Arts news

• How Arts Council England Coerces

  15-02-2024 23:28 via unherd.com
  “A number of programming staff at a major ACE-funded organisation recently described to me how they were investigated by its HR department after inviting a gender-critical artist to speak. Their jobs are now in doubt because they “exposed audiences to dangerous ideas”. – Unherd
  
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• Royal Ontario Museum To Redesign, Make First Floor Free Admission

  15-02-2024 22:59 via msn.com
  “We call it OpenROM, a transformative project that will both literally and figuratively open the museum up even more, creating a thriving cultural and civic hub in the heart of the city and province.” – MSN (CP)
  
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• Like A Switch Flipped: Today’s College Students Have A Reading Comprehension Disability

  15-02-2024 22:31 via slate.com
  
  Now students are intimidated by anything over 10 pages and seem to walk away from readings of as little as 20 pages with no real understanding. Even smart and motivated students struggle to do more with written texts than extract decontextualized take-aways. – Slate
  
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• Judge Throws Out Some Artist Claims Against OpenAI

  15-02-2024 22:01 via theverge.com
  
  In the ruling, Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín threw out claims on vicarious copyright infringement, DMCA violations, negligence, and unjust enrichment. The court did not believe the plaintiffs’ allegations of unlawful business practices and fraudulent conduct related to unfair competition. – The Verge
  
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• The Allure Of The Grand Gesture

  15-02-2024 21:29 via thepointmag.com
  Classic grand gestures from novels and films are defined by a kind of sacrifice: hallmarks include the willingness to be rejected. – The Point
  
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• Quick Study: Cultural Heritage, Arts, and Well-Being Measurement

  15-02-2024 21:13 via artsjournal.com
  
  
  In this episode, we look at innovative arts measurement techniques by the cultural agencies of three countries (UK, Canada, and Australia). A transcript is available on the NEA website.
  
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• With Las Vegas Philharmonic Between Music Directors, Leonard Slatkin Will Fill In

  15-02-2024 21:05 via reviewjournal.com
  
  Donato Cabrera ends his 10-year term as the orchestra’s music director this summer; with no successor yet appointed, Slatkin will serve as Artistic Consultant. (In fact, the Vegas Phil’s executive director hints that there may not be a single music director going forward.) – Las Vegas Review-Journal (third item)
  
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• The Migrant Crisis: Who Gets to Remain & Work in the United States (now & in the future)?

  15-02-2024 21:04 via artsjournal.com
  Please forgive my going somewhat off-topic in this usually art-centric blog, but all professional fields (including the artworld) are impacted
  
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• BodyTraffic Aims To Be LA’s Dance Company

  15-02-2024 20:32 via forbes.com
  For most of its existence BODYTRAFFIC has been better known and more appreciated outside of LA than in its hometown, in great part because LA has not built the infrastructure necessary for dance. – Forbes
  
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• How Hard Is It To Make Animated Characters Cry? Let The Animators Tell You

  15-02-2024 20:02 via msn.com
  “Heaving sobs and effervescent teardrops are the result of the exacting labor of artists who must precisely illustrate, iterate on, time, and log their work on a budget. Making all that controlled effort look spontaneous and, above all, natural is never an easy feat.” – Vulture (MSN)
  
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• A Transformative Calder Gift To The Seattle Art Museum

  15-02-2024 19:31 via artnews.com
  
  Last April, the Shirleys donated 48 works by Alexander Calder to the Seattle Art Museum (SAM). While Calders proliferate in museums across the globe, these are particularly major ones—the group of works was valued at $200 million by a Christie’s higher-up. – ARTnews
  
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• Another San Francisco Theater Has To Do An Emergency Donate-Or-We-Close-Down Campaign

  15-02-2024 19:06 via msn.com
  “Cutting Ball Theater, the 25-year-old company known for form-breaking new plays and rejuvenated classics, … says it needs to raise $45,000 by March 1 and $200,000 by June, out of a $750,000 annual budget, in order to stay open.” – San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
  
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• A Transformative $60 Million Gift To San Francisco Ballet

  15-02-2024 18:32 via nytimes.com
  
  San Francisco Ballet has received a groundbreaking gift: It announced on Thursday that it had secured a $60 million contribution from an anonymous donor, the largest in the company’s 91-year history and one of the biggest ever to an American dance company. – The New York Times
  
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• Meet The Mother Of Contemporary African Dance

  15-02-2024 18:04 via theguardian.com
  
  “Germaine Acogny studied dance at the École Simon-Siégel in Paris. She was the only black student (there) and a teacher criticised her ‘big butt and flat feet’ liberally. After graduating, Acogny returned to post-independence Senegal and developed a style that blended her classical training with traditional, African-inspired movement.” – The Guardian
  
