Arts news

• Where Threats To Academic Freedom Are

  28-04-2021 22:58 via feedproxy.google.com
  The example of Socrates has always been both an inspiration and a warning. Heterodox gadflies tend to get swatted. In the 21st century, however, academic freedom’s most determined adversaries are inside rather than outside academia. – Claremont Review of Books
  
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• The Rise Of Group Curation — A New Model?

  28-04-2021 22:29 via feedproxy.google.com
  ‘We believe in a polyphonic time. Essentially the problem has been about dominant narratives and to get a much wider perspective. It is appropriate today that it is less about a single authorial model and more a collaborative research endeavour. Everything in the world at the moment is leaning towards learning from each other and bring together different expertise and knowledge.’ – Arts Hub
  
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• AI Routinely Misreads Emotion In Human Faces. Should We Worry?

  28-04-2021 22:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  Today affect-recognition tools can be found in national-security systems and at airports, in education and hiring start-ups, in software that purports to detect psychiatric illness and policing programs that claim to predict violence. The claim that a person’s interior state can be accurately assessed by analyzing that person’s face is premised on shaky evidence. – The Atlantic
  
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• A Philip Roth Bio Is Canceled — A Sea Change In Whether Books Are Published?

  28-04-2021 21:29 via feedproxy.google.com
  “I think this week marks a sea change in publishers’ interest in their authors’ behavior. The cancellation of Bailey’s books came just a day after news broke that hundreds of employees at Simon & Schuster have submitted a petition demanding that the publisher cancel its two-book deal with former vice president Mike Pence and refuse to sign any additional contracts with members of the Trump administration.” – Washington Post
  
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• Back From The Brink Of Collapse, Australia’s Leading Professional Vocal Ensemble Is Hard At Work

  28-04-2021 21:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  Just two years ago, out of cash, The Song Company entered liquidation bankruptcy; it was rescued by a donor a month later. Then came 2020 and the pandemic, with Australia undergoing unusually strict lockdowns. Those measures worked, and with the country reopening, the ensemble has reorganized itself, started a professional apprenticeship for young singers, and is doing both mainstage programs and “Salon” concerts in small spaces. – Limelight (Australia)
  
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• The Biographer Has Been Accused Of Abuse. Should We Ignore The Book?

  28-04-2021 20:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  “If an artist is a bad person, should that change the way audiences interact with his art? In this particular case, if the author is a rapist, should that change the way we read Philip Roth: The Biography? Arguably, no. A book has an existence apart from its author, a truism that is extra true in the case of biography. When the biographer turns out to be a contemptible human being, his subject comes under suspicion too: What drew the biographer to this guy and not someone else? We owe it
  
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• Honkaku: The Japanese Detective Novels Catching On In English

  28-04-2021 20:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Honkaku translates as ‘orthodox’, and refers to the crafting of fiendishly clever and complex puzzle scenarios – such as a murder in a locked bedroom – that can only be solved through logical deduction. … Honkaku stories have more in common with a game of chess than some modern thrillers, which can be filled with surprise twists and sudden reveals. In honkaku, everything is transparent, … giving the reader a fair chance of solving the mystery before
  
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• Big Bump In UK Book Sales In 2020

  28-04-2021 19:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  UK consumer book sales climbed 7% to £2.1bn last year as people “rediscovered their love of reading” in lockdown, the industry body says. – BBC
  
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• The Forgotten Female Playwrights (150 Of Them!) Of 17th- and 18th-Century France

  28-04-2021 19:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Now a growing movement within French theater is reclaiming the work of forgotten female artists, and reviving a lost concept along the way: le matrimoine. Matrimoine is the feminine equivalent of patrimoine — translated as patrimony, or what is inherited from male ancestors. In French, however, patrimoine is also the catchall term to describe cultural heritage. By way of matrimoine, artists and academics are pushing for the belated recognition of women’s contribution to art h
  
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• Family of late Samsung chair offload Picassos and Dalís to cut inheritance tax bill

  28-04-2021 18:42
  
  Relatives of Lee Kun-hee to donate 23,000 artworks to South Korean national museumsThe family of the late Samsung Electronics chair Lee Kun-hee have said they will pay more than 12tn won (£7.8bn) in inheritance tax and donate his collection of more than 23,000 artworks – including pieces by Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Jean-Michel Basquiat and one of Claude Monet’s water lilies paintings – to South Korean national museums.Lee, who is credited with transforming Sam
  
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• Liam Scarlett, Death, And How The Dance World Deals With Scandal

  28-04-2021 18:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Scarlett’s death raises many issues. Foremost has been a widespread unease about the way that many dance companies in recent years have seemed to hush up various scandals or crises that purportedly involve a range of alarming sexual matters, heterosexual and homosexual, adult and under-age, on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as cases of violent assault.” – Alastair Macaulay
  
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• Why Viewers With Thousands Of Options Are Choosing To Stream Old TV Series

  28-04-2021 18:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  The Office and The Sopranos were two of the biggest hits of 2020, according to streaming services, which have recently paid hundreds of millions of dollars for exclusive rights to long-off-the-air favorite comedies such as Seinfeld, Friends, The Big Bang Theory, and South Park. Why? The same reason people turn to comfort food: reassurance and the dopamine hit. – BBC
  
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• YouTube On Pace To Be Bigger Media Company Than Netflix

