Arts news

• A bold image of motherhood – using a prosthetic belly: Gabriel Moses’ best photograph

  11-06-2025 16:41 via theguardian.com
  ‘My sister used to have all these fashion posters in her bedroom – Nick Wright photographs, pictures of Naomi Campbell. Those references have become important in my work’I was raised in a single-parent household by my mum and we’re very close. She is a nurse, but she also did a lot of flower-arranging. I would often go to hang around the florists with her and her arrangements were always around the house. When I was a kid she was also a Sunday school teacher and would run
  
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• ‘We can have art and greenery’: Black Muse festival marks opening of sculpture park in Benin City

  06-11-2025 11:00 via theguardian.com
  Project in southern Nigeria to honour the city’s centuries-old artistic traditions and bring a new audience to contemporary artFor weeks, residents of Iyekogba in Benin City have seen a 15-metre-high tower rising up in the middle of their quiet, residential neighbourhood. On 8 November, the building, a domed bamboo pavilion, will finally be unveiled at the start of Nigeria’s inaugural Black Muse art festival.Designed by the renowned Nigerian architect James Inedu-George, the pavilion
  
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• David Hockney: Some Very, Very, Very New Paintings Not Yet Shown in Paris - review: still innovating, still fascinating

  06-11-2025 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Annely Juda Fine Art, London
  With this new collection of bright and bold still lifes, iPad experiments and splotchy portraits, the art-world titan is beginning to show his age in intriguing, unsteady ways that remain inimitably HockneyHe’s still at it, is David Hockney. At 88 years old, and more than 60 years into a career that has seen him rise to the very top of the contemporary art pile, Hockney is still painting, still experimenting, still innovating, and still having shows.This exhibi
  
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• ‘A model of the transnational artist’: Cuban artist Wifredo Lam gets first US retrospective

  05-11-2025 19:01 via theguardian.com
  The major modernist artist is finally getting a blockbuster exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, celebrating a career filled with innovationAlthough he was a major modernist artist whose collaborators ranged from European greats like Pablo Picasso and André Breton to new world giants like Aimé Césaire, Cuban artist Wifredo Lam has not seen a major US retrospective worthy of his stature. That changes with the MoMA’s blockbuster show Wifredo Lam: When I D
  
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• The Marbles review – thoughtful outline of case for giving the Parthenon marbles back to Greece

  05-11-2025 14:00 via theguardian.com
  David Wilkinson’s personal exploration of the issues open-mindedly examines both sides of a contentious political debateIn a very personal and thoughtful documentary, film-maker David Wilkinson revives the great question of the restitution of the Parthenon marbles, that longstanding Hellenic enthusiasm and flagship cultural cause for the educated British left from Lord Byron in the 1810s to Christopher Hitchens in the 1980s (although Hitchens’ vehement advocacy is not mentioned here)
  
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• Drink tea, tidy up and take action! Can advice from artists really improve your life?

  05-11-2025 11:37 via theguardian.com
  As three self-help books chock full of arty wisdom are released, an art critic tests whether they can improve a seemingly lost cause: himYou’d think at this point I would have learned all the lessons I could from art. I have been a full-time, professional art critic for most of my adult life. I spend my days in galleries, surrounded by art, reading about it, absorbing it. I like art a lot, but I am also cynical about its supposed benefits beyond the merely aesthetic.But just as a new study
  
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• Some Folks Are Not Happy About Philadelphia Art Museum’s Rebrand, And That Includes Some Board Members

  04-11-2025 20:59 via msn.com
  
  “Critics say the new logo and its angular griffin look severe — more like a soccer team, a clothing brand, or a beer label than an art museum.” What’s more, some board members say they weren’t shown the final design for approval and only learned about the rollout from the press. – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
  
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• Opera America Names New President And CEO

  04-11-2025 20:31 via broadwayworld.com
  
  Michael Bobbitt comes to OPERA America from the Mass Cultural Council in Boston, MA, where he served as Executive Director since 2021. – BroadwayWorld
  
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• Anne Sexton’s Horror Short Stories, Rejected By The New Yorker

