Seeing Cultural Appropriation And Clueless Privilege In Action, And Calling It Out
African-American artist Damon Davis on the work of Kelley Walker: “I sat in the audience listening to this man meander on and on to the crowd, interjecting the occasional art term like ‘form’ or ‘color,’ but never once giving the slightest explanation for why he used over-sexualized images of Black women and traumatic images of Black men being brutalized by police and dogs. … Now, what if I took pictures from the Holocaust and smeared cream cheese on them and threw them in a frame, and then told you it was a critique of capitalism and an exercise in color and the form of the contemporary modernist landscape?”
Pittsburgh Symphony Musicians Go On Strike
“Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra musicians are on strike after unanimously rejecting calls for a 15-percent pay cuts, pension changes and staffing cuts they say are proposed by management. Musicians are actively protesting in front of Heinz Hall in downtown Pittsburgh. As a result of this strike, all performances scheduled to occur this weekend, including the John Williams event have been cancelled.”
Pittsburgh Symphony Musicians Strike: What They’re Saying
Players: If Pittsburgh Symphony Management’s proposed cuts were realized, “many of the PSO’s finest Musicians will leave. The Orchestra will be unable to attract replacements of the same caliber. The reputation and stature of the Pittsburgh Symphony would forever be diminished.”
Petra, The Ancient City Carved From Desert Rock, Had Gardens, Fountains, And A Swimming Pool, Archaeologists Find
“Recent excavations at Petra have revealed a startlingly advanced irrigation system and water storage system that enabled the desert city’s people to survive – and to maintain a magnificent garden featuring fountains, ponds and a huge swimming pool. The engineering feats and other luxuries attest to the ancient Nabatean capital’s former splendor and wealth some 2,000 years ago.”
‘Sex’, The Play That Landed Mae West In Jail For Obscenity, Returns To The Stage
“After a 10-month run on Broadway in 1927, the play was deemed by a grand jury to be such ‘obscene, indecent, immoral, and impure drama’ that it might corrupt ‘the morals of youth’. West was sentenced to 10 days in jail for obscenity, and travelled there in style – garlanded in roses, wearing silk underwear and riding in a limousine.” Who’s reviving it? A troupe called the Dirty Blondes.
Portugal Will Keep, Not Sell, 85 Mirós Repossessed From Failed Bank
“The paintings, estimated to be worth around 35 million euros ($39 million), came under state ownership in 2008 when the government nationalised the failed bank BNP … They were originally set for the auction block at Christie’s but withdrawn after public protest.”
Now We Can Hear The First-Ever Computer Music – And The Computer Was Made By Alan Turing
“Researchers in New Zealand say they have restored the first recording of computer-generated music, created in 1951 on a gigantic contraption built by the British computer scientist Alan Turing.”
Two Stolen Van Goghs, Missing For 14 Years, Recovered In Italy
“The paintings, Seascape at Scheveningen (1882) and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen (1884/85), early works van Gogh painted in Holland, were stolen from the Amsterdam [Van Gogh] museum very early one December morning” in 2002.
New York Dealers Busted With $4.5 Million Worth Of Illegal Ivory
“On 22 September, three dealers who operate the Metropolitan Fine Arts and Antiques store in New York were arrested for selling ivory works of art without a license – a felony in a state under a law passed in 2014 to limit the ivory trade. Officials with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation raided the shop and found 126 objects totaling $4.5m – including two pairs of elephant tusks, one of which was seven feet long.”
Milwaukee Symphony Set New Box Office And Attendance Records Last Season
“The MSO recorded an 8 percent overall increase in single ticket sales and 20 sold-out performances. More than 200,000 people attended its shows over the season. … The organization said it also had a 32 percent increase in new attendees over the previous year.”
Busting Five Arts-Related Myths – Some Believed *By* The Audience, Others *About* It
“Myth 1: Everyone wants to take part in arts activities. …”
New York City Starts $5 Million Fund For Women In Film And Theater
“New York is set to become the first city in the country with a major municipal program geared toward helping female filmmakers and theater-makers. The Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment is to announce on Thursday a new five-part initiative to promote equality behind and in front of the camera, in film and television, as well as onstage.”
Remembering The Old Metropolitan Opera House (It Wasn’t All Wonderful)
“The relatively confined space in that crowded part of the city [just south of Times Square] meant that the old Met had a glorious auditorium with excellent acoustics and sightlines that often made it easier to see other audience members than the stage. It had very little space surrounding the stage, meaning that scenery sometimes had to be put out on the street. … Things were so tight that the chorus often rehearsed in Sherry’s, the restaurant in the old opera house.”
New Orleans’s Music Box Village Finds A Permanent Home
“The initiative of the nonprofit New Orleans Airlift started back in 2011, and its assemblage of musical architecture, in which every structure is a playable instrument, has evolved into a large-scale experiment in reuse and collaboration. A cacophonous water tower, sonic telephone box, and shack of chimes are a few of the structures [musicians can play].”
David Shrigley’s Gloriously Monstrous Thumb Unveiled On Trafalgar’s Fourth Plinth
“Huh. As I suspected. The vaunted optimism of Shrigley’s thumbs-up to Britain’s glorious future is undermined by the deathly black hue of his appendage. Then there is the surreal monstrosity of the hugely deformed thumb. At seven metres high this is the tallest sculpture ever put on the plinth and, while that may seem the kind of statistic tour guides reel off, it has genuine relevance to how it works on a square that is also home to Nelson’s Column.”
