Arts news

• Zanzibar cathedral restoration shows past can unite rather than divide us

  04-01-2017 22:00
  
  Its a tough time for heritage. On 11 and 12 December Isil recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria, taking advantage of Syrian and Russian concentration on Aleppo, another ancient, and now ruined, city. Eighteen months ago a plume of smoke rising above the Temple of Bel in Palmyra marked the destruction of 2,000 years of history and reminded us of the senseless intolerance of some religious fanaticism.
  But, search harder and there are positive, uplifting stories relating to heritage site
  
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• Why US universities are investing in their art museums

  04-01-2017 22:00
  
  Over the past decade, many university leaders and donors have come to the same conclusion: investment in the arts is essential to building a competitive institution in an increasingly global world. This year, around half a dozen new museums and arts centres are opening on campuses across the country, from Columbia University in New York to Rice University in Texas. They come on the heels of recently completed projects at Stanford in California, Harvard in Massachusetts and Yale in Connecticut.
  
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• Old Master dealer Johnny Van Haeften opens gallery in London home

  04-01-2017 22:00
  
  Johnny Van Haeften, the veteran Dutch and Flemish Old Master dealer, closed his Mayfair gallery this week after 40 years in the area and has set up shop in his home in Richmond, southwest London. Van Haeften was forced to shut after the owner of the building at 13 Duke Street sold it and announced that the Italian art dealer Fabrizio Moretti was moving in.Van Haeften says he considered taking legal action, but was advised that litigation could prove costly and lengthy. My lawyer said it would t
  
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• Gormley goes back to (pottery) school

  04-01-2017 22:00
  
  You pop along to your local ceramics evening class, ready to throw a few pots on the wheel, and who should be spinning alongside you but that titan of sculpture, Antony Gormley? The Angelof the North artist recently toldEsquire magazine that he dropped in to the sessions with his wife, the artist Vicken Parsons. It was absolutely great. I was extremely bad. Vicken came out with 12 plates we still use. I came out with two egg cups that were pretty wobbly but Ive got better since, Gormley said. O
  
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• The Music Audience Is Now So Fragmented There's Virtually No Crossover

  04-01-2017 21:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  "One size stopped fitting all long ago, but now there are clearly two broad groups of music audiences which must be addressed in entirely different ways, across different channels and with different tactics. At the most base level this is a case of youth versus grey, of digital native versus digital immigrant, of playlist versus album, of sales versus consumption. But it is also more complex and nuanced than that. There are overlaps and cross pollination. They may be relatively thin on the groun
  
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• Scott Indrisek Out as Modern Painters Editor-in-Chief, as Louise Blouin Media Sees Prominent Departures

  04-01-2017 21:09 via artnews.com
  Just months after he was named editor-in-chief of Modern Painters, Scott Indrisek has been let go, he announced in an email obtained by ARTnews. Indrisek’s forced departure coincides with the exit of another top-ranking employee of that magazine’s parent company, Louise Blouin … Read More
  
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• $305 Million Science Museum Says It Will Open In Miami In 2017

  04-01-2017 21:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  The project has been plagued by shaky funding and construction delays. "Adjacent to the city's spiffy new art museum along the Biscayne Bay waterfront, the Frost Science Museum features a 500,000-gallon aquarium that will house sharks, barracuda, tuna and sea turtles; an Everglades exhibit; a state-of-the-art planetarium; an exhibit on the evolution of flight from dinosaurs to jet fighters; and numerous labs, conference rooms and hands-on experiences."
  
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• Has The Internet Finally Put An End To Old-Style Critics?

  04-01-2017 20:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  "While critics may continue to exist, the conditions that allow them to reach and effect an audience have been eroded. Arts coverage, no matter the medium, is largely reduced to quick responses to what’s new this week. There are exceptions of course, but can you imagine an hour-long conversation between John Berger and Susan Sontag being broadcast on Channel 4 today?"
  
