Arts news

• Can Data Predict Hit Songs?

  11-10-2022 23:28 via theconversation.com
  Spotify metrics we studied — including acousticness, danceability, duration, energy, explicitness, instrumentalness, liveness, speechiness (a measure of the presence of spoken words in a song), tempo and release year — were not strong predictors of the song’s popularity. – The Conversation
  
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• How Status Drives Cultural Change

  11-10-2022 23:01 via tinyurl.com
  To maintain their positions, the normals conform to social conventions, even as they aspire to higher status. Individuals’ decisions about when to switch from one convention to a new one drive cultural changes. – Wall Street Journal
  
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• Petition Asks For Repatriation Of The Rosetta Stone

  11-10-2022 22:28 via news.artnet.com
  Launched in September, the campaign urges Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly to submit an official request for the return of the stone and 16 other artifacts removed from the country by illegal or unethical means. The document has already amassed more than 2,500 signatures. – Artnet
  
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• Angela Lansbury, 96

  11-10-2022 22:22 via nytimes.com
  Lansbury was the winner of five Tony Awards for her starring performances on the New York stage, from “Mame” in 1966 to “Blithe Spirit” in 2009, when she was 83, a testament to her extraordinary stamina. Yet she appeared on Broadway only from time to time over a seven-decade career. – The New York Times
  
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• ‘It’s about ethics’: Nigeria urges British Museum to follow US and repatriate bronzes

  11-10-2022 22:19
  Culture minister says UK institution ‘should learn from what has happened’ as Smithsonian returns 29 Benin artefactsThe culture minister of Nigeria has urged the British Museum to follow the example of the Smithsonian Institution, which on Tuesday returned ownership of 29 Benin bronzes to Nigeria at a celebratory event in Washington.Lai Mohammed praised the move by the US National Museum of African Art, which follows a recent restitution agreement with Germany that included the hando
  
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• The Booker Has Brought Back The Short-Form Book

  11-10-2022 22:01 via spectator.co.uk
   How refreshing it was to see the Booker prize take another turn last month ­– putting the short in shortlist, as it were – with a record-breakingly succinct nominee: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan is just 116 pages.  The Spectator
  
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• Guerrilla Artists In Toronto Turn Derelict Parts Of The City Into Critique Of The Mayor

  11-10-2022 22:01 via theguardian.com
  Ahead of Toronto’s municipal election in late October, plaques like those normally found in an art museum have sprung up across the city, in an exercise in guerrilla criticism that laments a city in decline – and skewers its mayor, John Tory, for what it describes as the policies of austerity and complacency. – The Guardian
  
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• Paris Gallery Charged With Stealing Hundreds Of Picassos

  11-10-2022 21:28 via theartnewspaper.com
  The gallerist Anne Pfeffer and her husband Herbert, stand accused of concealing hundreds of works stolen from the daughters of Jacqueline Picasso and the art dealer Aimé Maeght. – The Art Newspaper
  
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• How The Acousticians Went About Fixing David Geffen Hall

  11-10-2022 21:03 via newyorker.com
  Rivka Galchen Looks into the development of acoustical engineering as a craft (which goes all the way back to Chichén Itzá and Hagia Sophia) and how Christopher Blair and Paul Scarbrough of the firm Akustiks approached the challenge of a venue that had seemed acoustically cursed. – The New Yorker
  
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• Typos and shutdowns: robot ‘gives evidence’ to Lords committee

  11-10-2022 20:28
  Ai-Da, described as ‘world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist’, struggles at times to answer peers’ questionsIn a groundbreaking hearing, a robot “gave evidence” to a House of Lords committee on Tuesday – where it read typos from its pre-written script, struggled to hear questions, and needed to be rebooted halfway through the session.“Ai-Da”, described by its creator, Aiden Meller, as “the world’s first ultra-realistic robot ar
  
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• Does How Much You Feel Music Correspond To Your Capacity For Empathy?

  11-10-2022 20:28 via psyche.co
  Most people don’t often think about the relationship between empathy and musical experiences, but there is good reason to. – Psyche
  
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• Ballroom Dance Was Created By And For Prancing Aristocrats.  How Did It Get To Be Part Of Popular Culture?

