Arts news

• Long Tail/Long Game

  08-10-2021 11:27 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Row X Blog by Hannah Grannemann
  I’ll just say it straight out, so you know where I’m coming from: I hope many organizations choose to keep and grow their digital programming as we come out of the pandemic. I think it’s great for audiences, a solid strategy for organizations that can handle it operationally and financially, and for the arts field to increase participation.
  I’ve been thinking a lot about the strategy of the Long Tail as I watch arts organizations and artist
  
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• ‘I cut out one little house at a time’: the trucker who spent decades building a tiny replica of NYC

  14-02-2026 14:00
  Queens-born Joe Macken’s hyperrealistic model, made with wood, cardboard and glue, is now on view at the Museum of the City of New YorkIn 2003, Joe Macken built a miniature model of a bridge out of popsicle sticks. He wanted it to look like a “hybrid” of the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridges. Soon after, Macken, who grew up in Middle Village, Queens, moved his family to a small town upstate, more than 160 miles from the city. Macken loaded his bridge on the moving t
  
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• ‘The bear feels comfortable and uncomfortable. It’s a bittersweet moment’: Iñigo Jerez Quintana’s best phone picture

  14-02-2026 12:00
  Capturing things that mix the strange with the beautiful helped the Spanish graphic designer recover from a blue periodIñigo Jerez Quintana uses the French term objet trouvé to describe this abandoned bear. Quintana, a Spanish graphic designer, was walking from his studio to a work meeting in Poblenou, a district of Barcelona, when he spotted it.“I take photos based on visual impulses; anything that catches my eye,” he says. “The colour match of the bear&rsqu
  
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• ‘Regrets? Number one: smoking. Number two: taking it up the wrong hole’: Tracey Emin on reputation, radical honesty – and Reform

  14-02-2026 07:00
  She scandalised the art world in the 1990s with her unmade bed, partied hard in the 2000s – then a brush with death turned the artist’s life upside down. Now she’s as frank as everThere is a long buildup before I get to see Tracey Emin – her two cats, Teacup and Pancake, preceding her like a pair of slinky sentries as she walks into the white-painted basement kitchen of her huge Georgian house in Margate. The lengthy overture is because – though I’ve been
  
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• From Wuthering Heights to Mario Tennis Fever: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead

  14-02-2026 07:00
  Emerald Fennell’s film brings the raunch to Brontë’s romance, while Nintendo’s beloved plumber stars in a colourful, family-friendly sports gameWuthering Heights
  Out nowOut on the wily, windy moors, writer-director Emerald Fennell has constructed a new interpretation of the Emily Brontë classic. Margot Robbie is Cathy while Jacob Elordi takes on Heathcliff, and as you might expect from the film-maker behind Saltburn, the passionate pair are set to leave no height
  
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• “Vinegar Valentines” — Send A Token Of Your Sentiment To The Ex You Despise

  13-02-2026 20:50 via theconversation.com
  The name was given by present-day collectors and dealers; in their Victorian heyday, they were usually called mock or mocking valentines. They were very much intended to mock or offend their targets, and they did so with spirit. – The Conversation
  
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• Does Making Art Require A “Writer’s Room”? Or Is It Something Else?

  13-02-2026 20:31 via newyorker.com
  There’s no question that they’ve helped me write. And yet, if I look back over my career as a writer, the value I’ve derived from carefully controlling my environment has paled in comparison to my main source of motivation: scary e-mails from editors. – The New Yorker
  
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• Coffee Poets: The 16th-Century Muslim World’s Culture War Over The Brew Was Fought In Verse

  13-02-2026 20:03 via thuppahis.com
  In the medieval period, poets had used “coffee” as a symbol (or euphemism) for wine (forbidden in Islam), so praising coffee in a poem was suspect. So was all the fun being had at coffeehouses. Yet both the drink and the establishments serving it had passionate defenders making their case in poetry. – History Today
  
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• What Does It Mean To “Rewire” Your Brain?