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• ‘Night Fever: New York Disco 1977–1979’ at Museum of Sex, New York

  04-01-2017 20:11 via artnews.com
  Pictures at an Exhibition presents images of one notable show every weekday.Today’s show: “Night Fever: New York Disco 1977-1979” is on view at the Museum of Sex on New York. The exhibition showcases 40 photographs by Bill Bernstein taken around clubs like Studio … Read More
  
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• Virginia Lawmakers Would Require Teachers To Warn Parents About "Sexually Explicit" Literature

  04-01-2017 20:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  "Virginia schools would have to send parents a list of any teaching materials containing “sexually explicit” content at the start of every school year under a policy being considered by the state Board of Education. All local school boards would be required to set up a way for parents to opt out of objectionable materials; teachers would have to provide replacement texts for those who ask for them."
  
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• Petzel Gallery Puts Out an Open Call for Post-Election Videos

  04-01-2017 19:44 via artnews.com
  Have the last few post-election months left you depressed, scared, anxious, and unstable? Of course it has. It’s hard to really say what the best course of action is when dealing with all of this, but maybe you could make … Read More
  
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• This Year's Edge Question For Smart People:

  04-01-2017 19:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  Each year John Brockman poses a question to a broad cross-section of some of the smartest people in the world and publishes their responses on The Edge. This year's question is: "What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?"
  
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• I do not recognise the stereotype of John Berger as a dour Marxist – his work embodied hope

  04-01-2017 19:22
  
  This seminal writer and critic’s way of seeing was a way of being; he was a storyteller of searing moral clarityJohn Berger had the most amazing eyes. I do not mean that in the abstract, though it is true; his way of seeing the world has become part of the way we understand visual culture. I am thinking simply of those great baby blues. He was never not looking. He was a painter and he took up photography at one point but gave it up because once you have taken a picture “you stop loo
  
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• Do You Remember?: Chris Larson on ‘Land Speed Record,’ His Moving Tribute to Hüsker Dü and the 1980s Minneapolis Music Scene

  04-01-2017 19:19 via artnews.com
  In 2011, a fire broke out at the childhood home of Grant Hart, the drummer of Hüsker Dü, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hart was living there with his mother, and both were unharmed by the fire, but the house and … Read More
  
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• The Director And The Writer Of 'Moonlight' Grew Up In The Same Neighborhood And Circumstances, And Didn't Meet Until Their 30s

  04-01-2017 19:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  "Barry Jenkins is compact, bald, bespectacled and bookishly handsome. Tarell Alvin McCraney is much taller, with an immaculately groomed beard and stylish green Adidas sneakers ... Mr. Jenkins is straight; Mr. McCraney said he considers himself 'gay-identified.' Yet their childhood experiences were so similar, their lives so parallel, that you could mix up many facts of their biographies and they’d still be true."
  
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• That Time Claes Oldenburg Designed A Bridge For Rotterdam When He Hadn't Been Asked

  04-01-2017 18:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Of course we realized how unlikely it was that a large bridge of our design might be chosen by the city, but we proceeded as if it could happen,” Oldenburg wrote in a statement on the project.
  
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• The Story Of Broadway's Favorite Prop Baby Doll, Passed From Show To Show For Years

  04-01-2017 18:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  Twan Baker - "an 18-inch-long, 10-pound (just a guess) blue-eyed doll with an alert expression" who has appeared in at least five Broadway shows and two "Encores!" productions as well as plays and musicals as far afield as Kansas City and Vermont - was born in the prop shop of Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, where the prop master figured out the secret that makes actors want to work with Twan.
  
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• David Parr's ornate Cambridge cottage wins £625,000 lottery grant

  04-01-2017 17:59
  
  Art-covered home of celebrated Victorian painter and decorator will be restored to former splendour before public openingBy day David Parr, a painter and decorator in Victorian Cambridge, worked on some of the town’s grandest interiors, including colleges, churches and private mansions. Often working by candlelight, he covered the walls of his modest two-storey cottage with hand-painted versions of the splendour he was creating for the rich. Continue reading...
  
