Arts news

• In Contentious Hearing, Lawyers Battle Over Berkshire Museum Sell-Off

  01-11-2017 22:19 via artnews.com
  The judge in the case, John A. Agostini, seemed skeptical as to whether any of the plaintiffs attempting to halt the sale had standing to sue. Read More
  
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• Why We Want To Assign Blame For Natural Events

  01-11-2017 20:56 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “When weird things happen, we still crave the sense of control we get from believing that there’s a reason, that they lay bare the good and evil in society. The human toll of natural disasters tells a story of collective apathy that allows a famine to unfold; corporate greed and unchecked development causes a flood. When nature throws something unexpected our way – as it did to us here in Houston, when I was writing this article from the island that used to be my neighbourhood
  
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• Gordon Matta-Clark at Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin

  01-11-2017 20:36 via artnews.com
  See images from one notable show every weekday. Read More
  
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• Is There A Role For The Essay In The Era Of Social Media?

  01-11-2017 20:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “I’m modestly encouraged by how many readers nowadays pay attention to voices – Rebecca Solnit, Maggie Nelson, Olivia Laing – you would have to call essayistic. It turns out that readers are still well able to engage with works of nonfiction that address the world urgently and at the same time try to reimagine what this venerable form, the essay, may be capable of doing in artistic terms.”
  
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• Andrew Durbin Named Senior Editor for the Americas at Frieze Magazine

  01-11-2017 20:17 via artnews.com
  He was previously the director of New York's Company Gallery. Read More
  
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• Michael Jackson Is The Top-Earning Dead Celebrity Of 2017

  01-11-2017 20:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Jackson is atop the Forbes list of top-earning dead celebrities for the fifth straight year, with $75 million. Forbes says Jackson’s earnings are boosted by a new greatest hits album, a Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil show and a stake in the EMI music publishing catalogue.
  
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• Edinburgh To Close Famous Music School. And Why?

  01-11-2017 19:32 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The local authority hopes to save as much as £383,000 through the closure of the school, which helped launch the early musical careers of Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson and Celtic fusion star Martyn Bennett.
  
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• The Stolen Medieval Manuscript That Was Returned In The Mail 50 Years Later

  01-11-2017 19:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Here's the story of the Luneborch Prayer Book, a beautiful 15th-century illuminated manuscript in Low German that went missing from the Peabody Library in Baltimore around 1962 - and that an unknown somebody mailed back in 2012.
  
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• LA Phil’s New Principal Guest Conductor Makes An Entrance

  01-11-2017 18:32 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  It is rare enough with American orchestras to appoint a principal guest. The reason for the post more often than not is to fill in something lacking in a music director. The last time the L.A. Phil had principal guests was three decades ago, when it brought in the especially versatile and tuned-in young conductors Michael Tilson Thomas and Simon Rattle to complement an old master, Carlo Maria Giulini. In the case of Mälkki, the natural first reaction may be that she’s a woman. While A
  
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• ADAA Foundation Gives Grants to Four Museums for Exhibitions and Research

  01-11-2017 18:26 via artnews.com
  The winners are the Aldrich Contemporary institutions at Indiana University, Vassar College, and Emory University. Read More
  
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• Donald Bain, 82, One Of America's Best-Selling Ghostwriters

  01-11-2017 18:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Among the more than 100 books he (actually) authored were Margaret Truman's Capital Crimes, the Murder, She Wrote books that were a spinoff of the TV series, and the notorious 1967 faux-memoir Coffee, Tea, or Me?, which purported to be the true-life escapades of a pair of swinging stewardesses (as they were called back then).
  
