Arts news

• Wordle Copycats Are Multiplying. Apple Is Taking Them Down

  14-01-2022 23:31 via wired.com
  
  It’s exceedingly hard to copyright an abstract game mechanic like “guessing five-letter words and giving hints based on correct letters.” – Wired
  
  Read more

• Time To Take Play More Seriously

  14-01-2022 23:01 via bbc.com
  
  “You’re making connections between different parts of the brain which haven’t necessarily been connected before and then you’re repeating it. It’s through this process of repetition that you’re helping to strengthen the connections between these different brain areas.” – BBC
  
  Read more

• Toronto Symphony Picks A New Executive Director

  14-01-2022 22:32 via cleveland.com
  
  Mark Williams currently serves as chief artistic and operations officer of the Cleveland Orchestra, reporting to music director Franz Welser-Most. – The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
  
  Read more

• Hot Topic Du Jour: Why Is Everyone Upset About “Don’t look Up?”

  14-01-2022 22:01 via theatlantic.com
  
  Critics, audiences, and activists have both savaged and praised the movie, and the backlash has highlighted the difficulty of conveying an urgent message with comedy. Has political satire lost its power? Or has reality become so absurd that it’s now beyond parody? – The Atlantic
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• World’s Second Largest Movie Theatre Chain Reports Sharp Rebound In Ticket Sales

  14-01-2022 21:32 via deadline.com
  
  Box office and concession revenues saw significant growth across the second half of 2021. Notably, group performance was at 50% of 2019 levels in July, increasing to 90% in October and with December reaching 88%. – Deadline
  
  Read more

• A Video Of An Egyptian Woman Dancing Went Viral, Her Husband Divorced Her, Her Bosses Fired Her, And All Egypt Is Arguing About It

  14-01-2022 21:02 via aljazeera.com
  
  “The short video of Aya Youssef, a 30-year-old primary school teacher, shot on a mobile phone shows her wearing a headscarf, trousers and a long-sleeved top as she dances alongside colleagues, smiling as she enjoys a river cruise on the Nile.” – Al Jazeera (AFP)
  
  Read more

• Jon Podhoretz Remembers Terry Teachout

  14-01-2022 20:31 via commentary.org
  
  “Terry’s ability to bounce month to month from film noir to the crisis of the symphony orchestra to the talents of Robert Mitchum to the musicality of Nat King Cole to the ever-sticky problem of how and when and whether to separate an artist’s noxious views from his art were the ultimate testament…” – Commentary
  
  Read more

• Rethinking The Entire Subscription Model In The Wake Of The Pandemic

  14-01-2022 20:04 via artshub.com.au
  After having performances cancelled over and over (and if they’re not, performers and programming changing last-minute) — especially in Australia, which has had some of the world’s strictest lockdowns — some groups are trying options beyond the rigid pre-packaged subscription. Here’s a look at some experiments. – Arts Hub (Australia)
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Group Calls On Seattle Art Museum To Treat Homeless People Better

  14-01-2022 19:29 via hyperallergic.com
  
  A collective of anonymous workers called Decolonize SAM is calling for a boycott and demanding the museum stop removing unhoused people from museum property, provide de-escalation training for frontline staff, and other intervention strategies that center around harm-reduction and mutual aid. – Hyperallergic
  
  Read more

• Winter Wassailing Is Having A Comeback

  14-01-2022 19:03 via theguardian.com
  
  Traditionally, wassailing wasn’t just a matter of going house to house at Christmastime, singing and extorting drinks. Crop-blessing wassails in England involved special clothes, marching to an apple orchard by torchlight, yelling to chase away evil spirits, and (yes) singing and drinking. And it’s undergoing a revival. – The Guardian
  
  Read more

• Omicron Is Soaring. Is It Ethical To Go To Concerts?

  14-01-2022 18:32 via msn.com
  Is it a good or an ethical idea to go to a concert in the vortex of this unprecedented surge, what with local hospitals overwhelmed and understaffed and worse certain to come in the next weeks? Like so many questions during the last two years, we don’t have easy answers. – MSN (LATimes)
  
  Read more

• NBC Universal Picks New Audience-Measuring Service

  14-01-2022 18:18 via latimes.com
  
  The company announced today it will use data from iSpot.tv, a Bellevue, Wash.-based company that measures audiences across linear TV and streaming platforms to provide viewing information on the two major events next month. – Los Angeles Times
  
  Read more

• The “Intangible Sludge”: Why Do So Many Movies Have Washed-Out Color These Days?