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• Buffalo NPR Affiliate Adds An Arts Desk With Local Funding

  04-01-2017 17:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  "Cultural organizations and artists in our community have cited awareness of their work as one of their top priorities. Having a dedicated arts and culture news desk at WBFO is an excellent way to highlight the depth and breadth of the cultural sector in our region."
  
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• How An Asian-American Director Tried To Save 'The Mikado' From Its Own Stereotypes

  04-01-2017 17:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  "As [Kelvin Moon] Loh sees it, the new show preserves the integrity of Gilbert & Sullivan’s composition while stripping away the irrelevant junk that has crept into productions over the years. ... There are no taped-back slant eyes or faux-hawkish Samurai hairlines, just stage makeup and severe Victorian middle-parts." The key device is a newly-created prologue featuring Gilbert, Sullivan, and producer Richard D'Oyly-Carte themselves.
  
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• Don't Go Ahead With Sydney Opera House Upgrade, Warns Architect

  04-01-2017 16:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  "Andrew Andersons wrote to Opera House management in October to urge it to relinquish its architecture-by-committee approach and appoint a single firm to oversee upgrades and to rethink its plan for disabled ¬access elevators that would cut a hole in the unique stairs designed by Jørn Utzon."
  
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• New Film Features A Marine Le Pen Character, And France's Front National Flips Out Over Trailer

  04-01-2017 16:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  "Chez Nous (AKA This Is Our Land) stars Émilie Duquenne as a nurse who becomes a political success in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region after becoming involved with the Patriotic Bloc, a thinly disguised fictional version of the Front National. ... The trailer briefly features a character apparently modelled on Le Pen, played by veteran performer Cathérine Jacob." The movie doesn't open for another seven weeks, but already party leaders are using words like "scandalous."
  
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• The First Author In History We Know By Name Was A Woman

  04-01-2017 15:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  The 23rd-century-BCE Sumerian priestess and poet Enheduanna wrote hymns whose influence, in terms of form and subject, stretched all the way to the Hebrews, the Greeks, and even early Christians.
  
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• Berlin Art Dealer Barbara Weiss Dies at 56

  04-01-2017 15:20 via artnews.com
  Barbara Weiss, whose Berlin gallery represented a formidable, international roster of artist, died on December 31, according to a report in Monopol. She was 59 and had reportedly been ill.After running a gallery with Michael Wewerka for a few years, … Read More
  
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• Book Prizes Are Harming New Fiction, Warns Agent

  04-01-2017 15:17 via feedproxy.google.com
  "Cutting-edge British literary fiction risks being undermined by its growing reliance on a handful of powerful book prizes, a leading literary agent has warned. But the associated costs of entering the biggest awards mean independent publishers willing to take risks on 'difficult' works without obvious marketing potential are being shut out of contention."
  
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• They Fired The Sugar Plum Fairy (That's Philly For Ya)

  04-01-2017 15:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  Yeah, it's the city that throws garbage at their own team as well as at the opponents, that has a courtroom and jail in the sports stadium, that beat up a sidewalk Santa (okay, okay, that was a generation ago), that decapitated a friendly hitchhiking robot. In Philadelphia last week, Pennsylvania Ballet told a principal, about an hour before she went onstage, that this would be her last season there because she's just too tall. (It's a tough town.)
  
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• At Last, David Hallberg Is Back At ABT

  04-01-2017 14:47 via feedproxy.google.com
  "David Hallberg, the American Ballet Theater principal dancer, who has been sidelined by injury for the last two and a half years, is returning to the company and planning to perform during its spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House."
  
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• Broadway Just Had The Biggest Box-Office Week In Its History

  04-01-2017 14:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  "Boosted by premium ticket prices, a crowd of tourists, a favorable calendar, some extra scheduled performances, and relatively good weather, ... the 33 Broadway shows took in $49,677,279 ... for the week ending January 1."
  
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• Art Institute Of Chicago Gives Free Admission To All Teenagers

  04-01-2017 14:17 via feedproxy.google.com
  A gift from a philanthropist couple has extended the no-entrance-fee policy, previously for children under 14 only, to all Chicagoans under 18 for at least the next 25 years.
  