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• A Round-Table Discussion on Sunday in the Park with George, with Eamon Foley and Talia Suskauer

  15-02-2024 18:01 via artsjournal.com
  This week, I had the absolute pleasure of getting back to the podcast — and to Arts Journal! — by hosting a special, roundtable discussion with some of my colleagues working on the upcoming Sunday in the Park with George at Axelrod Performing Arts Center.The discussion included director/choreographer (and former guest of the pod), Eamon Foley, star (and former guest of the pod), Talia Suskauer, and co-producer of the project, yours truly!Especially because I had featured both Eamon a
  
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• The Critical Importance Of Thelma Golden In The Art World

  15-02-2024 17:31 via newyorker.com
  
  “I had known Thelma Golden for a decade before I fully absorbed the critical role she had played, and continues to play, in desegregating the art world.” – The New Yorker
  
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• Harvey Weinstein’s Lawyers Appeal His Rape Conviction Before New York State’s Highest Court

  15-02-2024 17:01 via apnews.com
  
  The basis of the appeal is that the trial judge should not have allowed testimony from three other women whose alleged assaults by Weinstein weren’t at issue in this case. The justices appeared divided; Weinstein didn’t appear at all, remaining at the state prison instead. – AP
  
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• A Schubert Jukebox Opera? Yep.

  15-02-2024 16:35 via nytimes.com
  
  “Jukebox” opera was hardly unknown in centuries past; it was called pasticcio. And while Schubert was a master of vocal music, his operas are rarely revived. (Blame the bad librettos.) So conductor Raphaël Pichon has taken highlights from those operas and put them together with a new story. – The New York Times
  
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• 13th-Century Fresco By Cimabue Has Been Restored And Revealed

  15-02-2024 16:03 via news.artnet.com
  
  The painting, in the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, is of the Madonna and Child with angels and St. Francis himself. The project has restored some bright colors that were darkened in the painting’s last conservation (1973) and repaired some damage suffered in the 1997 earthquakes. – Artnet
  
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• OMG, Looks Like The Saudis Have Actually Started Construction On That 100-Mile-Long Building

  15-02-2024 15:32 via dezeen.com
  
  Many onlookers have been skeptical that The Line, Prince Muhammad bin Salman’s planned glass-clad behemoth 170 kilometers long, 1,640 feet tall and only 660 feet wide, will ever really be built. But the project’s CEO has now released photos of the initial excavation. – Dezeen
  
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• Here’s One American Newspaper That’s Actually Making Money With A New, Free (!) Print Issue

  15-02-2024 15:06 via poynter.org
  
  This past September, Deseret News, the Salt Lake City daily owned and operated by the Mormon church, launched The Digest, a monthly compendium of the best of the paper’s journalism from all its platforms, mailed to 120,000 homes. It was profitable by the following month. – Poynter
  
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• Second City Has Opened Its New York City Branch

  15-02-2024 14:34 via timeout.com
  
  “The new site (in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood) is less of a traditional comedy club than it is a sort of small campus for comedy aficionados. The 12,000-square-foot, two-floor complex includes two cabaret-style live theaters, a training center …, and a restaurant bar called The Bentwood.” – Time Out New York
  
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• England’s Arts Funder Warns Grantees To Avoid “Political Statements” And Artists Respond Angrily

  15-02-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  “Artists, writers and musicians have reacted with fury to an Arts Council England warning that “political statements” could break funding agreements. … ACE advised the organisations it funds to be wary of ‘overtly political or activist’ statements made in a personal capacity by people linked to them.” – The Guardian
  
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• London mural by key postwar artist under threat of demolition

  15-02-2024 07:00
  
  Campaigners are trying to rescue William Mitchell artwork in Blackheath conservation area from redevelopment planCampaigners are trying to save a rare early mural by one of Britain’s most celebrated postwar artists after it emerged the building it is housed in is under threat from being torn down as part of a redevelopment project in south London.The work by William Mitchell, who produced dozens of large-scale public murals and sculptures from the 1950s onwards, is situated in a village ha
  
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• Tate Modern Has 12.5 Million Social Media Followers. Here’s How

  15-02-2024 00:01 via theartnewspaper.com
  
  “We try to strike a careful balance between experimenting with TikTok and posting on Instagram, as Instagram remains our most reliably steadfast channel. It’s been our widest-reaching and most actively engaged audience for years, and accounts for around three quarters of our total video views.” – The Art Newspaper
  
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