Arts news

• A Brief Discussion Of 'Chick Lit,' A Genre That Deserved More From The Industry

  05-02-2017 23:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  "Given that so many women writers and readers currently feel that, once again, we are fighting for our basic liberties, might a new category of women’s fiction, more overtly feminist than its predecessor, be on its way? Instead of women searching for sex and love with the opposite sex, perhaps the genre might revolve around women simply trying to survive the opposite sex. "
  
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• The Playwright Of 'Moonlight' Explains Why The Story Had To Be Told

  05-02-2017 22:35 via feedproxy.google.com
  In grad school at Yale, after finding out his mother had died, Tarell Alvin McCraney "wrote the script not in anger, he says, or only in grief or guilt, though he felt both of those emotions. He wrote it in panic."
  
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• A Berlin Orchestra Creates Love Letters To The Sounds Of The City

  05-02-2017 22:07 via feedproxy.google.com
  Never let it be said that German musicians have no sense of humor: "In the first video, the musicians imitate sounds such as the sizzling of fries and sausages getting cooked and the ketchup squirted over them at one of the most popular eating spots in town."
  
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• Three views on the radicalism of the Russian avant-garde—and its suppression

  05-02-2017 22:00
  
  We asked three experts to speak on the radicalism of the revolutionand how it fell apart. For more coverage on the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, see our article on the history of Constructivism and our run down of the top shows worldwide dedicated to the Russian avant-garde.Painters and poets collaborate
  The early futurist book Worldbackwards [1912] is emblematic of the shake-up that many artists were agitating for in the art world. It was conceived to completely undercut th
  
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• The Italian job(s): Colosseum boss wanted

  05-02-2017 22:00
  The Italian ministry of culture is on the hunt for a new director to manage the Colosseum and Romes central archaeological area, including the Palatine Hill, the Roman Forum and Emperor Neros extravagant home, the Domus Aurea. The position will be open to international candidates, following previous recruitment drives for leaders of 30 top museums and heritage sites, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the archaeological site of Herculaneum. The government is expected to approve the reform, which wil
  
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• Tate Britain banks on David Hockney retrospective to pull in the crowds

  05-02-2017 22:00
  An extensive David Hockney retrospective opens this week at Tate Britain to celebrate the career of the British artist, who turns 80 in the summer. It is pretty much the largest show we have done at Tate Britain, Chris Stephens, the exhibitions co-curator, says. Were showing paintings and drawings, photographic works, videos, iPhone and iPad drawings.
  There will be more than 150 works, from a self-portrait of 1954 to ones that are only just being completed. We were warned that one of the painti
  
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• Pride and prejudice: museums celebrate the decriminalisation of homosexuality

  05-02-2017 22:00
  
  Museums across the UK are preparing exhibitions to mark the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act, the legislation that partially decriminalised male homosexuality in England and Wales in 1967.In London, the National Portrait Gallery will present a special display on the citys gay scene in the 1980s (David Gwinnutt: Before We Were Men, due to open 9 March) while the first major exhibition dedicated to queer British art is to open at Tate Britain (Queer British Art 1861-1967, 5 April-1 Oct
  
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• Building anew: how Constructivism sought to remake the world

  05-02-2017 22:00
  
  Next month marks 100 years since the abdication of the last Russian czar. Within months, Lenin and the Bolsheviks had seized power, shaking the world. In the wake of the takeover, the Russian avant-garde developed new forms of Modernism, which are the subjects of three major exhibitions in New York and London. Here, we take a look at the history of Russian Constructivism.
  Construction is the goal
  On 8 November 1920, the third anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia that ushered in the Bo
  
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• Bret Easton Ellis ruffles art world feathers with some studied provocation

  05-02-2017 22:00
  
  Ever the studied provocateur, the author Bret Easton Ellis had already heralded the Gagosian Gallery opening of his collaborative text paintings with the artist Alex Israel with the advance tweet: 50 Million People Cant Be Wrong. Brexit. Trump. Etc. So, more feather ruffling was predicted for his in-conversation with Israel in the august surroundings of the Royal Institution on Friday (3 February). And he didnt disappoint.
  Polite smiles in an audiencewhich included the Serpentine Gallerys Yana
  
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• When A Maori Painter Was Accused Of Terrorism

  05-02-2017 21:34 via feedproxy.google.com
  Tame Iti, a member of the Tūhoe Nation, returned from prison and shifted his focus to art: "Art is an intricate part of activism. To be an active participant, to try and provoke people's thinking, to capture your audience. People that come and look at art, they're looking for something. They're looking for the moments, looking for the magic."
  
