Arts news

• Books

  19-02-2025 23:48 via artsjournal.com
  Several books of poems have been published in recent years
  
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• Inside London’s New Dance Hot Spot, Sadler’s Wells East

  19-02-2025 21:01 via standard.co.uk
  
  “‘You are welcome,’ beams a neon sign above the biscuity brick entrance. Theatres, like vampires, gravitate to dark spaces, but inside the impression is of light: high ceilings, generous windows, terraces overlooking the Olympic Park. … There’s even a window behind the auditorium, so technicians don’t beaver in the shadows.” – The Standard (London)
  
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• Trump And The Corruption Of What Words Mean

  19-02-2025 20:31 via artsjournal.com
  Trump has already hit language very strongly, and not just because of his own idiosyncratic manner of speech. As the Times has noted, his administration has developed a confounding but effective bizarro-world stylebook, in which phrases like “free speech” are deployed to quash exactly that. – New York Magazine (MSN)
  
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• Making Theatre For Liberation — And For After Liberation: South African Actor-Playwright John Kani

  19-02-2025 20:06 via msn.com
  During apartheid, in addition to being Athol Fugard’s leading actor, he co-wrote and co-starred in the seminal plays Sizwe Bandi Is Dead and The Island. Since majority rule began in 1994, Kani has written what’s now a trilogy looking at the triumphs and troubles of post-apartheid South Africa. – The Washington Post (MSN)
  
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• Minnesota Theatre Says It Will Decline NEA Funding, Double Down On DEI

  19-02-2025 19:44 via artsjournal.com
  A Minneapolis theater organization says it will decline federal funding in order to preserve its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. – Bring Me the News
  
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• Artists Sign Letter Protesting Changes In NEA Criteria

  19-02-2025 19:31 via artsjournal.com
  Hundreds of artists signed a letter sent to the National Endowment for the Arts asking it to reverse policy changes made as a result of recent executive orders issued by President Donald Trump. – NPR
  
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• Dancers Perform Protest Outside Kennedy Center

  19-02-2025 19:15 via artsjournal.com
  Thirty-four dancers performed The Nelken Line, a piece by choreographer Pina Bausch that pays homage to the seasons. It’s been performed widely since Bausch created it in 1982. There’s even a tutorial. In the piece, dancers walk in a single-file line and make synchronized movements. – NPR
  
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• How The Synthesizer Went From Oversized, Clumsy, Expensive Novelty To Tool For Genuine Creativity

  19-02-2025 19:04 via lithub.com
  
  “(Starting in) the late twentieth century, a family of technologies moved from the fringes of novelty attraction and the avant-­garde to the heart of mainstream culture. … The main character in this story is a device named for its ability to fabricate music artificially, producing sounds that are, by definition, synthetic.” – Literary Hub
  
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• We Need To Define What Smart Is

  19-02-2025 18:47 via artsjournal.com
  If we could stop bickering about which creatures do or don’t deserve to be called smart, an emerging movement of scientists and philosophers argue that we might discover fundamental elements of intelligence that are common to all life. – Noema
  
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• How Research Publishing Has Devolved Into A Citation Game

  19-02-2025 18:31 via artsjournal.com
  Gone are the days when academics simply conducted research and published their findings. Now their papers are less valued for their content than for providing measures of academic performance. Citation is chief of these. – London School of Economics
  
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• Workshop producing fake Picassos and Rembrandts found in Rome

  19-02-2025 18:18
  
  Prosecutors seize 71 canvases and say evidence suggests an art restorer was behind fraudsA clandestine workshop has been discovered in Rome where fakes of paintings by some of the world’s most famous artists, including Pablo Picasso and Rembrandt, were produced before being sold online.The discovery was made in a house in a district in the north of the city by a team from Rome’s public prosecutors’ office and the forgeries unit of Italy’s art squad, which they said has ga
  
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• An Arts Advocacy Summit: Will It Have Any Impact?

  19-02-2025 18:15 via artsjournal.com
  The call to action was to develop a blueprint for the TCC to take to Capitol Hill to advocate for arts funding, with the $207 million earmarked for the National Endowment for the Arts on the line. – The Hollywood Reporter
  
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• Early On, Robert Frost Wrote Some Really Wretched Verse

  19-02-2025 18:02 via msn.com
  “Frost, who turned 20 in 1894, uncertain of his gift, … had written a poem called ‘My Butterfly.’ … It is what it is, a bad poem. A random-feeling extrusion of lyrical matter, like something that might come out of the tube when you pull the lever marked POETRY.” – The Atlantic (MSN)
  
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• Kharkiv’s Puppetry Tradition Thrives During War

  19-02-2025 17:44 via artsjournal.com
  But Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 dealt Kharkiv’s puppetry a heavy blow, as much of the city’s population of 1.4 million evacuated in the face of the Russian onslaught. The puppet theater closed its doors. Yet, as it turned out, not for long. – Christian Science Monitor
  
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• Trump’s Kennedy Center Cancels Performance By Gay Chorus

  19-02-2025 17:31 via artsjournal.com
  This is the latest event to be canceled by the Kennedy Center since the Trump takeover. The show “Finn,” which could be read as a metaphor for the LGBTQ+ experience, was also canceled. – OperaWire
  
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• Artists demand National Endowment for the Arts roll back Trump restrictions

  19-02-2025 17:25
  
  More than 400 artists sign letter urging organization to resist funding ban for projects focused on DEI and genderDonald Trump’s efforts to influence US cultural institutions received more pushback on Tuesday, as a group of more than 400 artists sent a letter to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) calling on the organization to resist the president’s restrictions on funding for projects promoting diversity or “gender ideology”.The letter, first reported by the New Y
  
