Arts news

• How Individuality Gets Subsumed Into Mobs

  01-09-2017 23:27 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "In Group Psychology, Freud asks why crowds make a ‘barbarian’ of the ‘cultivated individual’. Why are the inhibitions enforced by social life so readily overwhelmed by all that is ‘cruel, brutal and destructive’ when we join together with others? And why does the crowd need a strong leader, a hero to whom it willingly submits? The crowd – which is, after all, just an evanescent massing of humanity, a gathering that will quickly disperse once its ta
  
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• Wild And Free? The Endless Rules And Bureaucracy Of Burning Man

  01-09-2017 23:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "As with permanent cities, the construction and maintenance of this municipal infrastructure requires an elaborate regulatory apparatus—and for the greater good, the regs must be enforced. When you imagine Burning Man, you might picture naked people riding bikes and making out and setting things on fire—and, indeed, that’s exactly what you’ll see if you attend. But, for a psychedelic, safety-third debauch, Burning Man has an awful lot of rules."
  
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• Why Philosophers Have A Tough Time With The Concept Of Imagination

  01-09-2017 22:24 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Perhaps the reason why philosophers have been conflicted about the imagination is that they haven’t grasped how limitations need to be tailored to circumstances. When we are writing fiction, or playing games of pretend, or making art, arguably we do our best imagining by setting the boundaries widely or removing the shackles entirely. In contrast, when we employ imagination in the context of scientific or technological discovery, or any other real-world problem-solving, we must allow our
  
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• America's Best Classical Theatre Festival? It's In A Tiny Village In Wisconsin

  01-09-2017 22:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Terry Teachout: "Surprisingly few people outside Wisconsin know of APT’s existence, yet it is America’s finest classical theater festival, unrivaled for the unfailing excellence of its productions. Nowhere else—not even in New York or Chicago—will you see such plays done more stylishly or excitingly."
  
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• Can We Consider Some Speech Violence?

  01-09-2017 21:28 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "For people who occupy positions of power in society, there may not be a single word they would ever consider violence. But that doesn’t mean other people can’t legitimately experience some speech as violence. And when people say they do experience language as violence, it’s not because they’ve confused speech with physical assault; it’s because the language-game in which the speech-act takes place is different."
  
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• Summer 2017: Movie Box Office Disaster. TV? It's Doing Just Fine

  01-09-2017 21:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "By the time Labor Day weekend wraps, summer box-office revenue is expected to finish at $3.78-billion [U.S.], down 15.7 per cent over summer 2016, according to comScore. That's the steepest decline in modern times, eclipsing the 14.6 per cent dip in 2014. It will also be the first time since 2006 that revenue didn't clear $4-billion." Further, to no one's surprise, the value of stock in companies that own theatre chains in the United States has collapsed – Regal Entertainment has seen sha
  
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• Rethinking the Nature Of What Is And Could Be

  01-09-2017 20:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "I want our audiences to understand the vast scope of what a ballet can be," says Paul Vasterling. Pushing that distinction means thinking outside the norm, whether in terms of subject matter, movement vocabulary, use of text and singers, or in performance structure and duration. This raises interesting questions around where exactly we draw the line between ballet and modern dance or musical theatre.
  
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• When Virginia Woolf And Her Pals Dressed Up As 'Abyssinian' Princes And Pranked The Royal Navy

  01-09-2017 20:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  One day in the winter of 1910, Woolf, her brother, and a few others put on fake beards, makeup (blackface, unfortunately), and elaborate robes and turbans (which didn't look particularly Ethiopian), taught themselves some pidgin Swahili (which they don't speak in Ethiopia), and talked their way onto the Royal Navy's newest, highest-tech warship, where they got the proverbial royal treatment.
  
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• A Tiny Greenwich Village Theatre And The 100-Year-Old Woman Who Guards It

  01-09-2017 19:34 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  A curious group of six people lives above the theater. They are not ordinary tenants, but something like the cast of an eccentric, bohemian sitcom family. They are actors, authors and playwrights whom Ms. O’Hara offered lodging to years ago, and they never left. Mostly in their 60s and 70s now, they include a German man who smokes on the theater’s steps, a woman who wrote a memoir 20 years ago that inspired a television movie, and a man who was homeless before Ms. O’Hara offere
  
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• Jacob Ciocci at Prosjektrom Normanns, Stavanger, Norway

  01-09-2017 19:11 via artnews.com
  See images from one notable show every weekday. Read More
  
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• Why Blue Is The World's Favorite Color

  01-09-2017 19:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Researchers have found that, all over the globe, some shade or other of blue is the most widely beloved hue. But that preference does not appear to be based in genetics or otherwise hard-wired - the reasons lie elsewhere.
  
