Arts news

• Is Television Ruining Itself With Cliffhangers?

  14-07-2017 23:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "I think it’s a golden era, too, but — hate to talk behind TV’s back — I also think artistry is in special danger of becoming mere stimulation. Even great shows surrender storytelling’s functions by overusing them, and then sacrifice the narrative to meet the frenzied demands of an industry that’s always improving upon sitting still."
  
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• Why Is Andrew Wyeth's Reputation So Fragile?

  14-07-2017 23:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "On July 12, Wyeth would have turned 100. Over the course of his life and into his death, his reputation has weathered a whiplash of ups and downs and polarized opinion. In 1977, when the art historian Robert Rosenblum was asked to name the most overrated and underrated American artists, he nominated Andrew Wyeth for both categories. How can we explain these dramatic shifts? And what do they say about how critics and artistic movements influence an artist’s legacy?"
  
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• Home is where Crosby's art is

  14-07-2017 23:00
  A show of five works dealing with domesticity by the Nigerian-born artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby opens at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati tomorrow (15 July). Predecessors (until 1 October) includesdepictions of her grandmothers table in Nigeria, which speaks to a compelling slippage between utility, relic, symbol and apotheosis, says Steven Matijcio, the shows co-organiser. The exhibition travels to the Tang Museum at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs later this year.
  
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• The Changing Role Of The Broadway Cast Album

  14-07-2017 22:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Like a hardcover book, 'cast album' is starting to seem like a retronym. LPs are only available as collector’s items, and even CDs are on their way out. Instead, new scores, or just individual tracks from them, are downloaded or streamed in digital format, often before a show has opened. They can then be played in any sequence or combination a listener may devise."
  
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• How A New Mexico 140-Member Artist Collective Made $6 Million In Its First Year

  14-07-2017 22:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Since the Santa Fe-based art collective Meow Wolf opened its permanent installation, the House of Eternal Return, in March 2016, the project has been an unmitigated success in terms of viewership and profits. Housed in a 20,000-square-foot former bowling alley, the sprawling interactive artwork welcomed 400,000 visitors in its first year—nearly four times as many as expected—and brought in $6 million in revenue for the collective’s more than 100 members.
  
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• Why Theatre Productions Rights Should Be Free For Underfunded Schools

  14-07-2017 21:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Licensing fees for shows can often be the highest expense on a school production's budget. Depending on the show, amount of performances, ticket prices, etc, they can often range to $2,000-$3,000.  In fact, according to MTI's Cost Estimator, a 4 performance run of "Annie" with an auditorium of 200 seats, tickets at $15 and a 4 performance run(standard for most high schools) would likely cost between $1,998 - $2,703. That's a lot for any school but near impossible for one with ver
  
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• Thoreau Was A Darwinist

  14-07-2017 21:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "With the possible exception of Asa Gray, no American read the Origin of Species with as much care and insight as Henry David Thoreau. ... That the struggle among species was an engine of creation struck him with particular force. It undermined transcendentalist assumptions about the essential goodness of nature, but it also corroborated many of Thoreau's own observations."
  
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• Terry Teachout Imagines A Theatre Season Of Plays By Women Playwrights (It Wasn't Hard)

  14-07-2017 20:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  I’ve conducted a thought experiment. If I were running a regional theater company and decided to devote an entire season to plays by women, which ones would I choose? Within five minutes, my imaginary season was planned. Not only did I make a special point of including two pre-1960 works that are now largely (if not entirely) forgotten, but I deliberately steered clear of the usual staples. No “Little Foxes,” no “Raisin in the Sun,” no Caryl Churchill or Sarah Ruhl
  
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• How Tap Dance Got From Street-Corner Dance-Offs To Michelle Dorrance (Via Fred Astaire And Savion Glover)

  14-07-2017 20:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Judith Mackrell gives us a brief 200-year history.
  
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• Anne Midgette Takes Her Son To "Sound Of Music" And Experiences Some Unfamiliar Non-Criticy Feelings

  14-07-2017 19:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "In my unfamiliar role as plain audience member, and parent, I found myself partaking of a protective view of the live performing arts that I generally abhor. All too often, I feel, live performance is treated as an invalid, something that needs to be shielded from the harshness of the outside world. It shouldn’t need this kind of special handling; and in my professional life I encourage myself and everyone to take a more active relationship, to dare not only to attend, but not to like. Ye
  
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• Michael Auping, Longtime Chief Curator of Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Retires

  14-07-2017 19:27 via artnews.com
  Michael Auping, who has been with the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth for nearly a quarter-century, is retiring as chief curator, according to the Texas art website Glasstire.Auping’s curatorial credits at the museum are long, and include the recent … Read More
  