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• Chief Executive Officer

  04-01-2017 14:11
  The Biennale of Sydney is seeking a CEO with significant contemporary visual arts expertise. For more details and to apply, please visit https://www.biennaleofsydney.com.au/about-us/work-with-us/
   
  
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• In Tense Meeting, Rockettes And Their Boss Debate Planned Performance At Trump Inauguration

  04-01-2017 14:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  A secretly-made recording of a discussion between chief exec James Dolan (also chairman of Madison Square Garden and CEO of Cablevision) and a group of the dancers reveals disagreement and nervousness, as well as some seeming confusion about whether or not this event is mandatory for all dancers.
  
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• Rockettes Management Lashes Out Over Press Report On Company Meeting About Trump Inauguration

  04-01-2017 14:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  A statement from the Madison Square Garden Company called the article, on Marie Claire magazine's website, "beneath the ethical standards of Hearst" and described the anonymous source of the recording of that meeting "deceitful and cowardly."
  
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• $20M Endowment Gift To Amon Carter Museum In Fort Worth

  04-01-2017 13:46 via feedproxy.google.com
  The donation, from the Walton Family Foundation - yes, the Waltons of Wal-Mart, and of the Crystal Bridges Museum - is the largest in the history of this Texas museum dedicated to American art.
  
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• Info, Info Everywhere, And We Know Less Than We Think: Pico Iyer On What 2016 Taught Us About 'The Information Age'

  04-01-2017 13:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  "We've never been in a position to devour (or deliver) as much information as we are today, in the age of 24/7 news cycles and social media. We've never been so tempted, therefore, to forget that the pool of knowledge is limited; it's the pool of ignorance, speculation and misunderstanding that is infinite."
  
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• French government places export bar on €15m Leonardo da Vinci drawing

  04-01-2017 13:00
  
  The French government has placed a temporary export bar on a rare double-sided drawing attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, with state officials hailing the piece a national treasure. According to our sister paper Le Journal des Arts, a request for an export certificate was made by the Paris-based auction house Tajan, which announced the discovery last month.  The work depicts Saint Sebastian bound to a tree on one side, and optical studies in light and shadow with text by the Old Master on th
  
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• London’s Victoria and Albert Museum evacuated after security alert

  04-01-2017 11:53
  
  Londons Victoria and Albert Museum was evacuated yesterday (3 January) after reports of a bomb scare. Police were called to the institution in Knightsbridge, west London, around 3pm and all visitors and staff were escorted from the building as a precautionary measure, said a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police.
  The area was cordoned off while specialist officers searched the museum, but they found no security threat. The incident was subsequently stood down, according to the spokeswoman. Th
  
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• Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.03.17

  04-01-2017 11:51 via feedproxy.google.com
  Cry of the Heart
  Several months ago, ArtsJournal.com, the host of this blog, posted an article about opera in Great Britain that had the following teaser title: Opera Is Not Too Posh And Exclusive, And If You Think It Is, It’s Your Own Damn Fault, Says Opera Boss ... read more
  AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-01-03Belletto’s Birthday: Two Recordings
  This is the birthday of saxophonist and bandleader Al Belletto (1928-2014), providing a perfect reason to listen to two of the re
  
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• Creative drive: Keith Haring's car canvases – in pictures

  04-01-2017 08:00
  
  As well as his famous murals, posters and clothing designs, Keith Haring also drew his positivist pictograms on cars, vans and motorbikes Continue reading...
  
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• Music In The Age Of Discovery (So Why Do Our Choices Seem To Be Narrowing?)

  04-01-2017 06:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  How are you discovering music? Radio used to be the main way music spread. Now it's YouTube videos, and, increasingly, streaming channels that figure out playlists algorithmically. But the promise of all music anywhere courtesy of the internet hasn't really worked out. Increasingly our musical worlds are defined in narrower terms and we have to work to get out of them.
  The promise of the internet and the opportunity for democratization in music just haven’t gone the way I’d hoped, so
  
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