Arts news

• A Trove of Artifacts Officials Call ‘Stolen’ Are Returned to Italy

  15-12-2021 23:36 via nytimes.com
  
  The Manhattan district attorney’s office is repatriating 200 objects it confiscated from major museums and collections. Many were tied to one dealer.
  
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• Anne Rice’s Final Interview: ‘I Am Known to Be Passionate’

  15-12-2021 23:18 via nytimes.com
  
  Shortly before the stroke that killed her, the author of the Vampire Chronicles and (with her son, Christopher) the forthcoming “Ramses the Damned: The Reign of Osiris” answered questions from the Book Review.
  
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• Electronic Arts Inc. stock rises Wednesday, still underperforms market - MarketWatch

  15-12-2021 22:50 via marketwatch.com
  
  Electronic Arts Inc. stock rises Wednesday, still underperforms market  MarketWatch
  
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• Overlooked No More: Frances B. Johnston, Photographer Who Defied Genteel Norms

  15-12-2021 22:40 via nytimes.com
  
  Undaunted by obstacles facing her gender, she carved out a career taking portraits of celebrities and creating series on architecture and education.
  
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• ‘My Girlfriend’s Wedding’: Her Life Plays Like a Movie

  15-12-2021 22:38 via nytimes.com
  
  Newly restored, Jim McBride’s 1969 documentary is about his lover who gets married to another man. Her story remains anything but boring.
  
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• Jonathas de Andrade, Maker of Poignant Work About Identity, Picked to Represent Brazil at 2022 Venice Biennale

  15-12-2021 22:32 via artnews.com
  
  The Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, which manages Brazil’s participation at the Venice Biennale, has announced the curator and artist for the country’s pavilion at the 2022 edition opening in April. The curator is Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, who was also the main curator for the 34th Bienal de São Paulo, and the artist he selected is Jonathas de Andrade.
  De Andrade is known for an expansive body of work that ranges between videos, photographs, and installation
  
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• The Winter Solstice Approaches

  15-12-2021 22:30 via nytimes.com
  
  Soon, the days will grow longer.
  
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• bell hooks, Pathbreaking Black Feminist, Dies at 69

  15-12-2021 22:11 via nytimes.com
  
  She insisted that the fight for women’s rights had to take into account the diverse experiences of working-class and Black women.
  
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• Objet: Reflectacles Privacy Eyewear

  15-12-2021 21:52 via artnews.com
  
  These days, many of us are more careful than we used to be about protecting our online privacy: refusing to allow tracking cookies, browsing in private mode or with a VPN, locking down our social media accounts (or deleting them altogether). Fewer of us are taking steps to counter how we are surveilled in real life, but Scott Urban is one of them. (He asked to be interviewed via email—specifically, via ProtonMail, the email service of choice for the security-focused—rather than by ph
  
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• Israel Museum Names Design School Leader Denis Weil as New Director

  15-12-2021 21:50 via artnews.com
  
  The Israel Museum in Jerusalem has appointed Denis Weil as its new director. Weil is currently dean at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He will assume the position as of March 1, 2022, succeeding Ido Bruno, an Israeli designer and professor.
  Denis Weil, newly appointed director of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
  Prior to leading the Illinois Institute of Technology, Weil taught design at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. He has held sen
  
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• Broadway Is Canceling Shows Due to Positive Covid Tests

  15-12-2021 21:42 via nytimes.com
  
  Broadway, where cancellations were once vanishingly rare, has seen a raft of them as positive coronavirus tests among cast and crew members have upended productions.
  