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• Lorrena Herrera Rashid at Marso Gallery, Mexico City

  14-07-2017 19:26 via artnews.com
  Pictures at an Exhibition presents images of one notable show every weekday. Read More
  
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• Istanbul’s Rampa Gallery Has Closed

  14-07-2017 19:10 via artnews.com
  Rampa, a well-regarded contemporary art gallery in Istanbul has shut its doors after seven years in business. The gallery’s final show was a solo outing with Selma Gürbüz that ended in April, but the closure appears not to have been … Read More
  
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• Understanding Poetry Is Not Some Esoteric Skill - It's Very Straightforward (If The Poetry's Any Good)

  14-07-2017 19:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The problem, writes Matthew Zapruder, is that "in school we are taught that poetry is inherently 'difficult,' and that by its very nature it somehow makes meaning by hiding meaning. ... Good poets do not deliberately complicate something just to make it harder for a reader to understand. Unfortunately, young readers, and young poets too, are taught to think that this is exactly what poets do. This has, in turn, created certain habits in the writing of contemporary poetry. Bad information about p
  
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• Roger Kimball Argues Against The Existence Of The NEA

  14-07-2017 18:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  A new report from the Illinois-based initiative Open the Books provides an eye-opening look into the size of that tab. The study includes virtually every grant the NEA and NEH have made since 2016, and additional details about the endowments’ activities as far back as 2009. This includes grants to 71 entities with assets over $1 billion, and one grant to a California enterprise that celebrates the work of a Japanese-American artist best known for declaring: “I consider Osam
  
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• Why I Hate The Best Short Story I've Ever Written

  14-07-2017 18:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Akhil Sharma: "I read 'If You Sing Like That for Me' now and I find myself jumping out of my skin. After each paragraph, I have to get up from my desk and pace around. Talking about the story, my tone becomes contemptuous. It is strange to think that, to readers, this story means nothing like what it means to me."
  
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• Neurologists Have Created A Musical Instrument You Control With Your Mind

  14-07-2017 17:32 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Dubbed the encephalophone, the instrument uses a method for recording brain activity called the electroencephalogram (EEG) to control a synthesizer. Sounds are generated via two different types of brain signals; those associated with opening and closing the eyes, and those related either to movement or just imagining movement.
  
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• Hirshhorn Gala to Honor 31 Women Artists, Including Yoko Ono, Lorna Simpson, Jenny Holzer, Njideka Akunyili Crosby

  14-07-2017 17:27 via artnews.com
  On November 6, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., will honor 31 female artists at its annual gala. The artists, who range from Njideka Akunyili Crosby to Yayoi Kusama, whose mirror rooms were the subject of a … Read More
  
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• Mason Poole Photographs Beyoncé [Updated]

  14-07-2017 17:24 via artnews.com
  Sir Carter and Rumi 1 month today. 🙏🏽❤️👨🏽👩🏽👧🏽👶🏾👶🏾 A post shared by Beyoncé (@beyonce) on Jul 13, 2017 at 10:10pm PDT No doubt you are aware of this by now, but last month Beyoncé gave birth to twins—Sir and Rumi … Read More
  
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• Awol Erizku Shoots Beyoncé Again

  14-07-2017 17:24 via artnews.com
  Sir Carter and Rumi 1 month today. 🙏🏽❤️👨🏽👩🏽👧🏽👶🏾👶🏾 A post shared by Beyoncé (@beyonce) on Jul 13, 2017 at 10:10pm PDT No doubt you are aware of this by now, but last month Beyoncé gave birth to twins—Sir and Rumi … Read More
  
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• Santa Fe shows the contemporary side of folk art

  14-07-2017 17:11
  Of the more than 150 artisans exhibiting at the International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe this weekend (14-16 July), two textile artists in particular weave a story with their materials. One of my favorites is a fellow who divides his time between Bamako and Paris, says the fair's creative director, Keith Recker of Aboubakar Fofana.
  Fofana is a master of indigo dyeing, an ancient craft which was popularised in Africa in the 19th century by the Dutch, who were looking for a cheaper source o
  
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• How Stress Actually Changes The Brain And Body (For Better As Well As For Worse)

  14-07-2017 17:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Rockefeller University neuroendocrinologist Bruce McEwen gives a rundown of the mechanisms and the (worrisome) effects.
  
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• When Stress Makes You Fall Asleep

  14-07-2017 16:35 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Oh, yes, it definitely happens - far more often to young children, but to some adults as well. (Hey, it takes away the dread, at least temporarily.) It's all about glucose in the brain.
  