  28-04-2021 17:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  In its first-quarter earnings report Tuesday, Google parent company Alphabet said YouTube brought in revenue of $6.01 billion in advertising revenue during the quarter — up from $4 billion from a year ago, for a growth rate of 49%. That’s an acceleration over its 46% growth in Q4. It’s also nearly twice the growth rate of Netflix, which reported 24% revenue growth in Q1, and expects growth to slow to 19% next quarter. – CNBC
  
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• Indian-American Calls For Paris Opera Ballet To Cancel ‘La Bayadère’

  28-04-2021 17:05 via feedproxy.google.com
  Rajan Zed, an advocate and the founder of the Reno-based Universal Society of Hinduism, has previously called on other companies, including Houston Ballet, the Royal Ballet in London, and, just this month, the Korean National Ballet and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, to remove “this deeply problematic ballet … [and] blatant belittling of a rich civilization” from their repertoires. In his latest statement, he says that “we are well into the 21st ce
  
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• The Birth Of The Paid Claque (Annals Of Opera History)

  28-04-2021 16:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  Back in the early 19th century, “the directors of the Paris Opera saw no reason to leave the success of their performances up to the whims of an unpredictable audience. To guarantee acclaim, they employed the services of an organized body of professional applauders, commonly known as the ‘claque.’ These claqueurs were tucked away throughout the audience, disguised as members of the public.” Why did this profession arise? Well, for roughly the same reason that professiona
  
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• Theodore Lambrinos, Prolific Baritone, Dead Of COVID At 85

  28-04-2021 16:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  A longtime soloist at the Met and a mainstay of New York Grand Opera’s summertime productions in Central Park, “over his 60-year career he gave nearly 800 performances in three dozen countries in opera productions (some 60 roles) and in concerts of arias, Broadway fare and Hellenic songs (a lifelong passion).” – The New York Times
  
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• Using Origami To Create Emergency Shelter For Disasters

  28-04-2021 15:34 via feedproxy.google.com
  A team of applied mathematics specialists at Harvard spent three years of calculations and trial-and-error to design a lightweight plastic structure that’s about the size of a twin mattress when folded but quickly inflates to a stable 8’x8’x8′ octagonal structure — relatively easy to transport in large numbers and quick to erect. – Wired
  
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• Trial Indoor Performance With Audience Of 4,500 Shows Little Indication Of COVID Transmission

  28-04-2021 15:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  The event, a rock concert at an arena in Barcelona on March 27, required attendees to have an antigen test beforehand and to wear masks throughout, but no social distancing was required. Two weeks later, only six audience members (four of whom say they were exposed elsewhere) tested positive for COVID, which extrapolates to half the current infection rate in Barcelona as a whole. – Yahoo! (AP)
  
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• The Jane Austen Museum, Slavery, And The Culture Wars

  28-04-2021 14:35 via feedproxy.google.com
  “This month, the museum, Jane Austen’s House, touched a nerve when its director said that it would include details about Austen and her family’s ties to the slave trade, including the fact that her father was a trustee of a sugar plantation on the Caribbean island of Antigua. … The reaction from the British tabloids was swift.” – The New York Times
  
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• Archaeologists Alarmed By Proposed Renovation At Acropolis

  28-04-2021 14:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Plans for a major renovation project to the western entrance of the Acropolis have met with strong opposition from archaeologists in Greece and across the world. In an open letter to the public, the signatories, including figures from the universities of Oxford, Durham and Brown, called for the cancellation of a project they believe will lead to the ‘devaluation, concealment and degradation of the greatest archaeological and artistic treasure that has been bequeathed to modern Gree
  
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• The smallest gay bar in Leeds: ‘don’t worry, there’s room to dance!’

  28-04-2021 11:31
  
  With queer spaces shrinking at a dramatic rate, artist Lucy Hayhoe’s installation invites you on a night out for one and asks: what makes a place gay?“A gay bar is worth something different to a gay person,” says Lucy Hayhoe, “than a pub is to a straight person.” Responding to the rapid closure of queer spaces over the last decade, the London-based live artist has created a new installation which fits an entire gay bar into a space little larger than a telephone box
  
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• Samsung Founder’s Heirs To Donate Thousands Of Art Works In Inheritance Tax

  28-04-2021 11:29 via feedproxy.google.com
  The Lee family, including his widow and three children, expects to pay more than 12 trillion won ($10.8 billion) in inheritance taxes, which is more than half the wealth Lee held in stocks and real estate, Samsung said Wednesday. This would be the largest amount in South Korea and more than three times the country’s total estate tax revenue for last year. Giving away the late chairman’s vast collection of art masterpieces would reduce the taxable portions of his estate. – Toro
  
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• The Great British Art Tour: joy and heartache of motherhood laid bare on a beach

  28-04-2021 07:00
  
  With public art collections closed we are bringing the art to you, exploring highlights from across the country in partnership with Art UK. Today’s pick: the Royal Academy’s Looking Towards Bexhill by Chantal JoffeChantal Joffe and her daughter Esme are sitting on a beach near to her mother’s house in St Leonard’s. The pair huddle together on the exposed and bracing beachfront. Joffe’s pose feels both tender and fiercely protective as her hand creeps around her daug
  
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• An Argument Against Our Meritocracy

  28-04-2021 00:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  It is obvious that “not everyone is born with the same academic gifts,” deBoer writes, but among teachers and educational officials there is a “prohibition against talking plainly about differences in academic talent.” The “cult of smart”—deBoer defines his title on page five—is “the notion that academic value is the only value, and intelligence the only true measure of human worth.” What we need, instead of our unjust, so-called merit
  
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