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• Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego Promotes Jill Dawsey to Senior Curator

  15-12-2021 21:31 via artnews.com
  
  The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego has made two major staff changes. After a decade at the museum, Jill Dawsey will be promoted from curator to senior curator, and Isabel Casso will join the institution as assistant curator.
  Dawsey is the curator of the museum’s current survey of pioneering Chicana artist Yolanda M. López, who died in September. That exhibition explores how López created some of her most important series, including her reclamation of the Virgen de Guada
  
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• As Omicron Variant Looms, TEFAF Postpones Maastricht Fair Scheduled for March

  15-12-2021 21:00 via artnews.com
  
  In 2021, fairs around the world began to resume operating as normal, with major ones staged in New York, London, Paris, and Miami. But on Thursday, the European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) said that its 2022 Dutch edition, scheduled to run March 12–20 in Maastricht, would not go on as planned.
  Citing “mounting concerns around the global volatility of Covid-19” amid the threat of the Omicron variant, the fair said it was exploring hosting the fair at a later time in 2022. According to
  
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• How I Made This: Jason Logan’s Natural Inks

  15-12-2021 20:48 via artnews.com
  
  Biking through a Toronto park in 2014, artist and designer Jason Logan noticed a sign at the base of a tree identifying it as a black walnut. The name struck him. Years before, he’d bought a bottle of black walnut ink in New York; now he wondered if he could make his own. But it was summer, and the walnuts looked like limes high in the branches. So he waited. And watched.
  By late autumn, he was stuffing his backpack full of fallen walnuts in their still-green hulls.
  “I remember their
  
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• Met Opera to Mandate Booster Shots for Staff and Audiences

  15-12-2021 20:00 via nytimes.com
  
  It is the first major performing arts institution to require boosters, as concern mounts over rising coronavirus cases and the spread of the Omicron variant. The rule will take effect Jan. 17.
  
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• bell hooks, Essential Writer on Black Art and Feminism, Dies at 69

  15-12-2021 19:58 via artnews.com
  
  bell hooks, a writer and thinker whose texts about Black art, feminism, and identity that inspired legions within academia and far beyond, has died. Berea College, the Kentucky school where hooks was a professor and where there is an institute in her name, said she had died at 69 on Wednesday. The Washington Post reported that the cause of death was end-stage renal failure.
  Since the ’70s, hooks had been writing essential essays and poetry on an array of topics, many of them pertaining to
  
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• Elfrida von Nardroff, 96, Dies; Won Big Money on a Fixed Quiz Show

  15-12-2021 19:48 via nytimes.com
  
  In 1958, she won more on “Twenty-One” than anyone else. But she became embroiled in a scandal that led to grand jury and congressional investigations.
  
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• ‘The Tender Bar’ Review: Where Everybody Knows His Name

  15-12-2021 18:59 via nytimes.com
  
  Ben Affleck serves up whiskey and wisdom in George Clooney’s adaptation of the best-selling memoir by J.R. Moehringer.
  
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• Oscar Contenders Like Lady Gaga and Ben Affleck Go Big

  15-12-2021 18:55 via nytimes.com
  
  Aim-for-the-fences performances from Lady Gaga, Ben Affleck and many others are making waves, and we’re here for the outrageous fun.
  
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• Review: ‘Messiah’ Brings the New York Philharmonic to Church

  15-12-2021 18:22 via nytimes.com
  
  Jeannette Sorrell led superb voices and a stylish orchestra in Handel’s classic of the holiday season at Riverside Church.
  
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• Raven O, a Nightlife Fixture for Four Decades, Takes a Final Bow

  15-12-2021 18:14 via nytimes.com
  
  Since the ’80s, Raven O has choreographed, directed, hosted, danced and sung on many New York stages. After three final shows, he’ll return to Hawaii.
  
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• Lesley Lokko Becomes First Black Curator to Organize Venice Architecture Biennale

  15-12-2021 17:59 via artnews.com
  
  The Venice Architecture Biennale in Italy has picked Lesley Lokko to curate its 2023 edition, making her the first person of African descent to helm the world’s top architecture biennial. Dezeen reported that she is also the first Black architect to organize the biennial, as well as one of the few women ever to curate it. Lokko’s biennial is set to open on May 20, 2023.
  Like its sister biennial devoted to art, the Venice Architecture Biennale has been largely curated by white archite
  
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• Review: In ‘Station Eleven,’ the World Ends, Beautifully

  15-12-2021 17:51 via nytimes.com
  
  Don’t let the pandemic premise chase you off. This is the most uplifting post-apocalyptic show you’re likely to see.
  