  14-01-2022 18:01 via vox.com
  
  “Desaturation is not in and of itself bad. It’s a tool that can be used poorly or well. But why is it everywhere now? There’s no one answer to that question, but here are my five best guesses as to what might be behind the desaturation of Hollywood.” – Vox
  
  Read more

• The Pope Is Caught Shopping For CDs. Here’s What’s In His Collection

  14-01-2022 17:32 via catholicsun.org
  
  While it is mostly made up of classical music, it also includes: an old album of Édith Piaf’s greatest hits; Argentine tango tunes, especially by Astor Piazzolla; and a 25-disc collection of Elvis Presley’s Gospel songs, said Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture. – Catholic Sun
  
  Read more

• Reassembled Papyrus Fragments Shed Light On The Lives Of Workers Who Built The Pyramids

  14-01-2022 17:05 via historytoday.com
  The fragments are accounts and logbooks from the port from which blocks of white limestone (now long gone) that encased the Great Pyramid were sent to Giza. They record how supplies were loaded and shipped, the size of the crews, how they were fed, etc. – History Today
  
  Read more

• Why Classical Music Folks Should Stay Away From NFTs

  14-01-2022 16:32 via van-magazine.com
  
  Besides the fact that “the NFT market is essentially a game of hot potato: Ditch it before the music stops, or you’re stuck with some lines of code and a hefty financial loss. … The question is whether NFTs are the right medium to encourage connections” between artists and audiences. – Van
  
  Read more

• Wkipedia Editors Decide Not To Classify NFTs As Art (And The Crypto Guys Are Furious)

  14-01-2022 16:04 via news.artnet.com
  
  As one of the six editors who made the decision (the vote was 5-1) put it, “Wikipedia really can’t be in the business of deciding what counts as art or not, which is why putting NFTs, art or not, in their own list makes things a lot simpler.” – Artnet
  
  Read more

• National Gallery In DC Will Close East Building All Spring

  14-01-2022 15:31 via dcist.com
  
  The I.M. Pei-designed wing, which contains the museum’s collection of Modern and contemporary art, will shut down from the end of February through June in order to replace the 23,000-square-foot skylight in the atrium. – DCist
  
  Read more

• Walk into a human body, book dealers’ vandalised treasures and a 2D world – the week in art

  14-01-2022 15:28
  
  Alison Katz gets autobiographical , the V&A recovers images cut from medieval manuscripts and Emily Speed sees life in two dimensions – all in your weekly dispatchWang Gongxin: In-Between
  Multimedia installations that explore by modern means the ancient painterly problems of light and shadow.
  • White Cube Mason’s Yard, London, from 19 January to 12 March. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• The Armorer For “Rust”, Which Had That Fatal Shooting On Set, Sues Supplier For Mixing Live Bullets With Blanks

  14-01-2022 15:03 via cnn.com
  
  Star Alec Baldwin accidentally killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza on October 21 with a prop gun that was supposed to be loaded with dummy ammunition. The film’s armorer is suing PDQ Arm and Prop for false and deceptive labeling and trade practices. – CNN
  
  Read more

• She Gave Her First Piano Recital At Age Four. She’s Releasing A New Album At Age 97.

  14-01-2022 14:30 via bbc.com
  
  Ruth Slenczynska, the last surviving student of Sergei Rachmaninoff, will see her new recording of his music and that of Chopin issued on the Decca label, which first recorded her 66 years ago. – BBC
  
  Read more

• British Theatres Are Reeling From The Losses They Took Over Christmas Panto Season

  14-01-2022 14:05 via theguardian.com
  
  The performances cancelled and ticket prices refunded when performers caught COVID and had to isolate, along with, when the show did go on, the audience capacity restrictions reintroduced as omicron spread, turned the shows theatres count on as cash cows into money pits. – The Guardian
  
  Read more

• The princess and the Caravaggio: bitter dispute rages over Roman villa

  14-01-2022 13:31
  
  ‘It’s like a museum’, says princess caught in inheritance feud over sprawling property in Italian capitalAs legend goes, tossing a coin into the Trevi fountain guarantees a return visit to Rome. When, as a 16-year-old American tourist, Rita Carpenter participated in the ritual and made a wish to one day marry a Roman and live in the Italian capital, little did she know that almost five decades on she would return to marry a prince and home would be a 16th-century villa stuffed
  
  Read more

• AJBlogger And Wall Street Journal Theatre Critic Terry Teachout, 65

  14-01-2022 02:30 via tinyurl.com
  
  Very very sad to announce the death of one of ArtsJournal’s original and most prolific bloggers. – The Wall Street Journal
  
  Read more

• Terry Teachout, 65

  14-01-2022 01:57 via artsjournal.com
  I regret to write that Terry Teachout, one of ArtsJournal’s original bloggers since 2003, has died unexpectedly at his home in New York at the age of 65. The Wall Street Journal, where Terry was the longtime theatre critic, has an obituary here.I will write more about Terry in the days to come. He was a generous and valued friend. Though we spoke rarely, we had an active correspondence over the years and he was one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever known. He will be much misse
  
  Read more

• Claim: UK Government Funding Of Theatre Makes No Sense

  14-01-2022 00:01 via thestage.co.uk
  Even before Covid, the government’s (and Arts Council England’s) approach to the complex private/public ecology of the sector felt confused and outdated. Now, it feels positively antediluvian. – The Stage
  
  Read more

Follow @ArtsUK1 on Twitter!