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• I Moved To Berlin To Work For SoundCloud - And Got Laid Off On My Fourth Day

  14-07-2017 16:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Two weeks ago I moved from Scotland to Germany to start a new job as an iOS engineer at SoundCloud. On Monday of last week I started that job. By Thursday evening I, along with 172 of my new colleagues, was officially being laid off. And then, on Friday, I received somewhere in the region of sixty emails about potential new jobs."
  
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• Why SoundCloud Shutting Down Would Be Disastrous For Indie Music

  14-07-2017 15:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "The streaming giant - which laid off 40 percent of its staff [last] Thursday - has long struggled to stay both stable and independent. But its unique contributions to music consumption can't be overstated."
  
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• Emmy Nominations: Two New York Times Critics Dish Surprises And Snubs And So On

  14-07-2017 15:17 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Margaret Lyons: "Do you want to start with the dumbest nomination? Modern Family? ... There is absolutely no reason Modern Family should be nominated ever, ever again."James Poniewozik: "Agreed on Modern Family - which was solid, eons ago - but House of Cards, always a disposable drama in prestige clothing, crossed straight into unintentional-comedy territory this season, but kept its lifetime pass."
  
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• The IRA Was Behind The Isabella Stewart Gardner Heist, Insists Investigator

  14-07-2017 15:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "The 13 stolen masterpieces valued at around half-a-billion dollars included a Rembrandt and a Vermeer ... 'I'm 100 percent sure that they are in Ireland. Hundred percent sure. No doubt in my mind,' art investigator Arthur Brand said. He's described as the Indiana Jones of the art world. It's an audacious claim to make after nearly three decades. But Brand alleges his leads point to the Irish Republican Army."
  
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• Morning Links: Judith Beheading Holofernes Edition

  14-07-2017 15:00 via artnews.com
  Here's what we're reading this morning. Read More
  
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• Judith Beheading Holofernes Edition

  14-07-2017 15:00 via artnews.com
  Here's what we're reading this morning. Read More
  
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• Sacramento Ballet's New Artistic Director Spent Years Dancing Under The Old Ones

  14-07-2017 14:46 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  In January, the company's board of directors decided not to renew the contracts of Ron Cunningham and Carinne Binda, who had led Sacramento Ballet for three decades and developed it into a fully professional outfit. They're being replaced, as of next season, by Amy Seiwert, who spent most of the 1990s dancing in the company under Cunningham and Binda.
  
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• Three Ballerinas From Three Great Companies On The Three Facets Of Balanchine's 'Jewels'

  14-07-2017 14:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Each of the ballet's sections is said to represent one of the art form's great stylistic schools: French ("Emeralds"), American ("Rubies") and Russian ("Diamonds”). Marina Harss talks with stars from the companies that embody those schools - the Paris Opera Ballet, New York City Ballet, and the Bolshoi Ballet - about Jewels, which they'll be performing together at this year's Lincoln Center Festival.
  
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• The fruitiest Victorian, the miracle of plywood and a beach-ready conceptualist – the week in art

  14-07-2017 14:21
  
  Roman sensuality is laid bare by a visionary Victorian, a goddess creates a galaxy with breast-milk and Superman bends to black power – all in your weekly dispatchRose Finn-Kelcey
  This retrospective of the important British conceptual artist surveys her works from the 1970s until her death in 2014.• Modern Art Oxford, 15 July – 15 October. Continue reading...
  
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• V&A Museum's New Director Is Not, In Fact, Against Digitization (Despite What You May Have Read)

  14-07-2017 14:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "'Museums are rethinking the rush to digitise their collections amid concerns that such projects are costly and of little value,' wrote the Times [of London] newspaper, in a report on [Tristram] Hunt's comments at the Hay Festival in Wales. ... Responding to a question from the audience about the V&A's use of digital technology to widen access in the regions, Hunt actually said that the museum is 'involved in a massive programme of digitising [its] collections' and is 'very passionate about
  
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• West End Tickets Aren't Expensive, They're 'Incredibly Reasonable', Says One Of Theatre's Richest Men

  14-07-2017 14:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Andrew Lloyd Webber: "Theatre is highly labour-intensive. On the whole, the prices of West End theatre are incredibly reasonable considering the cost of putting something on." Told that tickets to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child are over £100, ALW said, "We don't charge anything like that for School of Rock." (Orchestra/stalls seats for School of Rock in the West End are currently £129.50.)
  