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• Rita Moreno and Ariana DeBose on 'West Side Story

  15-12-2021 17:45 via nytimes.com
  
  The two actresses explain what the new “West Side Story” gets right, what the original lacked and why playing the role they’re both known for is so gut-wrenching.
  
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• UNESCO Declares Arabic Calligraphy an ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity’

  15-12-2021 17:38 via artnews.com
  
  UNESCO has added Arabic calligraphy to its Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list. The proposal was put forward by a coalition of 16 Arabic speaking countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine. They will create a report on their progress in supporting the art form next year.
  The proposal was led by Saudi Arabia, which had declared the years of 2020 and 2021 the “Year of Arabic Calligraphy,” which included the push for Arabic calligraphy to be included on th
  
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• Review: First the Party, Then the Crash, in a ‘Cabaret’ Revival

  15-12-2021 17:18 via nytimes.com
  
  A London production starring Eddie Redmayne pulls the audience into a hedonistic milieu. Then things get dark.
  
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• Sotheby’s Reports Record High of $7.3 B. in Sales for 2021

  15-12-2021 17:10 via artnews.com
  
  After its fall auctions series drew pre-pandemic sums and crowds, Sotheby’s reported $7.3 billion in sales in 2021—a record high for the auction house. That total is 32 percent more than what the house made in 2020, when it reported $5.5 billion in sales. It even exceeds pre-pandemic figures—Sotheby’s said in 2019 that it brought in $4.8 billion in sales. The 2021 figure suggests that the market is alive and well, perhaps even more so than before.
  Some $6 billion came in
  
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• ‘Vivian Maier Developed,’ an Intimate Biography of a Very Private Photographer

  15-12-2021 17:08 via nytimes.com
  
  Ann Marks’s biography is a fascinating overview of the “photographer nanny” whose work has kept critics, lawyers and scholars busy since it was discovered after her death in 2009.
  
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• Sifu’s stunning martial arts combat will appeal to a generation of kung fu fans - The Verge

  15-12-2021 17:02 via theverge.com
  
  Sifu’s stunning martial arts combat will appeal to a generation of kung fu fans  The Verge
  
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• Poetic Logic: Elizabeth Alexander Is Transforming How a Major Philanthropic Foundation Operates

  15-12-2021 17:00 via artnews.com
  
  In 2017, Elizabeth Alexander, one of the most acclaimed poets of her generation, was in New Orleans for a site visit with Ford Foundation director Darren Walker and his board of trustees. At the time she was director of the Foundation’s Creativity and Free Expression program, focusing on arts and culture, journalism, and documentary filmmaking. Such excursions were not unusual, as trustees often visited places that the foundation had assisted, and in the years following Hurricane Katrina,
  
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• A Spinning Acrobat Learns to Love Change

  15-12-2021 16:18 via nytimes.com
  
  The French circus company Libertivore makes its American debut, though its director had to give up her performing career.
  
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• Assume Vivid Astro Focus Rocks On

  15-12-2021 16:05 via artnews.com
  
  THERE ARE ARTISTS, THERE ARE ARTISTS’ collectives, and there is assume vivid astro focus. This entity (project? practice? platform? Its ontological status is purposely unclear) marks its twentieth anniversary this year, having been founded in New York City by Brazilian artist Eli Sudbrack. From the first, avaf was a radically open-ended endeavor. Even the name came by chance. “Astro” was occasioned by a case of mistaken identity in a secondhand clothing store; Sudbrack later di
  
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• New Robert Indiana Lawsuit, Guggenheim Bilbao Staff Protest, and More: Morning Links from December 15, 2021

  15-12-2021 16:00 via artnews.com
  
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  PRESERVING LEGACIES. When he died 10 years ago, Afro-Brazilian artist and activist Abdias Nascimento left behind the Museu de Arte Negra (Black Art Museum). Now, the museum will take up a two-year residency at another important Brazilian institution, Inhotim. The first exhibition in the series looks at Nascimento&r
  
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• Let’s Look Back on 2021, When We Couldn’t Stop Looking Back

  15-12-2021 16:00 via nytimes.com
  
  There’s now a thriving cottage industry for content that re-examines the recent past through a contemporary critical lens. Is that a good thing?
  
