Arts news

• Shadow Dancing: A Sidewalk That Responds To Your Movement

  15-07-2016 23:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “A project called Mesa Musical Shadows, by Montréal’s Daily Tous Les Jours studio, is doing just that. It’s a public installation that turns a chunk of pavement in Arizona’s Mesa Arts Center into a giant game of Dance Dance Revolution that you play by moving your shadow.”
  
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• Neuroscientists Are Still Struggling With Why Some Music Sounds Better To Us Than Other Music

  15-07-2016 22:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Some chords sound good—they’re consonant—and other notes grate when they’re played at the same time. Unraveling why that is could explain something basic about how humans perceive the world. Maybe people are just wired that way. Or maybe, as a paper argues today in Nature, it’s a product of human culture.”
  
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• Flashback: ‘Rooms’ at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, 1976

  15-07-2016 21:58 via artnews.com
  Pictures at an Exhibition presents images of one notable show every weekday Read More
  
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• How Rembrandt Got His Paintings So Perfect (Optics?)

  15-07-2016 21:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “In a paper published Wednesday in the Journal of Optics, Francis O’Neill lays out a theory that Rembrandt set up flat and concave mirrors to project his subjects — including himself — onto surfaces before painting or etching them.”
  
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• How To Build A Theatre And Make It Successful

  15-07-2016 20:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Until last August, when they engaged a general management company, Ms. Nichols (who makes a part-time salary with the troupe) and Mr. Tucker (who makes a full-time salary) had been shepherding Bedlam’s rise themselves, building a board of directors and gradually hiring people to take on some of their too many tasks. Still on their wish list, among other things: a managing director.”
  
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• Phil Kennicott Tries To Find Meaning In Pokemon Go (And Fails)

  15-07-2016 19:55 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The Washington Post critic follows the game through DC monuments and museums in a vain effort to get to level five, and finally concludes it’s not worth the effort.
  
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• South Korean Soldiers At The DMZ Are Taking Ballet Barre Class – To Relieve Stress (!)

  15-07-2016 19:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Wearing shorts and T-shirts along with their dancing slippers, members of the army’s 25th Division are taught each week by a ballerina from the Korean National Ballet under a programme that began last year … intended to ease the stress of guarding the world’s most heavily fortified border.”
  
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• The Sliding Value Of Facts In A Social Media-Saturated World

  15-07-2016 18:35 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “We are caught in a series of confusing battles between opposing forces: between truth and falsehood, fact and rumour, kindness and cruelty; between the few and the many, the connected and the alienated; between the open platform of the web as its architects envisioned it and the gated enclosures of Facebook and other social networks; between an informed public and a misguided mob. What is common to these struggles – and what makes their resolution an urgent matter – is that th
  
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• Nico Muhly Is Ambivalent About Commissions And Deadlines (But *Loves* Cavafy)

  15-07-2016 18:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “If I tell people I got a commission, they say ‘Congratulations!’ But a commission is almost like being challenged to a duel. … Or it feels like one of the tasks of Hercules. In this span of time, you have to solve this crazy problem which can be artistic or emotional or musical. … Deadlines are very odd. They’re these constantly shifting sources of anxiety. There’s no way to predict what they actually mean.” (audio)
  
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• Detroit Symphony Patron Leaves $5,000 To Each Member Of The Orchestra In Her Will

  15-07-2016 17:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “She didn’t know many of them personally, but she had tremendous respect for their lifetime commitment to excellence and the quiet sacrifices they make to bring the joy of music to others. Still, no one outside the small circle of family and advisers privy to her estate planning knew of the cash surprise she quietly tucked inside her will like a sly gift from a secret Santa.”
  
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• When Hans Arp pushed his dealer too far

  15-07-2016 17:14
  
  Sometimes artists push their dealer too far, as a corker of a letter from Curt Valentin to Hans (Jean) Arp reveals. Sent after Valentin had laid the foundation for the artist-poets post-war success Stateside, the exasperated dealer wrote on 14 February 1951: Dear Arpshole, thank you for your unpleasant letter of the 11th of this month. The fact that you have not received your money, mon cher, is down to your own revolting slovenliness. Valentin did have a point, writes Eric Robertson, an Arp ex
  
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• ‘The Hunger Games’ Foresaw The Meeting Of Reality TV And Politics

  15-07-2016 17:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The titular games are themselves a reality TV show, after all, and (writes Alyssa Rosenberg) the franchise “feels uneasily resonant today not because [author of the books Suzanne] Collins treated reality programming as a diversion from more important things, but because she recognized the extent to which reality TV would capture our politics and become the means by which we make our most important decisions as a society.”
  
