Arts news

• Arts And Technology – A Natural Complement (Until They Go To War)

  22-09-2016 23:27 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “It was the assertion of the Romantic movement that art makes us appreciate the beauty, richness and sheer size of the world. And technology, used appropriately, brings us closer to that sublime… Even if that was true in 1939, it’s not true now: not now our drones do our flying for us; not now our technology has got away from us to the point where large portions of nature are being erased; not now we live mired in media and, indeed, have to make special efforts to escape it.&r
  
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• Communication Isn’t Just About Efficiency. Theatre, For Example…

  22-09-2016 23:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Life is both ever-various and surprising, and, at the same time, one long uninterrupted (and, admit it, sometimes awfully boring) conversation with ourselves.”
  
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• President Obama to ring in grand opening of Smithsonian's African-American museum

  22-09-2016 23:00
  
  Thousands of people are expected to line Constitution Avenue to celebrate the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) tomorrow, 24 September, in Washington, DC. Free tickets to the museums opening weekendall 28,500 of themsold out in less than an hour. President Obama is due to inaugurate the museum by ringing a bell on loan from the First Baptist Church in Virginia, which was founded by slaves and free black people in 1776.
  NMAAHC is
  
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• Marian Goodman to open second Paris space with work by Annette Messager

  22-09-2016 23:00
  
  This December, New Yorks Marian Goodman Gallery will open a second Paris space, which will house exhibitions and a bookstore, at 66 rue du Temple in the citys Marais district.
  The new space significantly expands Goodmans Paris presence and is situated almost opposite the dealers other gallery at 79 rue du Temple, inside the Htel de Montmor, a 17th-century hotel particulier. It has occupied that space since 1999, though the gallery has programmed exhibitions in Paris since 1995.The new space ope
  
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• 'Manhattan advancing, Chicago unafraid': what to see at Expo Chicago

  22-09-2016 23:00
  
  Expo Chicago opened its fifth edition yesterday on the Navy Pier. With 140 galleries participating, the fair is arranged in long strands with three clearings that provide open space, seating, and sites for a programme of installations organised by Diana Nawi, an associate curator of the Prez Art Museum Miami. The standout piece is Rotunda (2016) by the Berlin-based artist Bettina Pousttchi, a 25ft-in-diameter photographic textile printed with fragments of architectural ornamentation that is sus
  
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• Chisenhale celebrates the explosive anniversary of Cornelia Parker’s shed

  22-09-2016 23:00
  
  Some hair-raising memories were being aired at the Chisenhale Gallerys annual patrons party on Monday night (19 September), which this year was held at the Knightsbridge residence of the Brazilian collector and patron Frances Reynolds. The event was to mark both the opening of Peter Wchtlers new show at the gallery and also the 25th anniversary of Chisenhales commissioning and exhibiting of Cornelia Parkers magnum opus Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991)AKA the exploded shedwhich now resi
  
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• Artist-activist calls for boycott of St Louis show due to ‘institutional racism’

  22-09-2016 22:31
  
  The St Louis artist and activist Damon Davis has started a campaign to boycott Kelley Walkers show Direct Drive, which opened at the citys Contemporary Art Museum last Friday, 16 September.The show features a series of appropriation works by the Georgia-born Walker, who is white, called schema and Black Star Press. The latter is described on the museums website as images of racial unrest that have been digitally printed on canvas, silkscreened with melted white, milk, and dark chocolate, and ro
  
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• Hollywood Worries About A Netflix Monopoly (And It Should)

  22-09-2016 22:27 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The streaming pioneer is spending $6 billion a year on making shows. “Out of the blue Netflix comes into the market and says, ‘We’re going to give you a number [to license a network show],’ ” says one television agent. “For the studios, it was, ‘Holy shit. Do we even need a cable sale?’ They all got addicted to crack. Nobody really thought they’d be a competitor on the originals market. They used stuff from the studios and became important. N
  
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• Rhizome Hires Aria Dean as Assistant Curator of Net Art

  22-09-2016 22:14 via artnews.com
  New York–based digital art nonprofit Rhizome announced today that it has hired Aria Dean as its new assistant curator of net art. Dean will start in her new post October 1.The new position, which is funded by a grant from … Read More
  
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• Fifty Prominent Museum Directors Sign Letter Supporting North Dakota Indian Treaty Rights

  22-09-2016 22:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The letter was initiated by the Natural History Museum, a project of the New York-based art collective Not An Alternative, which has sought to politicize science and natural history museums around issues of climate change.”
  