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• Philip Glass, The Ultimate Collaborator

  01-11-2017 17:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  For all a director’s authority, film is the most collaborative art form, and Glass is surely the most collaborative artist in history. His dozens of movies are only a small part of his prolific output, which includes music for well over 50 operas, dance works and music theater pieces; 11 symphonies; hoards of concertos and other orchestra and chamber pieces. All that and the reams of music for the Philip Glass Ensemble, which he founded 49 years ago and is still going strong, as it demonst
  
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• Sarah Polley's 20-Year Journey To Adapt Margaret Atwood's 'Alias Grace'

  01-11-2017 17:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Today, Polley is an auteur whose movies - Away From Her, Take This Waltz, and the autobiographical Stories We Tell - form a sort of three-part meditation on female restlessness, the complexity of long-term relationships, and the slipperiness of memory and truth. But back when she first tried to option the rights to Alias Grace at age 18 - as a well-regarded young actress with no filmmaking experience - Atwood turned her down. "
  
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• Why Is Academic Artspeak So Dense?

  01-11-2017 16:34 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Let's stop pretending this language reflects ‘research.’ Let the reader decide whether an idea is plausible or implausible by explaining it, not by presenting it as established fact. Let's have an end to academic artspeak – and while we're at it, start letting art speak for itself.”
  
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• How Bang On A Can Opened The Floodgates For The Alt-Classical Music

  01-11-2017 16:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  In Part II of an extended profile of the new-music powerhouse (see Part I here), Allan Kozinn gives an overview of the now-renowned composers and ensembles that Bang on a Can spawned and/or nurtured - not to mention a record label, a summer festival (popularly referred to as "Banglewood"), an educational program, and an avant-garde marching band - and considers the changes that the Bangers wrought in the entire U.S. musical ecosystem.
  
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• Re-Tooling Diaghilev's Most Radical Ballet For 2017

  01-11-2017 15:35 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Parade was advertised as the world’s first cubist ballet - mostly in deference to Picasso's designs, but also as a way of explaining the comic, disconnected logic of its fairground scenario and the clash of musical styles and found noise (pistol shots, sirens) in Satie's score. ... But for National Dance Company Wales (NDCW), it is Diaghilev's relation to the Russian revolution that has provided the starting point of its show P.A.R.A.D.E." Judith Mackrell has a look.
  
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• Harold Pinter's Widow Finds Unknown Play - And Prints It In The Guardian

  01-11-2017 15:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Antonia Fraser: "I did something I've never done before. I scribbled some notes on a page from one of Harold's yellow legal pads because I was waiting for a taxi to go to Mass, and too lazy to go upstairs. ... When I had written the note, I stripped off the yellow page. Then I nearly fainted. Beneath lay Harold's unforgettable handwriting - although rather frail - and a title: 'The Pres and the Officer'. Six pages followed, his handwriting getting noticeably stronger." (includes complete script)
  
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• An Opera Built On Sounds Too Low For Us To Hear

  01-11-2017 14:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "For most of the work's duration, twenty-four subwoofers, placed with their cones pointed upward, emit electronic tones that vibrate at a frequency of 10.67 hertz, or around ten oscillations per second. ... Human ears can't detect sounds much below twenty hertz, but you register their presence all the same. ... The body is listening even when the ears tune out." Alex Ross checks out Ashley Fure's "opera for objects," The Force of Things.
  
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• After 91 Years, New York City's Notorious Cabaret Law Is Repealed

  01-11-2017 14:17 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "A nearly century-old law that turned New York bars into no-dancing zones, prevented singers like Billie Holiday and Ray Charles from performing and drew protest from Frank Sinatra, is finally set to be struck down."
  
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• Man Behind 'Hamilton' Ticket Ponzi Scheme Pleads Guilty To Securities Fraud'

  01-11-2017 14:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Five other charges related to the pyramid scheme have been dismissed. The development comes just days after [Joseph] Meli's attorneys at Kasowitz Benson Torres - notable for its extensive connections with President Donald Trump - brought a motion to suppress evidence based on alleged government misconduct."
  