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• ‘Bold Colors, Odd Shapes, Squiggly Lines’: The Changing Reputation of Alma Thomas

  15-07-2016 17:00 via artnews.com
  Yesterday the Studio Museum in Harlem opened a large Alma Thomas retrospective, the artist’s first solo New York museum show in more than 40 years. The last one was in 1972, when the under-appreciated abstract painter had an exhibition at the Whitney Museum, … Read More
  
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• Fighting ISIS With Animated Mockery

  15-07-2016 16:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “A cartoon firebrand delivers his Ramadan message: ‘Ramadan is the month where sins are forgiven and hearts are filled with – love.’ This outburst of goodwill is met with confusion from the audience of masked men and veiled women, which only heightens as he continues: ‘there is no difference between Arabs and Westerners except in piety.’ Rescuing the situation, the sidekick hands the preacher a sesame biscuit. ‘Better?’ ‘Fucking better,&rsquo
  
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• This French City Was Once ‘Culturally Dead’ – And Free Public Art Brought It Back To Life

  15-07-2016 16:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “‘The city was culturally dead when I arrived here,’ says Jean Blaise, an artistic director and cultural impresario who has been based in Nantes since the mid-1980s. ‘There was one interesting festival and the opera house, that’s all.'” Now it’s France’s fastest-growing city and has real cachet. The key? “‘If you make people pay for culture, or only offer it in enclosed spaces like theatres or museums, you will only ever reach a small p
  
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• Bowie, Baton Rouge and the truth about Van Gogh’s ear – the week in art

  15-07-2016 15:54
  
  The Swinging 60s sway back into the capital and a sea of naked strangers descends on east Yorkshire. All that and more in your weekly art dispatchWilliam Eggleston Portraits
  Powerful and haunting images of the American south by one of the country’s greatest photographers.
  • National Portrait Gallery, London, 21 July-23 October. Continue reading...
  
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• The Diary of Mark Flood, Part Four: Opening Night

  15-07-2016 15:30 via artnews.com
  Editor’s Note: This is the final installment in a multipart series about Mark Flood’s experience organizing his first museum survey. You can read the other parts here and here and here. The diary is slightly backdated because, as mentioned, he was busy … Read More
  
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• Little Old Lady Gives Possible Da Vinci Sketch To Expert For Authentication – And He Makes Off With It

  15-07-2016 15:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The drawing was given to the [octogenarian] by her father, an antiquarian in the center of Bordeaux, and had been in her possession for several years. … The supposed expert, with the sketch in tow, vanished quickly thereafter, but not before liquidating his company and leaving no trace of his whereabouts.”
  
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• Bach Manuscript Sells For $3.3 Million At Auction

  15-07-2016 15:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Likely written between 1740 and 1745, the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E-flat Major (BWV 998) is a favorite among both harpsichords and lutenists. Like many works by [Bach], it can be played on different instruments, which is expressly indicated on this score in the composer’s handwriting: ‘Prélude pour la Luth ò Cembal‘ (for lute or keyboard).”
  
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• China Bans The New ‘Ghostbusters’ Because It’s Not Ideologically Correct (Yes, They Still Do That)

  15-07-2016 15:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “China’s official censorship guidelines technically prohibit movies that ‘promote cults or superstition’ … and the country’s regulators occasionally have been known to use this obscure provision as rationale for banning films that feature ghosts or supernatural beings in a semi-realistic way (Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest suffered such a fate in 2006).”
  
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• Filmmaker Héctor Babenco (‘Kiss Of The Spider Woman’) Dead At 70

  15-07-2016 14:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  His breakout film was Pixote (1981), the story of a ten-year-old slum-dweller in São Paulo; he was also known for Ironweed, At Play in the Fields of the Lord, and Carandiru. His final film, My Hindu Friend starring Willem Dafoe, should be released in the U.S. later this year.
  
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• Morning Links: Dread Scott Edition

  15-07-2016 14:41 via artnews.com
  Must-read stories from around the art world Read More
  
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• ‘New Yorker’ Cartoonist Michael Crawford, 70

  15-07-2016 14:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “[He] sold more than 600 cartoons and drawings to The New Yorker after William Shawn, the editor at the time, bought the first one in 1981. Like many cartoonists of a nonpolitical stripe, he was something of a sociologist – a student of habits and trends, memes and fashions, the purposes and cross-purposes of human interaction, most of which he exploited for gentle ridicule or defiant amusement.”
  