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• Raqs Media Collective get philosophical for 2016 Shanghai Biennale

  22-09-2016 21:56
  
  Shanghais Power Station of Art has released the final plans for the 11th Shanghai Biennale, curated by the Delhi-based artist group Raqs Media Collective. We are curating to the tune of an attitude. We want a show that is alive to the wisdom of the philosopher, the energy of the skeptic and the enthusiasm of the amateur, says Raqs member Monica Nerula.
  We see the curatorial premiseWhy Not Ask Againas both a bid and as a query, Nerula adds. We see it as a twisting, turning, questioning, dancing
  
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• How Greg Tate’s Criticism Showed Me Being A Critic Could Be Art

  22-09-2016 21:32 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Jazz critic Tate’s essays for the Village Voice were poetry. “For a generation of critics, Tate’s career has served as a reminder that diversity isn’t just about a splash of color in the group photo; it’s about the different ways that people see, feel, and move within the world. These differences can be imperceptible, depending on where your eye lingers as you scan the newsroom.”
  
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• Some Rules For Brainstorming From Some Experts (If You Want To Accomplish Anything)

  22-09-2016 20:59 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “We invited 50 leaders in the design community—typically some of the most opinionated, creative, and analytical types in business—to share how or if they brainstorm. Here are some of their responses, including a characteristically honest one from the legendary and outspoken creative director George Lois.”
  
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• How Did Argentine Dancers Get To Be So Great?

  22-09-2016 20:28 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Around the world, there are prominent Argentine doctors, scientists, international-law experts, conductors, musicians. This is especially striking in the world of dance. Ballet was more or less a twentieth-century import to Argentina, brought by travelling troupes like Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, but its roots have dug their way down deep.”
  
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• The greatest record sleeves – as chosen by the designers

  22-09-2016 20:19
  
  What’s the best-designed album sleeve? The Beatles’ White Album or Kraftwerk’s Autobahn? Miles Davis’s Tutu or Pixies’ Doolittle? Designers of modern album covers including Peter Saville, Vaughan Oliver and more pick their favourites Continue reading...
  
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• My Relationship With Critics

  22-09-2016 19:54 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Jack Reuler has worked in theatre in Minnesota and says critics have been an important part of the the community there. “Like with any body of people, some are wonderful and some are assholes and many are in between. Similarly, the real test of a critic is not how well or how often they rave or how viciously they eviscerate, but how they write about the 90 percent of the shows that fall between those extremes.”
  
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• Frank Dickens obituary

  22-09-2016 19:38
  
  Cartoonist who created the rebellious office worker BristowThe Fleet Street cartoonist Frank Dickens, who has died aged 84, was the creator of the rebellious, pinstriped office worker Bristow. The buying clerk at the faceless company Chester-Perry was a bowler-hatted antihero, kicking decorously against the establishment. His universal appeal ensured that the daily strip cartoon bearing his name was soon syndicated not only across Britain, but worldwide.It first appeared in the Aberdeen Press an
  
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• Christine Macel’s 2017 Venice Biennale Exhibition Gets a Title: ‘Viva Arte Viva’

  22-09-2016 19:30 via artnews.com
  The Venice Biennale announced today that the Christine Macel-curated exhibition at the upcoming 2017 edition will be called “Viva Arte Viva.” The show, along the with the rest of the 57th Venice Biennale, will open May 13.In a release, Macel … Read More
  
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• A Critic Tries To Figure Out The State Of American Theatre (It Isn’t Easy)

  22-09-2016 19:23 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Helen Shaw has spent the last 12 years as a theatre critic in New York. She says the state of the field is mixed. “As recently as 2007, critic Robert Brustein could say on a panel that we had 35 ‘really fine’ playwrights; even the hardest-to-please observer would say now that the number has more than quadrupled. Some theatre lovers don’t like to categorize the flood because of the canon’s long history of exclusion.”
  