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• How A Theatre Company Saved A Medieval Building And Museum In One Of England's Most Historic Towns

  14-07-2017 13:44 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "The Canterbury Heritage Museum has attracted fewer and fewer visitors in recent years, but a rescue plan involving the Marlowe Theatre is set to revitalise it. Janice McGuinness tells the story."
  
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• This Tiny Company In India Is America's Third-Largest Publisher Of Translated Fiction

  14-07-2017 13:29 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Founded in 1982, the Kolkata-based company [Seeagull Books] publishes everything from literary fiction and poetry to philosophy and even cultural anthropology. But these books aren't what you'd find on the catalogues of publishing giants such as HarperCollins or Penguin Random House. At Seagull Books, the focus is on translated writing from around the world, much of which has never before appeared in English, in India or anywhere else."
  
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• Woman's selfie causes '$200,000 of damage' to artworks – but was it a stunt?

  14-07-2017 13:08
  
  Leaning back into a pedestal to try to get the perfect angle took out a whole row of sculptures at an LA gallery – at least that’s the way it looksA woman in Los Angeles has apparently demonstrated just how damaging selfies can be by destroying whole row of pieces of art while trying to get that perfect image.The moment, captured on video at the 14th Factory exhibition space in Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles shows a woman apparently bending down to try to get the perfect angle for a se
  
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• Linder Sterling’s It’s the Buzz, Cock!: a two-fingered salute to the patriarchy

  14-07-2017 13:00
  
  Even after 40 years, this work – a redux of an image created while the artist was living with Buzzcocks frontman Howard Devoto – has an angry glamourThis is actually a lightbox redux of Linder Sterling’s best-known work, the 1977 collage used on the sleeve of the Buzzcocks’ Orgasm Addict. Forty years on, its two-fingered salute to the patriarchy remains as fierce and funny as ever. Continue reading...
  
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• Rana Begum organises YSP show with a little help from #Instagram

  14-07-2017 12:42
  
  The Bangladesh-born, London-based artist Rana Begum says she has never been a particularly avid user of social media, but began to use Instagram as a way to keep up to date with exhibitions and what other artists were up to, especially after having children. It is a great way to discover artists and feel connected to the art world, she says.Occasional Geometries (15 July-29 October), which opens this weekend at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) near Wakefield, has been primarily
  
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• Rana Begum organises Yorkshire Sculpture Park show with a little help from #Instagram

  14-07-2017 12:42
  
  The Bangladesh-born, London-based artist Rana Begum says she has never been a particularly avid user of social media, but began to use Instagram as a way to keep up to date with exhibitions and what other artists were up to, especially after having children. It is a great way to discover artists and feel connected to the art world, she says.Occasional Geometries (15 July-29 October), which opens this weekend at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) near Wakefield, has been primarily
  
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• New space commemorates Moscow’s neglected Soviet-era buildings

  14-07-2017 12:00
  
  As government officials in Moscow earmark Constructivist buildings for demolition in a massive project to relocate up to 1.6 million of the citys residents, a non-profit museum dedicated to preserving Russias avant-garde architecture has opened in the Shabolovka neighbourhood.
  Supported by private grants and volunteers rather than public funding, the Avant-Garde Museum occupies a room in Na Shabolovke Gallery. The gallery, part of a municipal network known for its innovative exhibitions, is loc
  
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• Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.13.17

  14-07-2017 11:25 via feedproxy.google.com
  Bible Bumble: The Befuddled Build-Up to the New Museum of the Bible
  How is the ambitious, soon-to-open Museum of the Bible hoping to repair the collateral damage to its reputation, now that Hobby Lobby - the crafts and home decor company led by the museum’s founder, chairman and ... read more
  AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-07-13
   
  
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• Emma Hart and Mat Collishaw: this week’s best UK exhibitions

  14-07-2017 10:30
  
  This year’s winner of the Max Mara prize for women shows off anthropological ceramics, while VR brings to life the first ever photography showThe winner of this year’s Max Mara art prize for women is a ceramicist with an interest in anthropology. Her exhibition includes jug-like portrait sculptures inspired by the maiolica tradition of colourful glazed ceramics that started in the Italian Renaissance and is still going strong. Working with artisans in Faenza, she has created work tha
  
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• China's artists defy censorship ban to mourn Liu Xiaobo

  14-07-2017 07:58
  The death on Thursday of Chinese dissident activist and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo elicited an outpouring of grief and anger in China, particularly from its artists. Though usually preferring to remain safely apolitical, members of the Chinese art world defied a ban on covering or mentioning Liu and expressed their sorrow and frustration at his death through mostly indirect references on Chinese social media.Ai Weiwei, the Chinese dissident artist now living in Berlin, told the BBC yesterday: "I
  
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