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• When Messiaen Zigged And Other Composers Zagged

  19-02-2025 17:15 via artsjournal.com
  As Messiaen saw it, the real revolution in 20th-century music had been launched not by an Austrian Jew but by a Frenchman, Claude Debussy, who ‘introduced the idea of haziness, not only in harmony and melody, but above all in rhythm and in the succession of timbres’. – London Review of Books
  
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• High Society Art Adviser, Convicted Of Felony Embezzlement, Explains Herself

  19-02-2025 17:05 via nytimes.com
  
  “‘You become the lie,’ (Lisa) Schiff said. … By the time it all came crashing down in 2023, she had stolen some $6.4 million. … But out of all her transgressions, she seemed most ashamed of the glamour that gilded her crimes. ‘I was miserable in that helicopter.'” – The New York Times
  
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• England’s Arts Funder Shelves Change Which Organizations Called “Worst Idea In The World”

  19-02-2025 16:33 via theguardian.com
  The change proposed by Arts Council England was that any organization which had a grant from National Lottery proceeds had to wait until that funded project was complete before applying for another Lottery grant. It seems the Arts Council forgot just how long lead times in the arts are. – The Guardian
  
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• ‘The energy in the delivery room was insane’: Maggie Shannon’s best photograph

  19-02-2025 16:06
  
  ‘The mothers and midwives never asked me to leave. Most of the time, they would call me over and say, “You’ve got to photograph this!”’I hadn’t met Aquilla Flemming before I photographed her giving birth. I was sitting on my couch at home when her midwife Chemin texted to say there was a woman in labour and she had given permission for me to take pictures. It was my day off, so I hesitated at first. But as soon as I got to the birthing centre I was glad I had
  
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• For The First Time In A Century, An Egyptian Pharaoh’s Tomb Has Been Discovered

  19-02-2025 16:01 via cbsnews.com
  
  “Egyptian officials announced Tuesday the discovery of the tomb of King Thutmose II. … It’s the first royal Egyptian tomb to be discovered since King Tutankhamun’s final resting place was found in 1922.” – CBS News
  
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• Many Looted Statues Are Being Returned To Cambodia, Which Is Running Out Of Places To Put Them

  19-02-2025 15:36 via nytimes.com
  
  “The four cavernous wings of Cambodia’s national museum are so packed with objects that visitors need to watch their elbows while strolling among the roughly 1,400 on display. … An expansion and a renovation are planned, but it’s unclear who would pay.” – The New York Times
  
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• Now That Trump Has Taken Over The Kennedy Center, What Might He Do With It?

  19-02-2025 15:04 via nytimes.com
  
  “The question now is what a thin-skinned showman will do with an institution of music, theater and dance … central to Washington’s cultural life for more than 50 years.” Many observers in DC expect more country music. (Steve Bannon suggests that the J6 Prison Choir sing for opening night.) – The New York Times
  
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• The ultimate flex? The activist artist posting his workouts in the name of narcissism

  19-02-2025 15:00
  
  Peter Drew is known as a political street artist, but for months he has been sharing his new muscular physique online – and ‘provoking’ some of his fansGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailWhenever a new Instagram post goes up of Peter Drew, shirtless and flexing his muscles, you could be forgiven for wondering if that’s a smirk on his face. For six months, the Adelaide artist has baited his followers, dropping hints about a new project that seems to revolve around
  
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• Harvey Weinstein (From Prison) Sues His Brother/Former Business Partner

  19-02-2025 14:32 via thewrap.com
  
  The producer/convicted rapist filed suit against Bob Weinstein and two other formers executives of the Weinstein Company his brother last week in New York state court for fraud and misappropriation of funds. The action adds those men as third parties to a suit filed against Harvey in 2017. – TheWrap
  
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• US Indie Publishers Form Co-Operative

  19-02-2025 14:00 via publishersweekly.com
  
  “A group of independent publishers has formally incorporated as the Publishers Cooperative, a new organization aimed at leveraging collective buying power and sharing resources. The cooperative … is currently seeking seven additional mid-sized publishers to join its eight founding members.” – Publishers Weekly
  
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• Australian winners of 2024 Venice Biennale prize ‘appalled’ by decision to dump Khaled Sabsabi

  19-02-2025 12:47
  
  Archie Moore and Ellie Buttrose release statement calling for reinstatement of artist selected for 2026, along with curator Michael DagostinoFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe artist and curator who won the Golden Lion for Australia at the Venice Biennale last year have called for the reinstatement of Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino, saying they were “appalled” to learn of the duo’s treatment
  
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• 2024 Venice Biennale Gold Lion winners ‘appalled’ by Creative Australia decision to dump Khaled Sabsabi

  19-02-2025 12:47
  Archie Moore and Ellie Buttrose release statement calling for reinstatement of artist selected for 2026, along with curator Michael DagostinoGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe artist and curator who won the Golden Lion for Australia at the Venice Biennale last year have called for the reinstatement of Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino, saying they were “appalled” to learn of the duo’s treatment by Creative Australia.First Nations artist Archie Moo
  
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• The Face Magazine: Culture Shift review – rebellious fashion photography with a raucous sense of fun

  19-02-2025 08:01
  
  National Portrait Gallery, London
  The style monthly was loud, left-field and unabashedly British. The 200 images from 50 photographers on show reflect its furious energy and explosive creative couplings SPEED SEX GORE AGGRO promised a 1998 cover of the Face. The cover star was Alexander McQueen, looking like a revenant with blanched white skin and blood-red eyes. “He wanted to express the idea of the burning rage felt by Joan of Arc being burned at the stake,” the photographer Nick K
  
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