  04-11-2025 20:02 via lithub.com
  
  Editor Roger Angell called the three stories “interesting and wholly original” but said “they seem to work in very different ways on different readers.” At least he allowed that “I’m not at all sure that we aren’t making a mistake.” That must have stung Sexton, always unsure of herself when writing prose. – Literary Hub
  
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• Meet The New Head Of The UK Opera Association

  04-11-2025 19:44 via thetimes.com
  
  “The perception that opera is only for posh people, with which I fundamentally disagree, has taken a grip on a lot of decision-makers,” Thangam Debbonaire says. “But even if we do win them over, we have to accept that constraints on public finances aren’t going away any time soon.” – The Times (UK)
  
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• Choreography By AI?

  04-11-2025 19:31 via blog.google
  
  AISOMA is a Google AI-powered choreography tool that acts as a creative catalyst by generating new, original dance rooted in my choreographic language. – Google
  
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• Sasha Suda Fired As Director Of Philadelphia Art Museum

  04-11-2025 19:15 via phillymag.com
  
  Suda, who has been leading a change campaign at the museum since she arrived in 2022, reportedly has both supporters and detractors on the board. – Philadelphia Magazine
  
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• The Persistent, Pernicious Myths About Shakespeare And Marlowe

  04-11-2025 19:04 via yahoo.com
  
  The Romantic ideal of a singular creative genius remaking the rules of his era doesn’t really match William Shakespeare, who was (for a theater guy) fairly conventional. Christopher Marlowe is a better fit, and he transformed more than he gets credit for, but mythmaking distorts his image as well. – The Atlantic (Yahoo!)
  
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• Spotify Reports Strong Subscriber Gains, Record Profits

  04-11-2025 18:44 via deadline.com
  
  Music streamer Spotify saw third quarter operating profits grow a cool 28%, as its paying subscribers hit 281 million. – Deadline
  
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• Australia Imposes New Streaming Quotas

  04-11-2025 18:30 via deadline.com
  
  The rules require Netflix, Prime Video and the other global streamers with more than one million Australian subscribers to spend 10% of their total Australian expenditure – or 7.5% of their revenues – on local originals. – Deadline
  
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• Wright of Derby: From the Shadows review – science, skeletons and a suffocated cockatoo

  04-11-2025 18:22 via theguardian.com
  National Gallery, LondonJoseph Wright of Derby’s vivid paintings depicted Enlightenment thinking and illumination amid the dark. So why are they so terrifying?He looks like he’s up to no good. In the depths of the night, under trees and clouds turned silver and black by the full moon, a man is at work with a shovel. Is he burying a body or digging bits up for a Frankensteinian experiment? After all, this painting was done by Joseph Wright of Derby, a friend of pioneering scientists a
  
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• What Immanuel Kant Still Has To Teach Us Today

  04-11-2025 18:15 via newyorker.com
  
  The central insight that these disparate thinkers took from Kant is that the world isn’t simply a thing, or a collection of things, given to us to perceive. Rather, our minds help create the reality we experience. – The New Yorker
  
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• Movie Theater Owners Are Freaking Out Over Possible Sale Of Warner Bros. Discovery

  04-11-2025 18:06 via yahoo.com
  
  “Multiple theatrical executives … conveyed a sense of grave concern, if not panic, over the possibility of a studio that grossed more than $4 billion worldwide this year and provided many of the box office hits of the past six months being assimilated into another company and having its output dramatically curtailed.” – TheWrap (Yahoo!)
  
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• What Do We Need Hobbies For?

  04-11-2025 17:44 via newyorker.com
  
  Although many have outward-facing aspects, a hobby is ultimately a form of self-cultivation, pursued for reasons of personal satisfaction. Our society values publicity and productivity: perhaps that’s one reason that hobbies seem like they’re in decline. – The New Yorker
  
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• Not Bulldozing The White House Was A Convention, Not A Law. Many Things In Government Have Been So

  04-11-2025 17:31 via theatlantic.com
  
  After the architects’ convention in 1900, public officials turned to specialists to address questions of aesthetic and space planning that had previously been matters of politics and patronage. Over the decade that followed, most public-building projects in D.C. came under a system of formal design review. – The Atlantic
  