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• Top AJBlogs From The Weekend Of 02.05.17

  05-02-2017 21:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  Political Dispatches
  Caught the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) exhibition Dispatches this weekend.  Dispatches was mounted just before the 2016 election; in its own words it “includes a survey of works from 2010 – present and ... read more
  AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2017-02-05
  When the Last is not the Last
  Batsheva Dance Company, live and on film, performs in New York. Or Meir Schraiber (L) and William Barry of Batsheva Dance Company in Ohad Naharin
  
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• The Met: A Great Museum In Decline?

  05-02-2017 21:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  Yikes. "Tension inside the Met, the country’s largest art museum, is running so high that when curators and conservators recently wrote a letter protesting compensation cuts, the museum’s leaders chose not to show it to trustees for fear of leaks and bad publicity. Those who wanted to see the document had to go to the office of the Met’s general counsel and read it under observation."
  
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• What The Saga Of Avocados Reveals About Politics - And Human Interactions

  05-02-2017 20:38 via feedproxy.google.com
  It may be true that nothing unites the U.S. like avocados: "In the early 2000s, the low-carb craze gave avocados a boost, with fat suddenly deemed more acceptable. But it was nothing compared to the looming beast on the horizon, the monster trend no one could predict: avocado toast."
  
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• Why Can't Hollywood Get Boston Right?

  05-02-2017 20:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  First, there are the long, slow pans of the skyline. Then there's the accent. And then, the people. "More often than not, either the portrayal is lazy, played out and riddled with cliches, or it’s broadened into a comedy routine to go down more easily."
  
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• Suddenly, We Have Tons Of British Historical Dramas Again, But Why?

  05-02-2017 19:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  And what does The Crown, for instance, have to do with "the long history of Brexit"? "If its creators are up to the task, the series might well end up less a chronicle of a ruler than a dramatization of the referendum’s long history."
  
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• Is Great Britain Too Depressed For Museums Now?

  05-02-2017 19:05 via feedproxy.google.com
  Financial constraints, educational culture budgets slashed, and people staying away from the money-suck that is London - "the same economic pressures that have uprooted politics around the world are destroying the aspirations we express when we go to galleries. There is nothing more aspirational than visiting a museum or art gallery. It is an expression of hope."
  
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• What Happens When A Big Break Leads To Exactly Nothing Else?

  05-02-2017 18:38 via feedproxy.google.com
  Alfonso Cuarón's son filmed a DVD extra for the 2011 film Gravity, starring an Inuit actor and community theatre director from Greenland. The extra film did so well that there was talk of a separate Oscar nomination for it - but the actor was paid a total of $4,000 and didn't even know the film had done so well until NPR told him.
  
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• Next Steps For Middle Eastern Theatre In The U.S.

  05-02-2017 18:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  Though its practitioners say this isn't a new discussion, the contours of Middle Eastern theatre have taken on sharper focus after the election of Donald Trump. But it's also very like other theatre for practitioners from communities of color: "The next round is equal parts main stage productions ... and expanding to directors and designers of Middle Eastern descent. That would be radical."
  
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• Harker family visit great-grandfather's threatened scene-painting studio

  05-02-2017 17:59
  
  Actor Susannah Harker and relatives bid farewell to Joseph Harker’s 1905 London studio which may be turned into flatsThe actor Susannah Harker and a chorus line of her theatrical relatives have made a pilgrimage to an industrial building in south London to bid farewell to a surviving part of their family history – the scenery painting studio built by their great-grandfather Joseph Harker in 1905.One of the most celebrated craftsmen of his day, Harker’s work filled some of the g
  
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• MoMA Joins The Resistance, Hangs Art From 'Travel Ban' Countries

  05-02-2017 17:35 via feedproxy.google.com
  Damn, MoMA: "Alongside each painting, sculpture, or photograph is a text that makes no bones about why it has suddenly surfaced: 'This work is by an artist from a nation whose citizens are being denied entry into the United States, according to a presidential executive order issued on January 27, 2017. This is one of several such artworks from the Museum’s collection installed throughout the fifth-floor galleries to affirm the ideals of welcome and freedom as vital to this Museum, as they
  
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• Living On The 81st Floor Is A Little Bit Noisy (Plus, The Building Sways)

  05-02-2017 17:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  With new technology, humans are building taller and taller residential - and luxury - skyscrapers. But "the payoff for peace and endless views can be five-minute waits for the lift at rush hour – and even sunburn. 'You could get tanned in winter if you sat right by the window: there’s a bit of a greenhouse effect,' the owner of a 64th-floor apartment above Chicago tells me. Vertigo can be another danger."
  