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• Which Pop Art Will Define The Trump Era? Enter Taylor Swift

  01-09-2017 18:27 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Swift is a perfect, golden avatar of our moment, a child of the new century who understands celebrity as a form of constant curation of one’s brand the way that Madonna, a child of the old century, understood it as an act of persona creation. Whether or not she is a Trump supporter, she is an embodiment of Trump culture. And with this single, which broke a YouTube record in its first 24 hours, she has slouched in at the last minute to grab the title of Song of the Summer, or at least
  
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• Mary Shelley Didn't Just Invent The Science-Gone-Wrong Genre, She Also Pioneered Post-Apocalyptic Fiction In English

  01-09-2017 18:05 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Frankenstein was not her only groundbreaking novel; in 1829, she published The Last Man, depicting England circa 2100 as a post-plague dystopia. "As with Frankenstein, Shelley was playing on some very real anxieties in Industrial Revolution-era society - anxieties that live on to the present day. And, just like with Frankenstein, she got flack for it."
  
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• Skull cakes, seaside sculpture and a Renaissance dream team – the week in art

  01-09-2017 17:56
  The Notre Dame embarks on a gargoyle-rescue mission, Gormley arrives in Kent and a master provocateur comes to Tate Modern – all in your weekly dispatchFolkestone Triennial
  The contemporary art scene hits the seaside in this admired festival of experimental interventions whose eclectic mix this year ranges from sculptor of found objects Bill Woodrow to Turner prize-nominated Lubaina Himid, among an array that also takes in Emily Peasgood, Amalia Pica, Sinta Tantra and more. Read our review
  
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• The Challenges Facing Houston's Small Theatre Companies After The Flooding

  01-09-2017 17:28 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "As in most cities, Houston's small to mid-sized companies often don’t own their own spaces; they are itinerant or rent spaces. The effects of cancelled shows and evacuations will likely take their toll on these organizations, especially ones that are still emerging such as Shunya Theatre, Gravity Players, Rogue Productions, and Rec Room Arts. While each of these companies faces a different set of circumstances, they demonstrate just how much small theatre companies hang on by a thread and
  
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• 'Whitewashing' In Hollywood Casting Is Becoming Bad For Business

  01-09-2017 17:06 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "The industry excuse for whitewashing is often that bankable star names are needed to make a project commercially viable. Yet few of these examples [that have come in for criticism in the past few years] have been hits."
  
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• When Five Become One: Latin American Galleries Join Forces for Los Angeles Space

  01-09-2017 16:59 via artnews.com
  Ruberta, founded by Galeria Agustina Ferreyra, Lodos, Proyectos Ultravioleta, Carne, and BWSMX, opens September 10. Read More
  
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• Manic Modernist: Philippe Vandenberg Wrestled with Aesthetics and Self-Destruction

  01-09-2017 16:45 via artnews.com
  June 27–July 28, at Hauser & Wirth, New YorkRead More
  
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• An All-Girl Remake Of 'Lord Of The Flies' (The Twitterverse Is Pretty Skeptical)

  01-09-2017 16:35 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  As Roxane Gay tweeted, "An all women remake of Lord of the Flies makes no sense because ... the plot of that book wouldn't happen with all women." (What's more, the movie will be written and directed by two guys.) Other people, pointing to Mean Girls and Heathers, argue that the idea isn't so farfetched.
  
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• From the Archives: When David Smith Was on the Hunt for a Missing Sculpture, in 1956

  01-09-2017 16:28 via artnews.com
  The piece had disappeared from the Willard Gallery in New York earlier in the year. Read More
  
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• The Shaggs Have A Reunion Concert (This Will Never Happen Again)

  01-09-2017 16:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The three New Hampshire sisters who formed a rock band because their father forced them to (when he died, in 1975, they stopped) developed a serious cult following, either despite or because of "deficits in what is commonly understood as standard musicality." Five years ago, a Brooklyn musician did a Shaggs tribute concert; he's since made meticulous transcriptions of their songs, and this summer he got the two surviving sisters to perform with him and his band at Mass MOCA. Howard Fishman was t
  
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• Folkestone triennial review – beached bungalows and giant jelly mould pavilions

  01-09-2017 16:00
  Antony Gormley sculptures lurk under the promenade, Richard Woods invades town with huts for second-homers, while Bob and Roberta Smith treats local kids to art lessons. An eye-catching battle is raging at the Kent seaside between rich and poor, social decay and civic prideThere’s an intruder among the varnished crustaceans and cat-themed tea-towels in The Shell Shop on Folkestone’s seafront. Admittedly it’s hard to spot, a small sculpture crafted from shiny shells, their smoot
  
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• The American Theatre Is About To See Huge Changes At The Top

  01-09-2017 15:48 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "The leadership of the American theatre is at a crossroads like it hasn't seen since the birth of the regional movement in the 1960s. ... There are more than 20 artistic director vacancies at major theatre companies across the country, along with a handful of high-profile executive and managing director positions. One way or the other, the new guard will alter the leadership landscape in the American theatre for decades. The question is: how?"
  
