Arts news

• The Web As We Know It Is About To Change

  19-02-2024 23:31 via wsj.com
  Seeking information using a search engine could be almost completely replaced by this new generation of large language model-powered systems. – The Wall Street Journal
  
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• Book Bans Are Bad Enough. Stripping Libraries Of Funding Is A Whole Other Bad

  19-02-2024 23:01 via washingtonpost.com
  While the nation has been focusing on book bans, school libraries all around us have gone without enough (noncontroversial) books. Or inviting furniture. Or amenities that would help create a sense of community. – Washington Post
  
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• Will A Show Of Chuck Close’s Final Work Help Restore His Place In Art?

  19-02-2024 21:31 via nytimes.com
  
  Arne Glimcher said the controversy surrounding Close is not his concern. “There has been too much about Chuck that isn’t about the art,” he said. “I only want to talk about the art.” – The New York Times
  
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• 100 Years Later “Rhapsody In Blue” Is Still Riling Up Debate

  19-02-2024 20:47 via theguardian.com
  
  Rhapsody in Blue opened up a wider set of debates about the relationship between “high art” and popular art, about racism and cultural differences, about black music and black identity, debates that continue to shape contemporary culture. – The Guardian
  
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• America’s Prisons See Opera As A Security Threat

  19-02-2024 20:02 via operawire.com
  
  Prison authorities see a threat to security in a staggering array of literature, art and music. Connecticut has banned 334 individual books, magazines and pieces of music as security risks. Besides “La bohème,” Puccini’s opera “Manon Lescaut” is also banned. – Operawire
  
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• The New York Times Unique Argument In Its Copyright Case Against AI Companies

  19-02-2024 19:14 via theconversation.com
  
  It argues that as a reputable and trusted source, its articles have additional weight and reliability in training generative AI and are part of a data subset that is given additional weighting in that training. – The Conversation
  
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• Comcast And Paramount Talk About Combining Peacock And Paramount+ Into A Package

  19-02-2024 18:31 via theverge.com
  
  Along with making access to the two platforms comparatively cheaper than buying separate subscriptions, the partnership would help Comcast and Paramount “produce significant cost savings — from spending on programming to marketing.” – The Verge
  
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• So Who’s Winning In The Artists-Versus-AI-Companies Copyright Lawsuit?

  19-02-2024 17:44 via latimes.com
  
  U.S. copyright law is extremely complicated, and the technology bears features that don’t resemble anything seen in earlier technology transitions. Put them together, and the complexities are magnified exponentially. – Los Angeles Times
  
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• The Sound Duo Behind The Ely Cathedral Scene In Maestro Had Quite A Job

  19-02-2024 17:00 via aol.com
  
  “Normally they would pre-record the music and run playback while musicians and conductor Leonard Bernstein (as played by Bradley Cooper), mime along. But that’s not how Cooper, also the co-writer and director of the film, wanted it.” – AOL (Los Angeles Times)
  
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• Lunchtime Theatre, With A Pint? How Very British

  19-02-2024 16:30 via bbc.com
  
  Actually – how very Scottish. A Play, A Pie, and A Pint premiered in Glasgow in 2004 and hasn’t stopped (aside from the early days of COVID-19) producing 48 new plays a year ever since. – BBC
  
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• ‘Dust is everywhere’: rare glimpse of how Michelangelo’s David is kept clean

  19-02-2024 16:30
  
  Florence museum boss compares process to cleaning a bathroom as media are granted privileged accessMichelangelo’s David is recognised as one of the most sublime works in the history of sculpture, but according to the director of Florence’s Accademia Gallery, dusting it is much like cleaning a bathroom.“You know when you clean a bathroom, you clean and clean and think you’ve done a great job but then you spot some dust and wonder ‘where did that come from?’,&rd
  
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• Two Gaming Champions Say The Gaming Company Is A Monopoly

  19-02-2024 16:00 via msn.com
  Before 2019, other companies held Call of Duty tournaments. Then things changed. “The lawsuit claims that at one point, Activision Blizzard required teams to each pay $27.5 million and swear not to participate in or promote any other professional Call of Duty operations.” – MSN (Los Angeles Times)
  
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• The Paintings British Artists Love At Their National Gallery

  19-02-2024 15:45 via theguardian.com
  
  The beloved paintings come from many places, but not any of the countries that make up the United Kingdom. – The Observer (UK)
  
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• The English National Opera Laid Off Singers And Musicians While They Were In Mid-Performance

  19-02-2024 15:30 via msn.com
  “Many of the performers only saw details of their redundancy during the interval, when they opened the notification backstage. Despite this, they went back onstage to finish the performance.” – MSN (The Telegraph UK)
  
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• It Took Years, Nearly 50 Million Dollars, And Sweat Equity To Turn A 40-Year Vacant Movie Theatre Into A Music Venue

  19-02-2024 15:15 via chicago.suntimes.com
  
  When a couple bought the Bridgeport, Illinois space for $1, they weren’t, perhaps, thinking it would take quite this much. “When asked if the project lives up to the initial idea they had back in 2017, Emily Nevius quickly responds, ‘This is so much bigger.’” – Chicago Sun-Times
  
