Arts news

• Finding Yourself? That Assumes There's A "True" Self To Be Found. There Isn't

  08-09-2017 23:32 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Finding one’s true place in the world is a massive trope, not just in film and theatre, but also in literature, education and motivational seminars – any place where young people are involved. In all these cases, the search for the ‘self’ is dubious because it assumes that there is an enduring ‘self’ that lurks within and that can somehow be found. Whereas, in fact, the only ‘self’ we can be sure of is one that changes every second, our decisions
  
  Read more

• That Awkward Place Where Science And Religion Meet

  08-09-2017 23:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Why is the universe so well suited to our existence? The weakest answer is that it’s just a brute fact. If the constants of nature were any different, then we wouldn’t be here to ask why we’re here. The strongest answer verges on theism: The cosmological constant is so improbably small that a godlike fine-tuner must have fashioned it into existence."
  
  Read more

• ‘All Kind of Crazy Colors’: Sterling Ruby Discusses His Sculpture for Calvin Klein Fashion Show

  08-09-2017 22:50 via artnews.com
  The artist collaborated with designer Raf Simons on a spectacle for the ages. Read More
  
  Read more

• Do Languages Simplify Over Time?

  08-09-2017 22:32 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  That's the theory, based on what we see with languages such as english, which seem to slim down over centuries. John McWhorter says that simply isn’t true.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Art Fairs Need Reinventing

  08-09-2017 22:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Art fairs represent as much as one quarter of total annual art sales worldwide—the figure is slightly over $13 billion annually. And fairs account for over 40 percent of most galleries’ annual revenue. Total art fair attendance numbers are in the millions and will only increase. If we accept that fairs are a kind of new cultural institution, cultural institutions of the future, say, then we should ask ourselves: What do we want these new cultural institutions to look like
  
  Read more

• Stranger in a Strange Land: A Rashid Johnson Show Resonates in Rural England

  08-09-2017 21:49 via artnews.com
  May 27–September 10, at Hauser & Wirth, Somerset Read More
  
  Read more

• Director of Marketing and Communications, American Shakespeare Center

  08-09-2017 21:47 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The American Shakespeare Center (ASC), a $3.7 million destination theatre and educational center seeks experienced candidates for the position of Director of Marketing and Communications. Reporting to the Managing Director, the Director of Marketing and Communications serves as a member of the ASC’s senior leadership team.
  Through effective communication of the mission, vision, and programming activities, the Director of Marketing and Communication develops and executes strategies to gener
  
  Read more

• How AI Machines Are Learning To Create Music Audiences Respond To

  08-09-2017 21:32 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "This very simple idea: can you have someone making something with a generative model, putting it out there, but then taking advantage of the fact that the feedback they get? “Oh, that was good, that was bad.” That feedback that we get, the artist can learn from that in one way, but maybe the machine-learning model can learn from it as well, and say, “Oh, I see, here are all the people and here’s what they think of what I’m doing, and I have these parameters.”
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• In Defense Of 'Confederate', HBO's Planned If-The-South-Won-The-Civil-War Series

  08-09-2017 21:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  When the planned series was announced, the backlash came quickly. Roxane Gay called it "slavery fan fiction," and many observers argued that, post-Charlottesville, as one put it, "we've already seen episode one of Confederate." Yet, as Gavriel D. Rosenfeld reminds us, there have already been several Civil War counterfactuals, and they're by no means all apologias for the Confederacy.
  
  Read more

• Movies Are For Everyone, Right? Now, More Than Ever, No

  08-09-2017 20:32 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Conservatives have long railed against liberal Hollywood, and liberals have bemoaned the racism, sexism and militarism of Hollywood products, but through it all red and blue states have come together to produce plenty of box-office green. Movies are a common treasury for everyone to share. Is that still true? Was it ever?"
  
  Read more

• Melike Kara at Peres Projects, Berlin

  08-09-2017 20:26 via artnews.com
  See images from one notable show every weekday. Read More
  
  Read more

• The Remarkable Laziness Of Woody Allen (And Why His Reputation As A Director Survives It)

  08-09-2017 20:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Allen's stature as an important filmmaker (unlike his personal reputation) has proved surprisingly sturdy - despite the withering self-assessments he offers every so often. In an interview during the filming of Match Point, he described himself as 'functioning within the parameters of my mediocrity,' and went on to note that if he were ever to make another great film, it would be 'by accident.' False modesty? Some, no doubt. But we would do best to take his words at face value." And yet, writes
  
  Read more

• Rhizome Names Winners of 2017 Microgrants

  08-09-2017 20:03 via artnews.com
  The grants recognize artists creating net art projects. Read More
  
  Read more

• Carnegie Museum of Art Director Lynn Zelevansky to Resign

  08-09-2017 19:38 via artnews.com
  She came to the institution in 2009. Read More
  
  Read more

• Dance In Dallas Is Exploding With Ambition. Now It Needs A Proper Showcase

  08-09-2017 19:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  A dance scene as determined as Dallas' deserves a festival that makes its aspirations visible at one big gathering at least once a year. It's time.
  
