Arts news

• How Crowdfunding Is Helping Indie Bookstores

  06-12-2021 23:16 via theguardian.com
  
  “There’s been a groundswell of support for indie bookshops. I’m very open and honest online about what it is like to run a bookshop and going through the pandemic, and I think they feel a little bit of ownership. They feel part of a community, and that community has helped us.”- The Guardian
  
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• Actor Declares Himself A Non-Profit

  06-12-2021 22:28 via bbc.com
  
  “There was something quite liberating about going, alright, I’ll put large amounts of money into this or that, because I’ll be able to earn it back again. I’ve essentially turned myself into a social enterprise, a not-for-profit actor.” – BBC
  
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• Achim Borchardt-Hume obituary

  06-12-2021 19:43
  
  Tate Modern curator who introduced exciting contemporary artists to the public and illuminated the work of key historical figures
  Visitors to Tate Modern have been captivated in equal measure by Anicka Yi’s translucent squid-like “aerobe” machines, floating through the cavernous Turbine Hall, and Rodin’s exquisite plaster casts of arms, legs and bodies exhibited in the galleries upstairs.The curator Achim Borchardt-Hume, who has died aged 56, worked on both these recent p
  
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• Missing the point of the Array Collective | Letters

  06-12-2021 18:44
  
  Declan McGonagle challenges Jonathan Jones’s view of the Turner prize-winning art collectiveIt was disappointing to read Jonathan Jones’s patronising pat on the head for the Array Collective after their Turner prize win (‘If only it actually served pints’: our critic on the pub that took the Turner prize, 1 December). Not the first time unconscious colonialism has been evident in metropolitan responses to things Northern Irish.In effect, he was saying “good for you,
  
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• Derek Jarman: Protest! review – ‘Coherence is overrated’

  06-12-2021 18:43
  
  Manchester Art Gallery
  From confrontational paintings about his Aids treatment to the sublime beauty of his film Blue, the late artist, writer gay activist and gardener is revealed in his multifarious, contradictory talentsA film of nothing but a static blue, haunted by voices and a tale of a man going blind, and thinking of buying shoes he will never get a chance to wear – his own will see him through. Self-portraits of a young man, anxious but done with the lightness of Matisse, and anot
  
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• Betsy Bradley review – a childlike cacophony of colour

  06-12-2021 17:59
  
  Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
  Swooping neons, swirling pastels and thick slashes of Yves Klein blue – the 29-year-old artist isn’t trying to teach us about art but experience it The act of chasing rainbows is a childish one. There’s little time in adulthood to stare wistfully out of the window, wondering what magnificent world exists where those glittering colours touch the ground. Betsy Bradley – the 29-year-old artist from the Midlands who is currently enjoying her first sol
  
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• Project Space 13 review – lockdown comedy takes aim at pretentious artworld

  06-12-2021 15:00
  
  A performance artist who cages himself in a New York gallery while society goes to hell in the city outside provides some easy satire“We have lost Gucci!! The Gucci store is down.” That’s an art gallery owner’s lament as anti-lockdown protesters rampage through New York’s chichi SoHo in this microbudget indie directed by Michael M Bilandic. It’s a cheeky satire poking fun at art world pretention, and there’s a reasonable strike rate of digs here. That sa
  
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• ‘Optimism is the only way forward’: the exhibition that imagines our future

  06-12-2021 07:31
  
  At a new exhibition at the reopening of the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, technology and designs for a better future are on displayIf America has stood for anything, it’s surely forward-looking optimism. In New York, Chicago, Detroit and other shining cities, its soaring skyscrapers pointed to the future. But has the bubble burst in the 21st century?“We don’t see ourselves striding toward a better tomorrow,” columnist Frank Bruni wrote in the New York Times la
  
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• Hope on the banks of the Clyde: Cop26 legacy sculpture installed

  06-12-2021 07:00
  
  Artist Steuart Padwick says the child’s arms reach across Glasgow with a simple, positive messageA new public sculpture that calls for optimism about humanity’s response to the climate crisis has been installed in a park once home to Glasgow’s last working coalmine.The Hope Sculpture, featuring an androgynous child placed more than 20 metres high, has been erected on the bank of the Clyde as a permanent reminder of Glasgow’s role as host of the Cop26 climate summit in Nov
  
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• Doug Moran prize 2021: Asher Keddie, Holocaust survivors and ‘ghostly crew’ portraits share major win

  06-12-2021 03:33
  
  For the first time in its 33-year history, the judges couldn’t agree – and awarded Australia’s richest art prize to three paintings insteadFrom Asher Keddie to Warren Ellis: Doug Moran prize finalists – in picturesThree judges in disagreement; three winners.Australia’s richest art prize, the Doug Moran national portrait prize, made history on Monday, awarding $100,000 to three artists, effectively doubling the prize pool to $300,000. Continue reading...
  
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• Doug Moran prize 2021: judges pick three $100,000 winners in unprecedented decision – in pictures

  06-12-2021 00:55
  
  For the first time in its 33-year history, Australia’s richest art prize has been awarded to three artists, after its judges – artist Tim Storrier, emeritus director the Art Gallery of South Australia, Daniel Thomas, and Doug Moran’s son Peter Moran – were split down the middle. The portrait prize, which skipped a year last year, invites original works from Australian artists ‘capturing Australians from all walks of life’, with the prizewinner usually taking h
  
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