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• Philly’s Kimmel Center Keeps Its CEO For Three More Years

  15-07-2016 14:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Anne Ewers, the Kimmel Center’s president and CEO since 2007, has been signed to a four-year contract extension that keeps her here at least through the 2019-20 season … Ewers in her time has retired the center’s debt, raised tens of millions for endowment and programs, developed a master plan of renovations that has been partially realized, overseen the coming and going of resident companies, and has greatly reduced the center’s own classical programming in favor
  
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• Palmyra And Its Warrior Queen: Return Of A Forgotten Rossini Opera (Whose Overture You Already Know)

  15-07-2016 14:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Aureliano in Palmira, which gets its U.S. premiere next week, “tells the story of Roman emperor Aurelian’s 272 A.D. campaign against Queen Zenobia of Palmyra … [It] has had a fascinating journey – from highly anticipated star vehicle to underwhelming opening night to obscurity to recent rediscovery as one of Rossini’s most beautiful works.” And you’ll probably recognize the opening notes immediately.
  
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• Anatomy of an artwork: Dorothea Tanning’s Etreinte

  15-07-2016 14:00
  
  Exploring the elements behind the American artist’s piece of ‘soft sculpture’Fashioned from fake fur and peach flannel, Tanning’s 1969 “soft sculpture” resembles a nudist grappling with a Wookiee. But that initial impression belies its yin yang elegance: this is ego and id as beauty and the beast. Like her paintings of giant lapdogs (a recurring motif) and naked young women, its teddy-bear hide suggests a domestic world where desire finds odd outlets and fetis
  
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• Ragnar Kjartansson: Inside his first retrospective exhibition at the Barbican

  15-07-2016 13:49
  
  The Icelandic performance and video artist is influenced by Marina Abramovic, but unlike her, he continually collaborates with a group of musicians and writers. Karen Wright tells us more
  
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• Nice Jazz Festival Cancelled Following Bastille Day Attack

  15-07-2016 13:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The event, which had been scheduled to run from Saturday through next Wednesday, was to have featured George Clinton, Laura Mvula, Avishai Cohen, Abdullah Ibrahim, and Youssou N’Dour, among others.
  
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• Michael Flatley To Open His Own Chain Of Irish Dancing Schools

  15-07-2016 13:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Flatley’s new venture will begin teaching classes in and around London from September, with plans to expand internationally in the next five years.”
  
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• Woman fills in crossword at museum only to discover it's artwork worth £67,000

  15-07-2016 12:18
  
  The German museum has filed a criminal complaint against the 91-year-old
  
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• Woman fills in crossword at museum only to discover it is a £67k artwork

  15-07-2016 12:18
  
  The German museum has filed a criminal complaint against the 91-year-old
  
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• Royal Academy to show avant-garde art Stalin suppressed

  15-07-2016 11:45
  
  An exhibition of early 20th-century Russian art due to open at the Royal Academy of Arts in London next year (Revolution: Russian Art 1917-32, 11 February-17 April 2017) will include more than 30 paintings and abstract plaster blocks, or architectons, by the Modernist pioneer, Kazimir Malevich. All of the works were first seen together in a landmark exhibition in 1932 held at the State Russian Museum in Leningrad, now St Petersburg. The 1932 exhibition, Artists of the Russian Federati
  
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• Nice terror attack: The most powerful tribute cartoons after Bastille Day horror

  15-07-2016 10:25
  
  Le Monde artist Plantu has depicted a crying dove of peace in the middle of a map of France
  
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• Nice attack: The most powerful tribute cartoons shared after Bastille Day horror

  15-07-2016 10:25
  
  Le Monde artist Plantu has depicted a crying dove of peace in the middle of a map of France
  
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• Archibald prize 2016 review – a typically debatable portrait beats some very worthy work

  15-07-2016 10:07
  
  Louise Hearman’s looming half-figure of Barry Humphries may have scooped the prize, but in a just alternate universe, Nick Stathopoulos’s portrait of Deng Thiak Adut or Marc Etherington’s painting of Ken Done would have been rewarded• Louise Hearman wins 2016 Archibald prize with Barry Humphries portrait• Archibald 2016 finalists – in pictures One of the lessons of the Archibald prize is that it’s impervious to criticism. That’s not to say that the w
  
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• Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.14.16

  15-07-2016 09:43 via feedproxy.google.com
  More Major Met Museum Departures – And More Woes
  The exodus, and the troubles, continue at 1000 Fifth Avenue: announcement of the departure of Carrie Rebora Barratt, a deputy director of the Metropolitan Museum and longtime close associate of director Tom Campbell, is imminent. … read more
  AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-07-14They can do better
  I got a press release from the Boston Symphony, advertising live streams from Tanglewood. On July 15 (tomorrow, as I write this)
  
