Arts news

• What summer slowdown? Seattle Art Fair expands

  31-07-2016 23:00
  
  Against the grain of the art markets traditional summer slowdown, the Seattle Art Fair is growing after a successful launch last year. Forty-six newcomers, including New Yorks Pace/MacGill and Marlborough galleries, are among more than 80 exhibitors (up from 62) participating in the second edition this August. Founded by the billionaire Paul Allen, the Seattle-born co-founder of Microsoft, the fair aims to nurture the budding collector base in the region, says its director, Max Fishko. We plan
  
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• Curators' tour of the new Tate Modern

  31-07-2016 23:00
  
  Staff from across the Tate Modern, including its director, Frances Morris, provided mini guided tours of its new and rehung galleries during the Uniqlo-sponsored relaunch weekend in June. Since then more than one million visitors have experienced the expanded gallery on London's Bankside. It passed that milestone on 19 July. With a weaker pound pre-Brexit making London more attractive than ever for foreign tourists, Tate Modern could attract more than 6 million visitors over the next 12 months.
  
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• Artists divided over Rio Olympic Games

  31-07-2016 23:00
  
  As Brazils second largest city prepares to host the Olympic Games, which open this week, Rio de Janeiro's economic woes have forced the federal government to provide additional funding for the games. The countrys uncertain situation is reflected in the reactions of artists from Brazil and abroad, who have come out both in support of and against the games.It is rather unfortunate that the Olympics are happening now, said Adriana Varejo, a local artist who was commissioned by the Olympic committe
  
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• Artists divided over Rio 2016 Olympics

  31-07-2016 23:00
  
  As Brazils second largest city prepares to host the Olympic Games, which open this week, Rio de Janeiro's economic woes have forced the federal government to provide additional funding for the games. The countrys uncertain situation is reflected in the reactions of artists from Brazil and abroad, who have come out both in support of and against the games.It is rather unfortunate that the Olympics are happening now, said Adriana Varejo, a local artist who was commissioned by the Olympic committe
  
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• An intimate look at Kate Bush

  31-07-2016 23:00
  
  Kate Bush fanatics will get a kick out The Kate Inside, a new limited edition book with photographs of the singer taken by the Italian music photographer Guido Harari. The duo met in Milan in the late 1970s and worked together from 1982-93 on projects like the shots for her album Hounds of Love (1986). The 240-page book, published in an edition of 1,500 to come out in September, features familiar images but also many unseen photographs and outtakes, contact sheets and personal letters. A photog
  
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• This Week In Audience, When Fans Feel They Own The Art Edition

  31-07-2016 21:08 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  This Week: Are artists now a weapon for developers?… When fans as creators believe they own the artists’ work… It’s getting tougher to figure out which music is popular… Bots increasingly compete with audiences for tickets… Audio books have become a big market for publishers.
  
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• Editor’s Picks: Five Highlights From Last Week’s AJ – How To Define Art Edition

  31-07-2016 20:11 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  This Week: In an age of artists what is the definition of being an artist?… Canadian study says arts workers are most at risk… What is R&D in the arts?… Edinburgh Festival’s success shows the broadening impact of festivals… In the information age our opinions seem to be more arrogant.
  
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• How sneezers can give germs the elbow | Letters

  31-07-2016 19:50
  
  National treasures | Germs | Busby Babes | Yorkshire | Blue cluesIn light of the success in keeping the portrait of Elizabeth I through an export ban and public ownership (Armada portrait of triumphant Elizabeth I now belongs to Britain, 29 July), is it not time to ensure the same for those other national treasures, the NHS, the railways, Royal Mail, and the utility companies – all “stunning piece[s] of our national heritage”?
  Ian Denning
  London• David Feld rightly complai
  
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• The Matriarch Of Regional Theatre

  31-07-2016 19:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Zelda Fichandler, a seminal figure in the regional theater movement who led Arena Stage in Washington for 41 years, producing more than 400 shows and directing more than 50 for a company that helped spur the growth of professional theater around the country and became its centerpiece in the nation’s capital, died on Friday at her home in Washington.”
  
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• Computers: The Worst Thing Ever For Spy Movies

  31-07-2016 18:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Watching somebody type on a computer is about as interesting, aesthetically and dramatically, as watching cows eat grass. Though at least grass-eating cows would be a change from routine, unlike computers, which many of us type on all day. This seems especially ridiculous when it’s Hollywood stars doing the typing.”
  
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• The Swiss hotel that’s just a bed on a mountain

  31-07-2016 18:33
  
  Artists Frank and Patrik Riklin pioneered the zero-star concept by offering guests the chance to stay in a nuclear bunker. Now they’re taking their vision to new heightsIt looks like a publicity stunt for a hotel chain. Stick a bed on a Swiss mountain, get the attention of the world’s media and – boom – viral marketing. A couple of days later, bung the first ad on TV and let Lenny Henry take over. “You can really breathe in a Premier Inn,” he’ll say in h
  
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• What Did This Woman Learn From A Year Of Submitting Her Plays Under A Man’s Name?