  Read more

• How A 17th-Century Naval Engineer Revolutionized Set Design

  08-09-2017 19:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Here's the story of Giacomo Torelli, whose "pole-and-chariot" devices made the spectacular stage effects of Baroque theater and opera possible.
  
  Read more

• Tala Madani Is Now Represented by 303 Gallery

  08-09-2017 18:38 via artnews.com
  Her work was previously shown in New York by Jane Lombard Gallery.Read More
  
  Read more

• Do Critics Make It Difficult For Non-Traditional Theatre Companies To get Attention?

  08-09-2017 18:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "A Boston critic informed me that my touring theatre company’s productions need to stay in one place for longer in a venue that is “convenient” and “familiar,” otherwise they will not come see or review the show. This ideology not only directly contradicts our mission as a touring theatre company, but it supports the misconception that theatre is only for those who can afford to go to those expensive venues (where it is more costly to produce and thus demands that t
  
  Read more

• Read Reviews by John Ashbery from the ARTnews Archives

  08-09-2017 18:27 via artnews.com
  The poet on Robert Rauschenberg, Frank O'Hara, Joseph Cornell, and more. Read More
  
  Read more

• What Jane Austen Has To Offer Straight Guys

  08-09-2017 18:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  William Deresiewicz, who began his career as an Austen scholar, has spent his adult life dealing with people's surprise (if not more) at his choice of specialty. " Men, in particular, would get this look in their eyes, as if to say, 'What's wrong with you, dude?'", while women often seemed to act as if he was intruding into a domain that was theirs (in a way that, say, George Eliot or Virginia Woolf or the Brontës are not). Here Deresiewicz what it is about Austen that would make women feel
  
  Read more

• Different Visions: In Chicago, a Scholarly Show Examines Gauguin’s Complicated Legacy

  08-09-2017 17:36 via artnews.com
  The Art Institute is showing “Gauguin: Artist as Alchemist” through September 10. Read More
  
  Read more

• The Oldest Jazz Band On The Planet Plays On In Shanghai

  08-09-2017 17:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Its six wizened members range from a relatively youthful 63 to a scarcely believable 97-year-old trumpeter. Jazz is more readily associated with New Orleans or New York than Shanghai, but the Chinese city has its own proud jazz heritage that flickers on. The Peace Hotel, completed in 1929 and a prime example of art deco architecture on Shanghai’s historic riverside Bund area, is in many ways central to it.
  
  Read more

• The Ten Greatest Hal Prince Broadway Productions, Ranked

  08-09-2017 17:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Rachel Shukert: "It's easy for such a list to seem like a list of the ten best Broadway musicals, period. Prince's contribution to the American theater is so vast, so elemental, that it feels a little bit like ranking the ten best colors. A case can be made that green is a better color than yellow, but without both of them, the rainbow as we know it would cease to exist. Still, I'm always up for a challenge, particularly one that will engage and perhaps, enrage, the show-biz multiverse known as
  
  Read more

• Was This Man The Mahler Of Mexico?

  08-09-2017 16:35 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Silvestre Revueltas "wasn't exactly a nationalist; folk music didn't much interest him. He did, however, relish the popular idioms of his land. His music may call to mind Stravinsky at certain times, Mahler at others, as well as Bartók and Edgard Varèse, yet pulsing through its pages are the soulful sounds of the bands playing across the Mexican countryside, in villages and on ranches. This isn't fusion so much as it is a celebration of both high and low, the refined and the rustic
  
  Read more

• The Next Show From The Folks Behind 'Sleep No More' Will Be Six Hours Long, Performed For Two People At A Time

  08-09-2017 16:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Kabeiroi, which the company Punchdrunk says is a "theatrical adventure" inspired by the surviving fragments of Aeschylus's play of that name, will require each pair of audience members (no singletons allowed) to travel to various venues around London (transit fare not included) and spend much of the time outdoors and/or on their feet. Warning: "This production is not suitable for women at any stage of pregnancy [or] individuals who are claustrophobic or have a nervous disposition."
  
  Read more

• How To Present A Ballerina Her Bouquet Without Tripping And Falling (Or Stealing Her Focus)

  08-09-2017 15:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "In the world of classical ballet, the presentation of flowers to the lead ballerinas is a carefully choreographed ritual, one steeped in tradition and rules, and perfected by decades of practice. It's also a study in contrasts, as ushers with no stage experience must walk across the stage to meet the most graceful of performers at center stage. What could go wrong?" You'd be surprised. Peggy McGlone talks with ushers at the Kennedy Center who do it.
  
  Read more

• Detroit Hires A 'Chief Storyteller', The First In Any U.S. City

  08-09-2017 15:17 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "The $75,000 position ... was conceived to give Detroiters a way to connect and discuss issues that don't get covered by the city's traditional media" - i.e., something other than ruin porn or comeback boosterism. The person named to the job is popular journalist Aaron Foley, author of How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass.
  
  Read more

• Photographer Stripped Of Award Because She Submitted Somebody Else's Work

  08-09-2017 15:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Madeleine Josephine Fierz of Switzerland won a gold medal at the Moscow International Foto Awards for a series of images of young Thais which she titled "I look at the world with the eyes of a child." Turns out they were the work of a Thai photographer, and Fierze downloaded them from Pixabay.
  