  13-02-2026 19:44 via aeon.co
  Is it a helpful shorthand for describing the remarkable plasticity of our nervous system or has it become a misleading oversimplification that distorts our grasp of science? – Aeon
  
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• The Art Of Literary Subversion

  13-02-2026 19:31 via aeon.co
  The unique power of literary tradition, unlike philosophy or science, is that literature can respond to its predecessors without invalidating them, can contradict them without competing with them. – Aeon
  
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• The Successor To The Corporation For Public Broadcasting

  13-02-2026 19:15 via insideradio.com
  The wind-down of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has given birth to a new independent, nonprofit organization that looks to fill some of the gap left by CPB’s closure after nearly six decades. – InsideRadio
  
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• For The First Time, A Male Dancer Plays The Evil Fairy In New York City Ballet’s “Sleeping Beauty”

  13-02-2026 19:04 via nytimes.com
  In 2023, principal Taylor Stanley asked management if they’d permit a male-identifying dancer to play Carabosse; they said no. This year, they said no again. So Stanley went over their heads to choreographer Peter Martins, who’s fine with it. Now Stanley is making quite a meal of the role. – The New York Times
  
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• Australia’s First New City In 100 Years

  13-02-2026 18:44 via dezeen.com
  The masterplan forms one of Australia’s largest urban development projects and, once complete, will be the country’s first major city built in over a century, according to SOM. – Dezeen
  
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• America’s Richest Humanities Funder (And Its Implications)

  13-02-2026 18:31 via theatlantic.com
  Is the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation the last best hope for American arts and letters—or is it killing them? – The Atlantic
  
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• A Dawning Recognition About AI And Music

  13-02-2026 18:15 via csmonitor.com
  Many worry that a kind of “canned” creativity will take over much of what originates from real people today, pushing a broad swath of lab technicians, ad writers, studio musicians, and commercial artists out of jobs and into unemployment lines. – Christian Science Monitor
  
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• How Minneapolis’s Theater Community Has Been Dealing With The ICE Occupation

  13-02-2026 18:02 via playbill.com
  It hasn’t been easy: some artists are scared to come to the theater, as are many audience members, and some shows have had to be cancelled. (Alex Pretti was shot two blocks from one theater on a two-show Saturday.) Yet performances are happening when and where they can — including, sometimes, in clandestine locations. – Playbill
  
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• Where The Power Lies: Institutions Versus Networks

  13-02-2026 17:44 via aeon.co
  Institutions foster cooperation by rewarding good behaviour and punishing rule-breakers. Yet they themselves depend on cooperative members to function. We haven’t solved the cooperation problem – we’ve simply moved it back one step. So why do institutions work at all? – Aeon
  
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• Scientists Look Inside The Brain Of A Musician While He’s Playing

  13-02-2026 17:31 via nytimes.com
  What happens in a performer’s brain while playing? Traditional brain-imaging tools like functional m.r.i. (f m.r.i.) require subjects to lie motionless in a scanner. Newer wearable technologies, including EEG (electroencephalography) caps fitted with electrodes, make it possible to study musicians in more natural settings. – The New York Times
  
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• AI Companies Are Eating Higher Education

  13-02-2026 17:15 via nytimes.com
  A.I. companies are increasingly exerting outsize influence over higher education and using these settings as training grounds to further their goal of creating artificial general intelligence (A.I. systems that can substitute for humans). – The New York Times
  
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• Is An Organized Ring Running Online Smear Campaigns In Hollywood?

  13-02-2026 17:03 via hollywoodreporter.com
  “This clandestine smear machine seemingly connects some of the most talked-about scandals of recent years. … (Figures are) targeted by mysteriously operated websites that are filled with character-assassinating claims and impossible to take down. In recent months, the origins of these sites have been connected and allegedly unmasked in court.” – The Hollywood Reporter
  
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• Playwright Mark Ravenhill (“Shopping And F***Ing”) Is Directing Strauss’s “Salome”. Too Obvious A Choice?