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• Morning Links: One Millionth Visitor Edition

  01-11-2017 14:00 via artnews.com
  Here's what we're reading this morning. Read More
  
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• They're Finally Breaking Ground On DC's Contentious Eisenhower Memorial

  01-11-2017 13:46 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "After 17 years of soap opera-like drama - including villains, family squabbles and money problems - the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial has reached its happily-ever-after stage. ... Ushering any construction project through Washington's bureaucracy is never quick or easy, but the Eisenhower Memorial journey suffered multiple setbacks, most focused on architect Frank Gehry's modern design, unveiled in 2010."
  
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• 'Today's Gossip Is Tomorrow's News' - Amid The Sexual Harassment Firestorm, A We-Told-You-So By The Founder Of Gawker

  01-11-2017 13:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Nick Denton: "The headlines are shocking - unless you read Gawker before it was shut down ... Those first accounts of sexual harassment - even if anonymous or thinly sourced - give confidence to victims that they are not alone. Gossip, though it draws those motivated by envy and resentment, is also a tool of the powerless."
  
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• NPR's Chief Of News Put On Leave Following Sexual Harassment Accusations

  01-11-2017 13:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "NPR has placed its senior vice president for news, Michael Oreskes, on leave after fielding accusations that he sexually harassed two women seeking career opportunities nearly two decades ago, when he worked at The New York Times. ... Meanwhile, a current NPR employee is going public with her account of filing a formal complaint with the network's human resources division in October 2015."
  
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• A Seaside Pier Wins 2017 Stirling Prize For Architecture

  01-11-2017 13:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Nicknamed 'The Plank', De Rijke Marsh Morgan's stark wooden wonder [in the English Channel town of Hastings] - using timber reclaimed from previous fires - was praised for changing 'the idea of what architecture is'."
  
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• Netflix Suspends 'House Of Cards' Production Following Abuse Allegations Against Kevin Spacey

  01-11-2017 12:44 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Production on the final season of House of Cards was suspended Tuesday, two days after its star, Kevin Spacey, was accused of having made an unwanted sexual advance toward a 14-year-old boy [actor Anthony Rapp] in the 1980s."
  
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• Germany's Far-Right Populist Party Sues Documenta, Alleging Financial Malfeasance

  01-11-2017 12:29 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "After narrowly averting bankruptcy, documenta's troubles continue. Last week, the far-right [Alternativ für Deutschland] faction of Kassel's city council brought a lawsuit against the quinquennial for alleged misappropriation of funds and other offenses."
  
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• David Zwirner Sets New Hong Kong Opening Date, Hires Leo Xu and Jennifer Yum as Directors

  01-11-2017 08:30 via artnews.com
  The Annabelle Selldorf–designed space will open in January with a Michaël Borremans exhibition. Read More
  
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• Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.31.17

  01-11-2017 02:14 via feedproxy.google.com
  From Mileposts to Through Line
  Mileposts are those small signs we see (or, usually, ignore) as we speed along the interstate that indicate how far we’ve travelled. It’s only in the rarest instances that anyone pays them any attention. ... read more
  >AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-10-31Deaccession Obsession: AG Enters the Fray; Compendium of My Berkshire Museum Commentary
  As I reported Monday on my Twitter feed (while I was traveling and off-blog), the
  
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• Why MTT Is Retiring From The SF Symphony (A Q&A)

  01-11-2017 02:08 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "Almost my entire adult life I've been the music director of some organization or another. I have volumes and volumes of almost-completed compositions and stories and poems and collections and all sorts of things. For years I've been thinking that if I'm going to be able to devote time to making sure that these things are in good shape before I'm outta here, this would be a kind of good moment to think about doing that."
  
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• Michael Tilson Thomas To Step Down From San Francisco Symphony

  01-11-2017 02:08 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  "The move ... is scheduled to coincide with both the end of Thomas' 25th season at the organization's helm [in the summer of 2020] and his 75th birthday in December 2019. He will remain with the Symphony in the newly created post of music director laureate, conducting at least four weeks each year and undertaking a variety of special programming projects."
  
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