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• Rome rocks to the sound of The Boss

  15-07-2016 09:33
  
  Romes crumbling ancient monuments still have some star wattage. Two weeks after welcoming Pink Floyds David Gilmour, the Circus Maximus is getting ready to rock to the sound of The Boss. The next concert in Bruce Springsteens River tour takes place in the 600m-long Roman chariot-racing stadium, now reopened to the public after a seven-year conservation project, on 16 July. Meanwhile, the Italian fashion house Fendi celebrated its 90th anniversary last week by staging a fairytale-themed show at
  
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• Untitled(Amanda was angry because I didn’t share the beet salad.)

  15-07-2016 06:35 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  I have a reddish purple thing on my right eyelid.Don’t touch me with your eye juice, my daughter said.I have been two years at Granada Court. They raise the rent a hundred dollars every year. The on ground manager is a fallow large womanAre you moody, Amanda said.No, I said. I have been reading. I have a lot on my mind. Thea doesn’t want to stay over night at camp. She wants to do a day camp. Thanks for the advise you gave me. I think Sheila will place Thea in the day camp. Thea and
  
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• Louise Hearman wins Archibald prize for Barry Humphries portrait

  15-07-2016 06:30
  
  Hearman says the Dame Edna creator was ‘a very difficult person to paint ... he’s all things at once’Painting a subject who is famous for portraying so many different characters proved a struggle for Louise Hearman, who won the 2016 Archibald prize on Friday for her portrait of Barry Humphries – a man she described as having “a truly fugitive face”.
  Hearman, a Melbourne-based artist who was awarded the $150,000 Moran prize in 2014 for her portrait of Bill Hens
  
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• Untitled(i don’t want to lose amanda to a married man.)

  15-07-2016 05:56 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  she has on a blue t-shirt and combat boots.did i miss anything, i said.no, she said.jacob is not here.i have a feeling he is with his girl friend or a group friends. he likes to stay busy.i have to slow down. everything has to slow down. it does. i can feel the dirtand the water. i have on a white thirt that is tight at the neck i pull at the neck towiden it. i don’t want to ruin the t shirt. it is costly. i got it on line. i feel shitty aboutit. when i sit down it hugs my waistline and it
  
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• Untitled(the tall one has a way with her hands they stretch and wring they close and squeeze they knit thoughts and feelings they are tapestries they ape medieval tapestries flat animals flat figures blue red and yellow areas)

  15-07-2016 02:05 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  the thin woman has a long thin vagina she is having survival sex with suicide number two he is going to have sex with her one more time and then he is going to climb mount hood they will never find his body they find more bodies than they report they don’t have to report to anyone if they find a suicide the tall one has a way with her hands they stretch and wring they close and squeeze they knit thoughts and feelings they are tapestries they ape medieval tapestries flat animals flat figure
  
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• Untitled( i think it would be painful to lose eyelids to bobcats.)

  15-07-2016 01:22 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  brandy wants me to call the real estate agency they have been calling her to get to me i don’t know my account number i wrote it in one of my notebooks i have so many of them i don’t know which is the one i wrote the account number in the property manager is in jersey city brandy wants me to clean myself when i see her i don’t feel like cleaning myself some of the ugly clumsy looking people are mean and don’t deserve my pity because they eat meat she has been dreaming abo
  
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• Why Are Sports Surging But The Arts Aren’t?

  15-07-2016 01:08 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Bottom line:I think it has a lot to do with the fact that sports has succeeded in being part of kids lives to an extent that arts have not.
  
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• Publisher Gail Rebuck honoured with painting in National Portrait Gallery

  15-07-2016 01:01
  
  The chair of Penguin Random House and Labour peer admitted she was ‘speechless’ when told the work would hang in the central London galleryA portrait of one of the most influential figures in British publishing, Gail Rebuck, chair and former chief executive of the Penguin Random House group and a co-founder of World Book Day, is being unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in London.Rebuck, a Labour peer since 2014, said she was “unusually speechless” when asked about
  
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• What Happened To America’s Mid-20th Century Composers?

  15-07-2016 00:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “I’ve never understood why the music of America’s midcentury modern composers disappeared from our concert halls. Not only is it “entertaining,” but it speaks to ordinary listeners in a direct, immediately comprehensible way, just like the better-known music of Copland and Samuel Barber. Don’t take my word for it—try listening for yourself.”
  
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