  Read more

• Morning Links: BHQFU Is Dead Edition

  08-09-2017 15:00 via artnews.com
  Here's what we're reading this morning. Read More
  
  Read more

• Pierre Bergé, 86, Co-Founder Of Yves Saint-Laurent And Powerful Arts Patron

  08-09-2017 14:46 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "His ambitions carried him far from fashion into the worlds of politics and culture. Though his clients were mostly rich and conservative, he was a staunch supporter of the Socialist Party, a contributor to liberal causes and a patron and arbiter of literature, theater and music." President Mitterand appointed Bergé head of the Paris Opera, where his six-year tenure was stormy even by the standards of that notoriously contentious institution.
  
  Read more

• Keith Haring Mural In Paris Saved From Wrecking Ball, Restored

  08-09-2017 14:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Haring had assumed that his South Philadelphia mural would disappear, and it hasn't. For this 88½-foot mural, it was the opposite: "I made this painting to amuse the sick children in this hospital, now and in the future," he wrote in his diary - but by 2011 it had deteriorated badly, and the hospital was going to demolish it as part of an expansion. Roslyn Sulcas recounts how the piece, called Tower, was rescued.
  
  Read more

• The Winner Of The 2017 Carbuncle Cup Is -

  08-09-2017 14:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  the one we here thought was the least bad of the finalists. (We agree with the vast majority - 78% - of Building Design readers, who chose a different candidate.) But the judges' votes for the UK's worst building of the year went to a development near London's Victoria Station; one judge describes it as "two large blocks sliced and diced to create to create a series of angular volumes drunkenly leaning on each other ... [with] a headache-inducing moiré pattern when viewed from the side."
  
  Read more

• South Florida Museums Hunker Down Ahead Of Hurricane Irma

  08-09-2017 14:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "The Perez Art Museum Miami, The Wolfsonian—FIU, ICA Miami, Dimensions Variable, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, and Faena Art all announced they would be closed on Wednesday and remain shut through the weekend." Fortunately, several of these museums were specifically built to withstand extreme weather.
  
  Read more

• Kate Millett, Author Of 'Sexual Politics', Dead At 82

  08-09-2017 13:44 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Dr. Millett was a contemporary of Gloria Steinem's - the Ms. Magazine co-founder was six months her senior - and along with Steinem became a driving force behind feminism's 'second wave' that transformed the movement in the 1960s and 1970s."
  
  Read more

• 'No one laughed at me dancing in the mosh pit' – readers' festival stories

  08-09-2017 13:30
  With Dorset’s Bestival signalling the end of the UK’s summer festival season this weekend, we asked you for your favourite sights and sounds this time round Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Brussels' La Monnaie Opera House Finally Reopens - With A Brand-New Opera That Brought The House Down (Figuratively)

  08-09-2017 13:29 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The grand old theater shut down for renovations two summers ago; the work was supposed to take only one season, and the extra year of delays forced the company to (literally) put up a tent to perform in. Now the company has come back to its home stage with a brand-new work about which Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim writes, "It's undeniable: Philippe Boesmans' Pinocchio is a hit."
  
  Read more

• Henri Matisse’s The Moorish Screen: art like a good armchair

  08-09-2017 13:00
  This early work is from his prolific Nice period, when he eschewed a more abstract style for one where the eroticism erupts in pattern as much as in fleshThe Moorish Screen inevitably calls to mind that famed Matisse quote about art being like a good armchair where “the businessman as well as the man of letters” can relax. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Stephen Friedman Gallery Now Represents Lisa Brice and Channing Hansen

  08-09-2017 11:00 via artnews.com
  Both artists had solo shows at the gallery earlier this year. Read More
  
  Read more

• Top Posts From AJBlogs 09.07.17

  08-09-2017 10:56 via feedproxy.google.com
  Berserk in the Berkshires: Museum’s Perverse Plan Underscores Need for Government Regulations
  The sad saga of the Berkshire Museum’s descent into madness — its wrongheaded, self-destructive obsession with solving its financial problems by selling off the best works in its collection — reaffirms my long-held conviction that strict laws and/or ironclad ... read more
  AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-09-07Jazz on Millennium Park&
  
  Read more

• Rachel Whiteread and Antony Gormley: this week’s best UK exhibitions

  08-09-2017 10:30
  Abstract, spooky works come to the Tate Britain, while Cyberman-style statues are placed in the sea off two south coast townsThe ghostly power of Whiteread’s casts is one of modern British art’s wonders. Her sculptures – preserving the shapes of lost objects – combine the authority of abstraction with the spookiness of Victorian photographs. Her work has a poetic intensity that has not diminished since she created her now-demolished public sculpture House in 1993. It is v
  
  Read more

• The Immigrant Experience, Told In Six Words

  08-09-2017 00:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Junot Diaz, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Gary Shteyngart, Madeleine Albright, David Henry Hwang, and others share their (very succinct) stories.
  
  Read more

Follow @ArtsUKnews on Twitter!