  13-02-2026 16:35 via bachtrack.com
  “You know, when I said I was going to do Salome a couple of people told me that this was the perfect opera for me because it’s the closest to those ‘90s plays. And then in some ways I was a bit disappointed, because then I was wondering whether I was typecasting myself!” – Bachtrack
  
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• Cees Noteboom, One Of Europe’s Most Important Postwar Writers, Is Dead At 92

  13-02-2026 16:01 via apnews.com
  “A Dutch novelist, travel writer and journalist, (he) was lauded for his insights into European history and culture and often tipped as a possible winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.” – AP
  
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• More Kennedy Center Woes: Fundraising Is Reportedly A Mess

  13-02-2026 15:34 via politico.com
  According to several staffers (speaking anonymously), senior vice president of development Lisa Dale — best friend of Kari Lake and a former TV host — has skipped meetings with potential high-level donors and sometimes gives fundraising figures to Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell which are higher than the money which actually comes in. – Politico
  
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• Spooky shores, folkloric visions and Ireland’s mysterious landscapes reveal a secret – the week in art

  13-02-2026 15:17
  Georges Seurat takes an eerie trip to the seaside, Yinka Shonibare puts empire in its place and Sean Scully reveals his source – all in your weekly dispatchSeurat and the Sea
  If you thought French 19th-century paintings of the seaside were all happy impressionism, you will be disconcerted, then absorbed by Seurat’s eerie modernist shores. Read the review.
  • Courtauld Gallery, London, until 17 May Continue reading...
  
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• London’s National Gallery, Facing $11.1 Million Deficit, Announces Staff-Wide Buyout Scheme And Cuts

  13-02-2026 15:06 via theartnewspaper.com
  “In the face of an £8.2 million deficit in the coming year, … initially there will be a ‘voluntary exit scheme’ available to all staff. … With regard to the exhibition programme, (there could be) fewer free exhibitions, not as many ticketed shows, less international borrowing of artworks, and more expensive tickets.” – The Art Newspaper
  
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• Alleged Massive Ticket Fraud Scheme At Louvre; Police Arrest Nine Suspects

  13-02-2026 14:30 via apnews.com
  “The Paris prosecutor’s office on Thursday said that nine people were being detained as part of an investigation into a suspected decade-long, 10 million euro ($11.8 million) ticket fraud scheme at the Louvre.” – AP
  
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• City of Bellingham Whatcom Museum seeks Museum Executive Director

  13-02-2026 14:11 via artsjournal.com
  Position Summary The Whatcom Museum Executive Director (Executive Director), serving also as the Chief Executive Officer for the Whatcom Museum Foundation’s Board of Trustees, will provide strategic leadership in planning, organizing, and directing all operations and activities of the Whatcom Museum (the Museum). In coordination with other City departments and the Foundation Board, the Executive Director will be responsible for overseeing the Museum’s financial health and sustainabil
  
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• BBC To Cut Hundreds Of Millions From Budget

  13-02-2026 14:02 via irishtimes.com
  “Staff at the BBC were told about plans to cut about a tenth of its costs over the next three years in a conference call held by director-general Tim Davie on Thursday afternoon. Operating costs for the BBC were more than £2 billion last year.” – The Irish Times
  
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• A great artist on paper: why Lucian Freud’s magical drawings are the key to his major works

  13-02-2026 12:00
  The artist often swapped painting for etching as a way to rediscover his craft. Now a new exhibition shows these flashes of inspiration in all their intimate gloryAt home one evening in 1951, Lucian Freud did three drawings of fellow artist Francis Bacon. The biographer William Feaver recounts the anecdote as Freud told it to him: Bacon had stood up, undone the buttons on his trousers, rolled up his sleeves and wiggled his hips a little, saying: “I think
  
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• Euan Uglow review – No wonder Cherie Blair didn’t model for long, these pictures are exhausting just to look at

  13-02-2026 11:42
  MK Gallery, Milton Keynes
  His work was so painstaking and slow to produce that the models – including a certain trainee barrister – often didn’t make it to the end of a portrait. It makes for paintings that seem drained of lifeEuan Uglow, they say, is an artist’s artist, and therein lies the problem. If you were approaching his painstaking canvases out of curiosity – how to construct the figure, capture precise perspective, proportions – I can see how their vi
  
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