  31-07-2016 18:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “As Max, I don’t have to worry—at least not as much—that his leadership skills will be labeled ‘bossiness,’ or his humor will be dismissed as ‘silly,’ or his edgy tweet or blog post (#meta) will be met with responses that he should be bludgeoned and left in a ditch. At every corner, life as Max is easier and less intimidating than the equivalent interactions I have as myself.”
  
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• New Superheroes Finally Get A Little Space For The Rest Of Us

  31-07-2016 18:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “It is taking an unfathomably long time simply to get to the point where women and non-white characters are being represented on screen, but then that’s hardly a problem restricted to superheroes.”
  
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• In Praise Of Dewey’s Democracy

  31-07-2016 18:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “He envisions a society where each person can express himself or herself in a manner that enriches everyone – in the way that an orchestra harnesses the gifts of its members or a potluck becomes more fun when many people bring their signature dish.”
  
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• Can Arts Organizations Reflect Reality Without More Diversity On Their Boards?

  31-07-2016 17:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The boards of all these organizations are receiving contradictory messages. … On one hand, they’re being told, ‘You have to raise more private money.’ On the other, they’re being told, ‘You need to diversify and elect people who may or may not be able to raise that money.'”
  
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• A Chicago Theatre Announces A Lin-Manuel Miranda Musical Cast Dominated By White Actors

  31-07-2016 17:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “There is no viable excuse for this kind of whitewashing anymore, least of all — in a city as diverse as Chicago — the ‘not enough actors’ excuse.”
  
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• The AIDS Years Saw Artists Produce Prodigiously, But Museums Have Been Decades Slow To Respond

  31-07-2016 17:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Art was very much in the picture, because artists were hard hit by the epidemic, but also because art is (or can be) strategically useful. It can broadcast or insinuate messages into the larger culture, embody complex truths, absorb fear, preserve memory.”
  
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• A Musician Who Found Wild Success In Her 40s – And Cancer Soon After

  31-07-2016 17:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “While major labels repeatedly shunned the singer as over the hill and ‘too dark,’ she finally found a perfect partner, and a breakthrough, via the fledgling indie Daptone Records, which specializes in reanimating the vintage sounds of soul, funk and Latin music”
  
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• Harry Potter Fans Swarm Bookstores Again For A Midnight Release Of … A Play Script?

  31-07-2016 16:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Yes, that’s right: “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” copies flooded bookstores like it was 2007, and millions of fans across the world lined up for their pre-ordered copy of the play script.
  
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• How A Dancer Burned Up The Ranks In Canada

  31-07-2016 16:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Imagine the most dashing and magnanimous princes of 19th-century literature and you’ll conjure an idea of his magnetic presence as a performer.”
  
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• What’s The World’s Responsibility When Languages Disappear?

  31-07-2016 16:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “While some languages survive by transplanting their speakers to more hospitable locations—New York City is especially fertile, hosting communities who languages have effectively become extinct in their places of origin—others don’t have the option of finding a home elsewhere.”
  
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• How ‘Hamilton’ Has Affected This Presidential Campaign Season

  31-07-2016 16:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “In Mrs. Clinton’s speech, she fitted her opponent with an absurd crown to cast him as her show’s erratic, vain and autocratic King George.”
  
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• Zurbarán masterpieces to leave UK for US for the first time

  31-07-2016 15:32
  
  Paintings of Jacob and 12 sons will leave Europe for analysis and to go on display during building work at Auckland CastleThirteen spectacular paintings by the Spanish master Francisco de Zurbarán are travelling to the US for the first time.The paintings, of Jacob and his 12 sons, are considered among the finest treasures to reside in north-east England and have only left Auckland Castle in County Durham twice since 1756.Related: Saint Francis in Meditation, Zurbaran (1635-9)Continue read
  
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• Edinburgh art festival 2016 review – where Lothian meets utopian

  31-07-2016 09:00
  
  Christian Boltanski, Damián Ortega and Alice Neel impress in this year’s strongly international show, while Inverleith House celebrates in styleA vision of bright reeds shimmers across the lake on the tiny island. Each is tied with a label and capped with a ceramic bell. Simple strips of Perspex, these labels appear white, then silver, then barely visible in the breeze, resembling the leaves of the willow tree above. The silvery music of the bells is the sonic equivalent of the shiv
  
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• A Renaissance mystery adds to National Gallery vandalism fears

  31-07-2016 01:04
  
  Unexplained marks on two Italian paintings have reignited worries over cutbacks in staffMysterious scratch marks on two 16th-century Italian masterpieces at the National Gallery have rekindled a bitter dispute about a cost-cutting drive that has seen security at the world-famous collection handed over to the private security firm Securitas.The damage, apparently caused by fingernails or rings, is the latest development in the long-running battle over arrangements to oversee more than six million
  
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