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• For This Theater Leader, a Mission That Goes Beyond the Stage

  15-12-2021 16:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Sarasota’s Westcoast Black Theater Troupe is getting back to live shows and community outreach after multiple shutdowns.
  
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• I Watched ‘Encanto’ With My Dad. It Brought Him Back Home.

  15-12-2021 15:00 via nytimes.com
  
  The animated Disney movie is set in Colombia, where my father is from — a place he rarely talks about. Would he fall for the film?
  
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• This Monster's Not Eager, but His Coach Is Ready to Rumble

  15-12-2021 14:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Steve is being pressed into service as a wrestler in training, but if he had a choice he’d prefer a rumba to a rumble.
  
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• In ‘With Love,’ Gloria Calderón Kellett Comes Home for the Holidays

  15-12-2021 13:00 via nytimes.com
  
  For her first show as a sole creator, Calderón Kellett writes love stories for a family that looks a lot like her own.
  
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• Terry Gilliam's Disputed Sondheim Show Finds a Home

  15-12-2021 12:32 via nytimes.com
  
  The director was set to stage a revival of “Into the Woods” in London. After a clash at the Old Vic theater, the much-anticipated production will now debut 115 miles away, in Bath, England.
  
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• Couple offers millions for elusive performing arts center in exchange for city land at Northwood - Tallahassee.com

  15-12-2021 12:03 via tallahassee.com
  Couple offers millions for elusive performing arts center in exchange for city land at Northwood  Tallahassee.com
  
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• With ‘Gunfight,’ an Insider Takes on a Community That Was Once His Own

  15-12-2021 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Ryan Busse used to be a prominent figure in the firearm industry. A recent book details his disillusionment as he saw gun culture transform — and has drawn disdain from former allies.
  
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• Times Critics’ Top Books of 2021

  15-12-2021 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  The Times’s staff critics give their choices of the best fiction and nonfiction works of the year.
  
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• Times Critics Discuss 2021 in Books, From Breakout Stars to Cover Blobs

  15-12-2021 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  The Times’s staff critics talk with one another about the reading they did this year, on and off the job.
  
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• The Blind Poet Who Saw Visions of Religious and Political Freedom

  15-12-2021 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  “Making Darkness Light,” a new portrait of John Milton by the Oxford scholar Joe Moshenska, presents the poet as a radical writer and thinker, incorporating literary analysis and personal history as well as a fictional dinner party.
  
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• The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2021

  15-12-2021 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Classics by Bach, Mozart and Brahms and new works by Andy Akiho, Angélica Negrón and Tyshawn Sorey were among our favorite recordings this year.
  
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• Statement Dressing in a Red Carpet Kurta

  15-12-2021 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  “I want to bring all the parts of myself,” Riz Ahmed said of wearing Prada’s version of the traditional garment at the premiere of his new movie.
  
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• See the Real Live Man Who Grew Up in a Carnival

  15-12-2021 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  For our reporter, “Nightmare Alley” recalls a childhood spent working the circuit with his parents. Carnies like the World’s Smallest Woman welcomed him when cruel classmates didn’t.
  
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• In Fragments, Debut Stories Render Early Adulthood’s Quiet Challenges

  15-12-2021 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  In her story collection, “You Never Get It Back,” Cara Blue Adams explores the microcosm of a young woman’s ordinary struggle in modern America, as she grows from student angst to adult crises.
  
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• In a Debut Collection, the Quiet, Indelible Challenges of Early Adulthood, Rendered in Splinters and Fragments

  15-12-2021 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  In her story collection, “You Never Get It Back,” Cara Blue Adams explores the microcosm of a young woman’s ordinary struggle in modern America, as she grows from student angst to adult crises.
  
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• Debut Stories Render the Quiet Challenges of Early Adulthood in Splinters and Fragments

  15-12-2021 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  In her story collection, “You Never Get It Back,” Cara Blue Adams explores the microcosm of a young woman’s ordinary struggle in modern America, as she grows from student angst to adult crises.
  
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