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• Habitat: Obsessions—A Look at Tom Eccles’s Toy Soldiers

  22-09-2016 19:20 via artnews.com
  Habitat: Obsessions is a ten-part series of visits to the surprising non-art collections of art-world professionals.“They’re quite easy to get individually, but you want a full set in its box,” curator Tom Eccles said as he unpacked a box of CBG … Read More
  
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• Habitat: Obsession—A Look at Tom Eccles’ Toy Soldiers

  22-09-2016 19:20 via artnews.com
  Habitat: Obsessions is a ten-part series of visits to the surprising non-art collections of art-world professionals.“They’re quite easy to get individually, but you want a full set in its box,” curator Tom Eccles said as he unpacked a box of CBG … Read More
  
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• Doomocracy: the funhouse haunted by Trump and Clinton

  22-09-2016 19:07
  
  Described as ‘Hieronymus Bosch meets Fox News’, artist Pedro Reyes’s installation will be a haunted house taking in gun nuts, genetically modified crops, climate change and other modern horrorsThe horrors of a haunted house usually end once you push open the final set of black, saloon-hinged doors and step back in the fairground. However, the Mexican artist Pedro Reyes hopes his nightmares remain with visitors long after they have left his immersive 2016 Halloween attraction, o
  
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• How An ’80s California UFO Cult Became Public Access TV Auteurs

  22-09-2016 19:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The participants in these psychodramas [as the makers called them], which continued to air on public access channels into the ’90s, were not professional actors, but members of a UFO cult re-enacting their memories of past lives on film. They were part of Unarius, a self-described ‘spiritual school’ that offers self-improvement ‘based on the interdimensional understanding of energy.'”
  
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• Introducing the MacArthur Foundation’s 'geniuses' of 2016

  22-09-2016 18:47
  
  The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago has named the 23 recipients of its annual genius grants, an award of $625,000 paid over five years recognising creative individuals in a variety of disciplines.
  The 2016 list includes several awardees who are artists or involved in the visual arts: the Olivebridge, New York-based video artist Mary Reid Kelley, whose satirical black and white videos use history, mythology and cultural references to explore womens roles in society; the
  
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• Mike Kelley’s Chinatown crawl comes to London

  22-09-2016 18:45
  
  Mike Kelleys recreation of a much-loved wishing well in the Chinatown of Los Angeles has been transported to the unlikely setting of Londons Mayfair by Hauser & Wirth (23 September-19 November). The cross-cultural curio, which Kelley found orgasmic, is in in two parts. The well is a spray-painted concrete grotto sprouting kitsch Buddhist and Christian statuettes, while its surrounding, or frame, nearby features a faux-Chinese gateway, paper lanterns plus spotlights and barbed wire. The grot
  
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• Netflix Reveals Which TV Episodes Hook People On Watching The Series

  22-09-2016 18:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  You know that moment you’re watching something and your interest makes you “invest” in the show and its characters. Netflix thinks it’s the “thriller/horror/ crime” genre that seems to get viewers committed earliest. The hardest to addict you? Shows like “Gilmore Girls. There’s a cool chart of favorite shows in this article that shows you the fan tipping point.
  
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• Martians, music and mud: how the Thames Estuary broadened cultural horizons

  22-09-2016 18:13
  
  It was Conrad’s gateway to the heart of darkness, HG Wells envisaged Martians on its misty shores. Now artists from around the world are exploring the mysteries of the Thames EstuaryAs you head west from the mouth of the Thames Estuary into London, the distinctive shape of the giant quay cranes at the London Gateway Port dominate the horizon. They are situated close to Stanford-le-Hope, the village where Joseph Conrad was living when he began writing Heart of Darkness (1899). The novella o
  
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• Swing Dancing’s Sexual Assault Scandal, And How The Lindy Hop Sommunity Handled It

  22-09-2016 18:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “With his silky moves and electric personality, [Steven Mitchell soon rose to prominence as a swing dancer, receiving a star’s welcome in every city. When interest in swing experienced a resurgence, particularly in the 1990s, Mitchell – depending on who you ask – either rode the wave or created it. But there’s a group of women who know a very different Steven Mitchell.”
  