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• Miyazaki Won In London, But At The Annies, It’s All Spidey

  19-02-2024 15:00 via latimes.com
  
  The Annies hand out prizes in animation for series and film – and Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse cleaned up, beating The Boy and the Heron to best picture and winning six other awards. – Los Angeles Times
  
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• In The West Bank, Palestinian Artists Mount A Show With A Backdrop Of Despair

  19-02-2024 14:45 via nytimes.com
  
  The exhibition, “showing at the Palestinian Museum in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, [is] a collection of protest that is as much about the art that is not there, lost in the war that rages in Gaza, as about the art that is on display.” – The New York Times
  
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• Israeli Forces Raid, Destroy Publishing Houses In The West Bank

  19-02-2024 14:30 via lithub.com
  
  “IDF raids on Palestinian publishing houses are nothing new. Seven Palestinian publishing houses were raided or destroyed over a six-month period in 2016-2017, and eleven more were targeted in a seven-month period in 2021.” – LitHub
  
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• Duke’s Herbarium Is One Of The Best In The World, And A Donor Offered Millions To Keep It Going

  19-02-2024 14:15 via insidehighered.com
  
  So of course the university in North Carolina is closing it, to the outrage of the scientific community. – Inside Higher Ed
  
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• What Can Movies Teach About Marriage?

  19-02-2024 14:00 via npr.org
  
  Perhaps it’s not ideal to take Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as marriage advice, but movies, including that one, have a lot to teach, or so says one fan. – NPR
  
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• Chileans Start Social Media Campaign To Get Easter Island Statue Back From The British Museum

  19-02-2024 13:45 via bbc.com
  
  “The online campaign began after an influencer encouraged his followers to ‘spam’ the museum’s Instagram posts with ‘return the moai’ comments. The British Museum said it deactivated comments on one social media post.” – BBC
  
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• The Life Of A Pro Whistler, Including Her New Album And Her ‘Barbie’ Fame

  19-02-2024 13:30 via washingtonpost.com
  Molly Lewis: “People often don’t have a reference for whistle music apart from a jingle or a riff in a bad pop song. … I think it’s a beautiful instrument.” – Washington Post
  
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• This Year’s New Hollywood A-Lister Is A Real Dog

  19-02-2024 13:15 via theguardian.com
  
  That star is Messi – not the soccer player, but the border collie who won the Palme Dog at Cannes. – The Guardian (UK)
  
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• The BAFTAs, Including Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s British Acting Roots

  19-02-2024 13:00 via bbc.com
  
  Randolph started her career in London’s West End. After she won her BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Holdovers, she said backstage, “You guys taught me the classics, and I’m obsessed with Pinter and all that stuff.” – BBC
  
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• Zineb Sedira: Dreams Have No Titles review – magic moments in the bar that can take you anywhere

  19-02-2024 12:42
  
  Whitechapel Gallery, LondonThe French Algerian artist keeps us suspended between the real and the fictive, past and present, as we go on a romp through cinematic classicsWalk into the Whitechapel Gallery and you are plunged straight into a bar. The bottles are lined up and mirror balls dangle overhead. A tango plays and a couple are on the dancefloor. What begins to feel a bit uncanny is that I’ve watched these moves before: her checking her reflection in a mirror that isn’t there, t
  
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• Sweet potato island and a black cat shortlisted for London’s fourth plinth

  19-02-2024 10:30
  
  Public encouraged to comment on seven artists’ proposals for ephemeral pedestal in Trafalgar SquareA sweet potato island; a hollow, lifesized person on a horse cast in slime-green resin; and a golden bronze sculpture of a woman whose features have been amalgamated are among the shortlisted ideas for the next fourth plinth commission in Trafalgar Square.Organisers of the contemporary art installation announced on Monday seven shortlisted artists for the project: Chila Kumari Singh Burman, G
  
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• William Blake was the emblem of Englishness – but his art was intrinsically European

  19-02-2024 10:00
  
  He penned the hymn Jerusalem and barely left London in his lifetime but, as a new exhibition shows, Blake wasn’t immune to the creative revolution sweeping through the continentThe idea of William Blake as a figure representing an aspect of Britishness, or more specifically Englishness, is a well-established one. His poems – The Tyger, London and many others – are fixtures of school syllabuses; his brand of fervent spirituality casts him in a line of free-thinking visionary ecc
  
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• You can’t ban embroidery! Why Arts Council England’s crackdown is a stitch-up

  19-02-2024 09:00
  
  Has anyone behind ACE’s ban on ‘political statements’ been to Unravel? As this tumultuous show about textile art proves, even a quilt can tell a story of outrage, exploitation and horrorAt first glance, an artwork might not appear outwardly political. Yet it is not enough to see it for aesthetic purposes only. Art requires us to pay attention, to question – and appreciate – what we are looking at, but also to see what lies beyond it. Take textiles, an art form histo
  
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