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• Marta Becket, Dancer Who Built An Opera And Ballet Theatre In Death Valley, Dead At 92

  05-02-2017 16:37 via feedproxy.google.com
  Wow: "It was there, amid the alkali flats, whistling winds and triple-digit heat of the Mojave Desert, that Ms. Becket and her husband resettled and built the Amargosa Opera House, where she performed her ballets and pantomimes for the next 40 years. Ms. Becket turned the Amargosa into a cultural institution in a desolate area, an attraction to tourists, ranchers, farmers and even prostitutes from a local bordello."
  
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• Streaming Is Really Killing Sony (Or Is It A Few Big Flops?)

  05-02-2017 16:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  But the current "distant" fourth-place studio isn't alone: "It is a crisis Sony shares with its Hollywood peers. In the UK and the US, revenue from streaming and downloads of films and TV shows passed sales of DVDs and Blu-ray discs for the first time last year."
  
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• 'Wreckers of civilisation': Hull embraces its frenzied sexual past

  05-02-2017 16:00
  
  Our critic hits the city of culture to find its best visual art – from a giant blade pointing to Primark to type-your-own street signs and a band of sexual outlaws
  A small, gilded panel of Christ, flanked by saints Paul and Peter, has just gone on display in the Ferens Gallery in Hull. This quiet, static image, painted around 1320 by Pietro Lorenzetti of Siena, was acquired by the newly refurbished gallery in 2013. There they stand, cut off at the waist. The painting is a quiet little thin
  
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• Art project paints an unflattering picture of urban renewal in Rome

  05-02-2017 15:41
  
  Mira Lanza factory has been filled with an artist’s work in a bid to inspire city officials to regenerate the long-derelict buildingThe ruins of a landmark industrial building in Rome have become home to an art project that casts an unflattering light on the Italian capital’s patchy record of urban regeneration.Sections of the abandoned shell of the Mira Lanza, a former soap factory, now house a collection of works by Seth, a French street artist who camped illegally on the rubbish-s
  
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• The James Bond Movie Director Who Actually Was A Spy

  05-02-2017 15:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  Well, this is even more dramatic than a Bond flick: "For nearly a month Hamilton managed to avoid detection before escaping back to safety in England. Ten days later the escape route used by the Resistance was uncovered by the Nazis."
  
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• Ten Longform Literary Essays About That Most Unliterary Of Sports, Football

  05-02-2017 15:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  You can prepare for the Super Bowl or you can avoid it - these pieces will help you either way.
  
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• The World Has Gotten Exponentially Scarier, So Take Refuge In Abstract Art

  05-02-2017 14:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  It's simply a relief: "Freed from the world, all you sense is your body moving through water and all you hear is the sound of your pulse inside your head. Contemplating abstract sculpture, you enter a relationship bereft of language, of story and of illustration; you have to simply measure yourself against the object and admire its intrusion."
  
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• No, British People, European Plays Aren't 'Infecting' Your Precious Theatre

  05-02-2017 14:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  Let's face it: "In dark times we need each to do what we can from the centre of our individual strength, skill, understanding and experience. Theatre-makers – playwrights, actors, directors and the rest – need to tell the hard, dark, contradictory truths as we see them, as generously and in as grown-up a manner as we can manage.
  
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• Dore Ashton, Chronicler Of The Abstract Expressionists And So Much More, Has Died At 88

  05-02-2017 13:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  Ashton was an art historian and thinker who didn't simply observe. "She recorded the scene, and she inhabited it. She made a point of visiting artists in their studios, drinking with them at their favorite haunts and talking philosophy and aesthetics into the wee hours in downtown cafes."
  
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• The Place Is Here review – an art of protest, declaration, revelation

  05-02-2017 09:00
  
  Nottingham Contemporary
  The social upheaval of the Thatcher years saw an explosion of work by black and Asian artists. This compelling show recaptures a pivotal eraConfronted by a black man in Handsworth in the West Midlands, the home secretary is bewildered. Douglas Hurd has come to see the riots and will soon pronounce them entirely criminal in origin. But right now, trailed by camera crews in this dire September of 1985, he is attempting a form of royal empathy, nodding sympathetically with a
  
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• American Gothic: a state visit to Britain for the first couple

  05-02-2017 08:00
  
  The US’s most famous, and most parodied painting is about to visit London for the first time. We examine the many interpretations of Grant Wood’s masterpieceAmerican Gothic – the long-faced couple standing sentry before their wooden house in apron and overalls, pitchfork in hand – is the most famous painting in American art. It is instantly recognisable to millions of people from Oregon to Osaka who hardly know its name, still less that of the painter.In its comparatively
  
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