  11-10-2022 20:02 via nationalgeographic.com
  “Although ballrooms were once the territory of the elite and considered off-limits for common people, in the upheaval of the 19th century, new types of dance steps were born. … Here’s how some of the most famous moves got their start — and were passed on to modern dancers.” – National Geographic
  
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• UK To Audit Brexit Arts Festival. Did Anybody Come?

  11-10-2022 19:32 via bbc.com
  The UK-wide free event, which began in March and will run until November, features 10 projects highlighting science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics. But the government’s “celebration of creativity” was soon dubbed the Festival of Brexit, and has since had its visitor numbers questioned. – BBC
  
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• Ukrainians Are Making Video Games About Russia’s Invasion

  11-10-2022 19:04 via theguardian.com
  In one game, the player is a Ukrainian tractor driver stealing Russian tanks; in another, she slaps Putin with a sunflower; in another ,he shoots the free-floating heads of prominent Russians (plus Elon Musk).  One game just has the player walk around Kharkiv talking with other survivors. – The Guardian
  
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• The Importance Of Argument

  11-10-2022 18:31 via bostonreview.net
  Once we start thinking of ethics as a social technology, systematicity and argument take on a different hue. It’s hard to be all that piecemeal or poetic when thinking about how to organize social institutions. We may live by our visions, but they can’t write our social policy. – Boston Review
  
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• He Was The Bestselling Poet In American History.  He’s Totally Forgotten Now.  What Happened With Rod McKuen?

  11-10-2022 18:01 via slate.com
  “Rod McKuen sold millions of poetry books in the 1960s and 1970s. He was a regular on late-night TV. He released dozens of albums, wrote songs for Sinatra, and was nominated for two Oscars.” (He was also an astounding liar.)  How did he disappear from the culture so completely? – Slate
  
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• Can We Build Reusable Buildings?

  11-10-2022 17:32 via nytimes.com
  The emphasis has shifted to designing structures whose components can be disassembled and developing new, bio-based materials that can eventually be composted. “We should design man-made objects and products in such a way that we’re not destroying the resources.” – The New York Times
  
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• A Leading Philadelphia Indie Theatre Company Has A New Artistic Director

  11-10-2022 17:03 via inquirer.com
  “Inis Nua Theatre Co., a Philadelphia-based company that draws its material from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, has named longtime Philly theater director Kathryn ‘KC’ MacMillan as artistic director. MacMillan doesn’t hesitate answering the obvious question about Inis Nua.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
  
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• Artist Billy Al Bengston, A Leader Of L.A.’s “Cool School” Artists, Is Dead At 88

  11-10-2022 16:35 via news.yahoo.com
  “Pop art was just emerging and Bengston spoke its language well with his simple, aesthetically direct and repetitive motifs. His shiny, heavily lacquered surfaces also earned him associations with ‘finish fetish.’ But it was his flamboyant personality … that came to define him.” – Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
  
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• Europe’s Fuel Crisis Is Crippling Venice’s Murano Glassmakers

  11-10-2022 16:02 via news.artnet.com
  The high temperatures necessary for glassmaking require huge amounts of natural gas, whose price has soared by well over 1,000% since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  About four-fifths of Venice’s glassmaking facilities have closed for the time being, with the remainder struggling. – Artnet
  
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• John Cleese of Monty Python To Host Show On Britain’s Equivalent Of Fox News

  11-10-2022 15:34 via bbc.com
  Cleese’s as-yet-untitled show on GB News, shared with satirist Andrew Doyle, will presumably be part of his notorious ongoing campaign against “wokeness” and “cancel culture” and in favor of “free speech.”  (“The Ministry of Silly Wokes?” quips The Hollywood Reporter.) – BBC
  
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• Innovative Arrangement Will Restore Ownership Of Ancient Artworks To Greece While Displaying Them At The Met Museum

  11-10-2022 15:01 via nytimes.com
  The deal involves the collection of antiquities from the Cyclades islands assembled by philanthropist Leonard Stern: the objects will be legally in the possession of an art foundation overseen by the Greek culture ministry, with a rotating selection of items on 10-year loans to the Met. – The New York Times
  
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• Journalist Grace Glueck, Who Pioneered News Reporting On The Art World, Is Dead At 96

  11-10-2022 14:33 via artnews.com
  Starting at a time when American journalism about the visual arts was strictly by critics, she treated it as a new beat, writing more than 3,000 articles for The New York Times — where she also helped lead a landmark gender discrimination lawsuit against the paper. – ARTnews
  
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• One Week La Scala Packed A 5,000-Seat Sports Arena. The Next, It Barely Half-Filled A Theatre.  Why?