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• Why Jackson Pollock is the pride of Australia

  22-09-2016 17:48
  
  Jackson Pollocks Blue poles (1952), which measures more than four metres long, is the pride of the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in Canberra. Rarely lent, it has made a longer journey than most of the works on show in the Royal Academy of Arts Abstract Expressionism show, which opens this weekend (24 September-2 January 2017) in London. The NGAs director, Gerard Vaughan, has also travelled from Canberra to London. Acquired in 1973, the purchase caused a ruckus at the time. Critics denounce
  
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• Research: Neurologically Our Brains Respond More Intensely To Reality Than To Art

  22-09-2016 17:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “When we think we are not dealing with reality, our emotional response appears to be subdued on a neural level. This may be because of a tendency to ‘distance’ ourselves from the image, to be able to appreciate or scrutinize its shapes, colors, and composition instead of just its content.”
  
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• This is not an article: why René Magritte is a timeless genius

  22-09-2016 17:18
  
  Blending surrealist imagery with mainstream painting, Magritte’s apples and pipes appear on fridge magnets worldwide. But there’s something eerie and existentially troubling at the heart of it allWe will never stop marvelling at the art of René Magritte. This Belgian surrealist who died in 1967 is forever contemporary; his paintings have never gone stale and never will. They are insidious conundrums that can never be solved, and the 21st century just can’t resist puzzlin
  
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• Kellie Jones, Vincent Fecteau, and Mary Reid Kelley Named MacArthur Fellows

  22-09-2016 17:01 via artnews.com
  Earlier today, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced the 2016 recipients of their annual fellowship awards, known by many colloquially as the “Genius Grants.” The honor comes with a no-strings stipend of $625,000, paid out quarterly over … Read More
  
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• How The Alt-Right Pepe The Frog Trolls Punked The ‘Normie’ Media

  22-09-2016 17:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “So how the hell did they gain so much notoriety the Hillary Clinton campaign felt a need to respond to their memes? What happened? It all stems from an interesting collision between those trolls and another group of people – political journalists and operatives – who have very different incentive systems.”
  
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• Dusseldorf museums acquire 200 works by Nauman, Flavin, LeWitt and more

  22-09-2016 16:43
  
  Dusseldorfs state museums have acquired more than 200 works of minimal and conceptual art, by artists including by Dan Flavin, Bruce Nauman, Sol LeWitt and Gilbert & George, assembled by the gallery owners Dorothee and Konrad Fischer.The collection, acquired half as purchase and half as donation, was assembled by the Fischers over 50 years. Around a quarter of the works are installationsthe rest comprises paintings, drawings, sculptures and designs. Other artists represented in the collecti
  
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• The Jewels Beneath Their Feet: A New Book Testifies to the Stunning Excesses of the Russian Court

  22-09-2016 16:30 via artnews.com
  ‘Yesterday’s ball was marvelous,” the French painter Horace Vernet wrote to a friend in 1843. Vernet, in St. Petersburg to execute portrait commissions, was amazed by the lavish, gem-encrusted costumes of his fellow guests, the gentlemen as well as the … Read More
  
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• Oldest Surviving Fragment Of Bible Text (2,000 Years) Deciphered, Thanks To New Scanning Technology

  22-09-2016 16:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Nearly half a century ago, archaeologists found a charred ancient scroll in the ark of a synagogue on the western shore of the Dead Sea. The lump of carbonized parchment could not be opened or read. Its curators did nothing but conserve it, hoping that new technology might one day emerge to make the scroll legible.” That day has arrived.
  
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• In Its First Year, LA’s Broad Museum Smashes Projected Attendance Numbers

  22-09-2016 16:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The attendance total of 823,216 tripled pre-opening projections and placed the Broad among the top U.S. art museums for annual visitors.
  
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• The 10 (Really 12) Most-Produced Plays In America 2016-17

  22-09-2016 15:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Leaving aside Shakespeare and Christmas plays (which you sort of have to do), the leading character on American stages this season is a foul-mouthed sock puppet.
  