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• A Glass Ceiling At America's Regional Theatres

  01-09-2017 15:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Joseph Haj, artistic director of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis: "A 2015 study ... of 74 LORT theatres ... found that there were zero managing or executive directors of color and, on the artistic side, just six people of color. Since then the figures have worsened. ... That same study also found that women made up 59 percent of managerial staff presumably next in line for leadership positions (associate artistic directors, general managers, finance directors, development managers, etc.). But
  
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• Bartlett Sher Talks About 'Oslo' And Political Theatre In 2017

  01-09-2017 15:17 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  As the Brexit vote and the US. presidential election proceeded last year, the director and the company of Oslo made a decision that, "as it became more tumultuous in our political world, we would get further and deeper into 1993 and try less to make associations with now." Audiences can - and do - make those associations on their own.
  
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• How Mikko Nissinen Keeps Boston Ballet At The Top Of Its Game

  01-09-2017 15:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "It's the same as in sports. Once you win a season, repeating everything that you did the next season is the surest way not to win. To stay on that edge, you have to question and risk everything. Once you get used to winning, then you just love that edge. You love the fact it's risky. Otherwise, I'm sorry, it gets really boring. So there is no formula."
  
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• Morning Links: Labor Day Weekend Edition

  01-09-2017 15:00 via artnews.com
  A Long WeekendLabor Day weekend has almost arrived! Many artists and collectors and other folks will be in the Hamptons—last weekend, the collector and actor Leonardo DiCaprio stopped by EMP Summer House, the East End pop-up from the team behind … Read More
  
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• Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Receives Largest Gift In Its History

  01-09-2017 14:46 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The $1.5 million donation, "called the 'Allan Vogel Chair, endowed by the Henry Family,' supports the principal oboe chair. ... The gift is significant for LACO, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary season. The orchestra's annual budget is $4.5 million."
  
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• NEH Pledges $1M For Cultural Institutions Hit By Hurricane Harvey

  01-09-2017 14:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "The grants are intended to fund the preservation of humanities collections impacted by the storm, as well as helping institutions - from universities and libraries to museums and historical societies - to get back up and running."
  
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• British Museum To Completely Overhaul Its Displays On World Cultures

  01-09-2017 14:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "The British Museum is embarking on what could be the most far-ranging redisplay of its collection for more than 150 years. In his first in-depth interview since taking over as director in April 2016, Hartwig Fischer has revealed plans to reorganise and revitalise what could amount to half of the museum's 95 galleries."
  
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• Behold The Finalists For The 2017 Carbuncle Cup

  01-09-2017 14:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Among the nominees for Britain's worst new building of the year are a couple that look sort of like actual carbuncles, if carbuncles had right angles.
  
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• BBC To Experiment With 'Slow Radio'

  01-09-2017 13:44 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Remember "slow TV"? The Norwegians pioneered it, with programs like a real-time seven-hour train run from Bergen to Oslo. Well, BBC Radio 3 (the classical music station) is going to try the audio equivalent.
  
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• Fahrelnissa Zeid’s Third Class Passengers: a sign of things to come

  01-09-2017 13:00
  This formative piece, created when the artist returned to Istanbul following a period of travel, features the blobby brushstrokes that would grace her later workIt is hard to decide whether the waiting room depicted in this oil-on-plywood painting is a nice place. This station seems to be richly furnished – perhaps better than the austere train terminals of today – but it does look a tad lively. Continue reading...
  
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• Soul of a Nation and Turkish Tulips: this week’s best UK exhibitions

  01-09-2017 10:30
  Superb art and revolutionary politics fill the Tate’s epic show on black power, while the flower craze of 17th-century Amsterdam comes to life at the BowesSuperb art and revolutionary politics fill this epic show. The age of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and the Black Panthers saw a new consciousness take hold of black US artists. David Hammons made powerful satirical prints before evolving into an incisive conceptual provocateur. Betye Saar created poetry out of junk. Barkley Hendricks po
  
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• Popsicles of pollution: ice lollies highlight Taiwan's contaminated waterways

  01-09-2017 08:15
  Students from New Taipei City collected samples from urban rivers, creeks and ports which they then froze in moulds and preserved in resin. ‘We hope when more people see this they can change their lifestyles,’ said one of the group Continue reading...
  
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• Study: The Idea That Universities Fight Inequality Turns Out To Be A Myth

  01-09-2017 00:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "In a fascinating new paper published this summer, five economists, Raj Chetty, John Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner, and Danny Yagan, call into question higher education’s role in promoting upward mobility. The centerpiece of the paper is “mobility report cards” for each college in America. The researchers considered 30 million students between 1999 and 2014 and compared their parents’ incomes to their own post-college earnings, by school. With this da
  
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