  11-10-2022 14:05 via gramilano.com
  It’s not about COVID fears.  The difference between the two events was as simple as could be: price. – Gramilano (Milan)
  
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• Giving Tuesday Is Coming - Just Another Gimmick?

  11-10-2022 14:01 via artsjournal.com
  I know. The latest data shows that Giving Tuesday is responsible for about .056% of your donations this year. And while that doesn’t sound like much, if it were multiplied by 365, you find that it is 20 times the daily rate necessary to reach your contributed revenue goals.
  But let’s take another look at that data.
  Your organization already has days where donations are higher and lower. And you’re not open for business 365 days a year, despite the fact that your website be
  
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• Cerith Wyn Evans brings his neon-lit art home to Wales

  11-10-2022 13:00
  Hepworth prize winner’s works have been shown around the world and now arrive in LlandudnoHis twisty neon installations and glittering towers of light are frequently shown in some of the world’s most exclusive galleries in New York, Mexico City, Tokyo and Shanghai.For his first major solo show in his home country of Wales, Cerith Wyn Evans’ work is on display in the traditional surroundings of a gallery built in Edwardian times in the resort of Llandudno, best known for its old
  
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• Barbara Chase-Riboud: ‘The so-called culture war has nothing to do with culture’

  11-10-2022 09:00
  The artist danced with James Baldwin, was helped by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and sculpted Malcolm X. Now she’s received the only honour she ever wantedBarbara Chase-Riboud is listing the only three Black American women to have ever been awarded the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest order of merit: “There’s Josephine Baker, there’s Dr Ruth Simmons, who was the president of Brown University, and there’s me.”As a sculptor, novelist, poet and
  
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• Public spending watchdog to investigate ‘festival of Brexit’

  11-10-2022 07:00
  NAO to examine £120m Unboxed project after MPs call it an ‘irresponsible use of public money’It was Jacob Rees-Mogg who christened it a festival of Brexit – a moniker that might well have cursed it from the beginning.Announced by Theresa May in the aftermath of Britain’s referendum on EU membership, and supposedly inspired by the 1851 Great Exhibition and 1951’s Festival of Britain, the then prime minister heralded a programme of events to be held this year to
  
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• Jürgen Wittdorf: Berlin gallery revives homoerotic art of communist era

  11-10-2022 06:00
  In what would have been artist’s 90th year, first retrospective at Biesdorf Palace has been a surprise successSeven men wash the sweat off their toned bodies in a communal shower. Unless you squint and mistake a tightly gripped bar of soap for something else, their limbs are suspended in tantalising proximity but never quite touch.The German artist Jürgen Wittdorf’s 1963 linocut print, from a series titled Youth and Sport, may look like something out of a top-shelf graphic novel
  
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• Director of Performing Arts, Guild Hall

  11-10-2022 04:15 via artsjournal.com
  BACKGROUNDGuild Hall is the cultural heart of the East End, a cross-disciplinary performance, exhibition, and education center with almost a century of history. One of the first multidisciplinary centers in the country, Guild Hall was established in 1931 as a gathering place for community where an appreciation for the arts would serve to encourage greater civic participation. More than 60,000 visitors enjoy the 150+ programs at Guild Hall each year; everyone is invited to experience the endless
  
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• Glasgow Clubs Are Using Dancers’ Body Heat To Save Power

  11-10-2022 00:01 via theguardian.com
  Officially launched on 6 October, Bodyheat is installed across two of the largest event spaces within the SWG3 complex – Galvanizers and TV Studio – as well as in its lobby. A sold-out gig in Galvanizers – which has a capacity of 1,250 – could generate 800 kilowatt hours in heat. – The Guardian
  
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