three days before booking opened, there was a queue for the box office that stretched down the street and, Topsy-like, kept on growing. … We settled down to wait for the opening night on October 3 – with wild hopes that requests for first-night tickets might be answered. Then came the affair of Nina and the hats.”
  
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• Bud Spencer, Star Of Spaghetti Westerns And Olympic Athlete, Dead At 86

  29-06-2016 14:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “By the time Bud Spencer attracted legions of Italian spaghetti western film fans, including Quentin Tarantino, he had done more than most people do in a lifetime … He worked as a multi-sport Olympic athlete, politician, entrepreneur, pilot and, yes, an actor.”
  
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• Pierre Audi Will Leave Dutch National Opera To Run Aix Festival

  29-06-2016 14:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Pierre Audi, who recently became the artistic director of the Park Avenue Armory [in New York], has been named the next director of the Aix-en-Provence Festival in southern France, … Mr. Audi, a stage director and impresario known for fostering contemporary work and for projects of daunting ambition, has led the Dutch National Opera for three decades. But he’ll give up Amsterdam for Aix in 2018.”
  
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• Dr. Seuss’s Only Live-Action Feature, ‘The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr. T’

  29-06-2016 13:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The film’s producer, Stanley Kramer, that most earnest of Hollywood liberals, never oversaw anything comparable to this extravagant Technicolor vision of a tyrannical piano teacher’s quest for world domination. Nor was any other anti-fascist musical children’s film expected to precipitate a merchandising bonanza. (It never happened.)”
  
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• Self-Care: An ABT Principal On Sleep, Diet, Athleticism, Pain, And Adrenaline

  29-06-2016 13:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Isabella Boylston: “My relationship to pain is obviously a lot different than most people, as a ballerina. Dancers do have a really high pain tolerance. … We just don’t know when to stop. … The great thing about performing is that all the adrenaline takes the pain away. I never feel pain in a performance. The next day that I’m like, Owww.”
  
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• The Ethics of Dust: a latex requiem for a dying Westminster

  29-06-2016 12:51
  
  Jorge Otero-Pailos applied latex to walls in Westminster Hall to lift out centuries of dirt. But he can’t remove the post-Brexit stains of British politicsTwo translucent latex sheets hang parallel to the east wall of Westminster Hall in the Palace of Westminster. They run the length of the thousand-year-old space, and reach from the top of the stone walls, beneath the medieval hammer-beam roof, right down to the floor. Walking between the wall and the hanging latex, one might think of an
  
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• UK Parliament’s soot and secrets preserved in latex

  29-06-2016 12:05
  
  A new work that draws upon the history and heritage of the Houses of Parliament opens to the public today (until 1 September; tickets must be booked in advance) only days after the UK voted to leave the European Union.The Ethics of Dust, a 50-metre-long translucent latex cast of an internal east wall inside Westminster Hall is by the Spanish artist, architect and conservationist Jorge Otero-Pailos. The work or skinwhich enshrines grime and soot from over the centuries hangs from the ceilin
  
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• London Zoo to auction off unseen animal paintings by Agasse

  29-06-2016 11:34
  The London Zoo is selling off four paintings by the Swiss-born animal painter Jacques-Laurent Agasse, who moved to England in 1800. Despite their importance, the pictures had remained unknown to art historians. They are due to be sold at Christies in London, where they should fetch around 500,000.
  The paintings were commissioned in the 1820s by Edward Cross, a dealer in exotic animals and owner of a menagerie open to the public. For a time his menagerie was located on Trafalgar Square, but was
  
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• Top Posts From AJBlogs 06.28.16

  29-06-2016 09:51 via feedproxy.google.com
  This Week in Audience: The Latest Fronts On Understanding Who’s Paying Attention
  Is social media communication, marketing, art, or all three? … The perils of market research when it drives your art … The latest front on artists’ war on cell phone use … How NPR discovered a ton of information about its listeners … How the internet is changing our perceptions of the world. … read more
  AJBlog: AJ Arts Audience Published 2016-06-28Brexit and culture: it
  
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