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• Clean, Well-Lighted Places: On Our Nostalgia for the Golden Age of Art Dealing

  22-09-2016 15:30 via artnews.com
  The notion that collectors sit atop the hierarchy of today’s art world is axiomatic. They build private museums and control the boards of traditional ones. Through their acquisitions, they determine the fates of artists, and often overshadow curators, historians, and … Read More
  
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• The 20 (Really 21) Most-Produced Playwrights In America 2016-17 (Not Counting Shakespeare Or Sondheim)

  22-09-2016 15:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “American Theatre started counting the Top 20 playwrights in 2014 and so far, 2016-17 is the most diverse season yet, with 8 playwrights of color and 6 women represented, an increase from last year (with 3 and 5, respectively).”
  
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• Morning Links: Brad and Angelina Wax Figures Split Edition

  22-09-2016 15:04 via artnews.com
  Must-read stories from around the art world Read More
  
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• Suzanne Farrell Ballet To Disband Next Year

  22-09-2016 15:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, which for the past 15 years has showcased the works of Farrell’s mentor, George Balanchine, and which is bankrolled by the Kennedy Center, will shut down after a final series of performances in December 2017, the center has announced.”
  
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• In The Age Of Trump, Can The New African-American Museum Reach The People Who Need To Hear Its Message?

  22-09-2016 14:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Philip Kennicott: “The basic conservatism of the new museum, its Smithsonian look and feel, and all the trust that name inspires, will help many visitors grapple with the obvious, ugly and manifest truths of racism and its impact on black culture. But … in the years since the museum was authorized by Congress, perhaps the biggest change in American society is how many people have become comfortable with staring at the unpleasant and undeniable and saying, ‘That’s not wha
  
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• When The African-American Museum Presents ‘African-American Music’, What Exactly Will That Mean?, Asks Anne Midgette

  22-09-2016 14:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “When it comes to musical performance, the Museum’s tacit mandate is to spotlight all of African American music – which is like trying to put a frame around a living person and call it a portrait. It’s tough to pick ‘African American’ music out of the fabric of American musical history, of which it is an essential, even dominant part. Concerts at the Oprah Winfrey Theater could conceivably range from opera to hip-hop, jazz to country, R&B to classical.&rdq
  
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• The Long Arguments And Hard Work Behind An American Girl’s First Black Doll

  22-09-2016 14:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “In 1993, the doll company set out to introduce its first black character. All she had to do was represent the entire history of black America.”
  
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• MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ Winners Include Julia Wolfe, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Claudia Rankine

  22-09-2016 14:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The honorees include relatively well-known figures in the arts like the poet Claudia Rankine, 53, whose book Citizen, (2014) which explored racism in everyday life …; the essayist Maggie Nelson, 43, who won the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism for The Argonauts;” sculptor Vincent Fecteau; composer Julia Wolfe; graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang; playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; cultural historian Josh Kun; and video artist Mary Reid Kelley.
  
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• Here’s The Full List Of 2016 MacArthur Fellows

  22-09-2016 13:59 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  From Ahilan Arulanantham to Jin-Quan Yu.
  
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• ‘The Big Data Jukebox’ – AllMusic, The Project That Makes The Likes Of Spotify And Pandora Possible

  22-09-2016 13:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Discovering new kinds of music is easier than ever … But having all this music at our fingertips was only part of the equation – we needed to be armed with information.” And where is all that information kept? “Today, we talk about AllMusic, one of the internet’s first – and best – archival projects.”
  
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• Colnaghi to inaugurate new London space during Frieze week

  22-09-2016 13:34
  
  One of the worlds oldest surviving commercial art galleries, Colnaghi, which is more than 250 years old, is inaugurating its new space in St Jamess, London, in October with Vanitas, an exhibition of around 30 paintings and sculptures from the 16th-20th centuries relating to the theme of vanity (6 October-4 November). The vanitas genre was historically intended to serve as a memento moria reminder to its owner of their mortality and the transience of earthly pleasures.  The opening also mar
  
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• Banksy Painting In Liverpool Parkng Lot Is Taken Away To Museum

  22-09-2016 13:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “The work, dubbed the Love Plane, was painted in 2011 and showed a biplane leaving a heart-shaped trail behind it. The plane has now been removed from the wall of the outdoor car park on Rumford Street – but the heart has remained. The plane will be displayed alongside other Banksy works from Liverpool in an indoor gallery specialising in street art in the city’s Baltic Triangle.”
  
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