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• Documenting The Present Is Resistance

  04-11-2025 17:15 via commondreams.org
  
  Let this be painfully clear: The future will only remember what is preserved today, and the choice is between standing by as stories are diluted or destroyed—or fighting for the record, for the archive, and for the truth with steady, everyday work that anyone can participate in. – Common Dreams
  
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• Ohio Law Could Void Cleveland State University’s Transfer Of Its Student Radio Station To City’s Public Radio Outlet

  04-11-2025 17:01 via cleveland.com
  
  “The Cleveland State University-Ideastream deal over WCSB 89.3 could be invalidated because the college did not follow Ohio public meetings law, an expert on public meetings laws said.” – Cleveland.com
  
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• A New Hall Of Fame For Dance, Complete With Its First Inductees

  04-11-2025 16:33 via broadwaynews.com
  
  “A new Dance Hall of Fame has been established to honor the significant contributions to the discipline of dance. Included in the freshman class of inductees are Alvin Ailey, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss, Misty Copeland, Bob Fosse, Martha Graham, Gene Kelly, Kenny Ortega, Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp.” – Broadway News
  
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• Arts School In New Jersey’s Largest City Abruptly Closes

  04-11-2025 16:05 via theviolinchannel.com
  
  Without warning, a note appeared on the website of the Newark School for the Arts that it is “closed until further notice.” Founded in 1968, the school’s mission was to provide training in the performing and visual arts to students of all ages and financial backgrounds. – The Violin Channel
  
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• Actress Diane Ladd, Three-Time Oscar Nominee, Has Died At 89

  04-11-2025 15:30 via hollywoodreporter.com
  
  She received nominations for Best Supporting Actress for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Wild at Heart, and Rambling Rose; she performed in the latter two (and several other films) alongside her daughter, Laura Dern. Ladd appeared in a dozen or so other movies as well as scores of television shows. – The Hollywood Reporter
  
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• We Don’t Need an Alt Cultural Policy

  04-11-2025 15:27 via artsjournal.com
  
  In a recent post comparing the White House’s proposed “compact” with universities to the situation facing the nonprofit arts in the United States, I wrote:The administration’s interventions into the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian museums have received a lot of press, and these “anti-woke” interventions have a lot in common with the Compact. But you might have noticed, we don’t really hear much about the rest of the art world. Why not? Becau
  
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• Las Vegas Philharmonic Makes Surprise Announcement Of New Music Director

  04-11-2025 15:02 via neon.reviewjournal.com
  
  After artistic advisor Leonard Slatkin finished conducting Saturday night’s concert, he introduced the audience to the orchestra’s next music director, Japanese-American conductor Rei Hotoda. She begins her four-year term next July and will also continue in her position as music director of the Fresno Philharmonic. – Las Vegas Review-Journal
  
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• Revered Pianist Maria João Pires Retires From Performing

  04-11-2025 14:34 via moto-perpetuo.com
  
  The 81-year-old — who found viral fame through an old video where she’d been told to prepare the wrong Mozart concerto but pulled off the performance nevertheless — has retired at least once before, only to return to performing. But she suffered a stroke in June and has not played in public since. – Moto Perpetuo
  
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• The art of the possible: the Nottingham art gallery being run by citizens’ assembly

  04-11-2025 14:15 via theguardian.com
  New Art Exchange believes it is first cultural institution in world to hand permanent leadership to the community“I used to see this place on the street but I didn’t know what was here, I didn’t even know it was an art gallery,” says Felix, a 20-year-old nursing student. “And now I’m here shaping its future.”Felix is one of 40 residents of Hyson Green in Nottingham who run the show at New Art Exchange (NAE), which believes it is the first cultural instit
  
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• Climate-Protesting Art Vandal Who Targeted Degas In D.C. Gets 18 Months

  04-11-2025 14:09 via newsobserver.com
  
  “A federal judge in Washington, D.C., sentenced Timothy Martin after a jury found him guilty in April on two counts of conspiracy and injuring government property. He and fellow activist Joanna Smith smeared washable paint on the case containing an Edgar Degas sculpture” at the National Gallery. – The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC)
  
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