Where The Big Bucks Are? Actors Go To The Fan Conventions
“Fan conventions, where stars can take home hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for a few hours of time, once were the domain of has-beens and sci-fi novelties. But the business has become so lucrative — think $500,000 for Captain America’s Chris Evans or The Walking Dead favorite Norman Reedus to appear — that current TV and film stars are popping up at events like Salt Lake City Comic-Con and Heroes and Villains Fan Fest.”
How Do You Measure Audience Value? Hang Out
“As an audience researcher, I am constantly disappointed about the ways in which core audiences are treated by arts organisations. They are often aggressively marketed, cynically courted and increasingly propositioned for money. But rarely are they treated as equal partners in the processes of meaning-making and engaged with in any authentic or meaningful way.”
The Digital World Has Transformed The Idea Of How You “Own” Culture
“If you are like most consumers you are probably unaware of the more subtle ways that your digital books — and movies, games, and other media purchases — are different from physical copies. That’s because your rights to those digital things are filtered through a maze of intellectual property law and limited by the fine print that you agree to when you buy them.”
Finally, We’re Beginning To Understand Time
“We’ve made little progress since Einstein – until now. Some theorists, in their frustration, revert to Augustine’s deduction: that the flow of time is an illusion. Although this conclusion doesn’t fall within the realm of science (how could you falsify it?), it provides a convenient excuse for ignoring the most salient aspects of time, the flow and the now, the aspects that are at the heart of human experience. Now, in the early 21st century, it is time once again to examine the meaning of time.” Physicist Richard A. Muller explains why.
This Man Writes Music For Cats – Music They Actually Like
“‘The first place I started from was the perspective that emotions exist to try to get us to do what would provide for the species,’ [David Teie] says. ‘They are a way of getting humans and mammals to adjust behaviors toward behaviors that would be good for species.’ Then Teie put himself in the feline’s shoes, trying to imagine what cats in their cradles want to imagine.” (sound clips included, of course)
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Could Blockchain Transform The Art Market?
“In the art world, blockchain technology may hold the key to overcoming one of its greatest challenges: the lack of transparency. Frequently described as the last unregulated market, the art world often operates on trust alone. But this trust keeps being tested, as recent forgery scandals such as the Knoedler Gallery fiasco and the case of German forger Wolfgang Beltracchi show. A networked digital ledger such as a blockchain could help keep track of a work of art’s movements without relying on a paper-based—and at times insecure—system of recording provenance.”
The Jewish-American Accent Fascinates Linguists
“But is really a religious or ethnic thing? Can we call it a ‘Jewish accent’ rather than, say, a ‘New York accent’? Scholars say, yes, there is an American Jewish accent, but it’s complicated.”
So What Exactly Is El Sistema, And Is Its Effectiveness Over-Hyped?
The music-training program that started in Venezuela and now has many versions operating all over the world, has gathered passionate adherents. But its effectiveness is difficult to judge and many of its claims are unsubstantiated.
Flemish Old-Master Canvas Found Dumped In Storeroom
“The piece is a rare preparatory oil study for one of [Jacob] Jordaens’ best known works, Atalanta & Meleager, which hangs in the Prado Museum in Madrid.” The painting, now estimated to be worth up to £3 million, had been abandoned in a storeroom at the Swansea Museum in Wales.”
Turner Prize Show Gets Approval Of The Critics (Oh How Things Have Changed)
Time was, everyone’s favorite sport was dumping on whatever crazy art the Turner Prize finalists had created. That was then. The critics are much more enthusiastic this year…
Neighbors To Tate Modern: Your Visitors Are Peeping Into Our Apartments; Tate Director To Neighbors: So Buy Some Damn Curtains
Nicholas Serota: “I need to repeat the fact that clearly people purchasing those flats were in no doubt that Tate Modern was going to build its new Switch House building and the character and uses of that building were widely known. People purchased with their eyes wide open.”
“Transformational” Progress At Boston’s Handel And Haydn As America’s Oldest Performing Arts Institution Expands
Executive director David Snead: Of the $13 million raised, “$8.3 million was for endowment, which will result in a quadrupling of the corpus, and another $5.2 million was raised for a new Strategic Initiatives Fund that is financing a triple-digit increase in education programs, national touring, 6 CD’s, growth in staff, new audience development initiatives such as these videos and online streaming of concerts and market research and a new brand strategy, increases in artistic budget, the commissioning of a new work by Gabriela Frank together with the Library of Congress, infrastructure and capacity growth etc. And the number of new subscribers has doubled in one year. As a result of all this, H+H has grown from a $3 million operation to a $5 million operation in the course of just a few years, all while posting 6 consecutive balanced budgets. So yes, the joint is transformed.”
Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest TV Shows Of All Time
“We undertook a major poll – actors, writers, producers, critics, showrunners. Legends like Carl Reiner and Garry Marshall, who sent us his ballot shortly before his death this summer. All shows from all eras were eligible.” Even so, there seem to have been some unspoken limits: the shows chosen are all in English and almost all from the U.S.; there’s only one Masterpiece series (you know which one, so no Upstairs Downstairs, Prime Suspect or Sherlock), no news or documentary shows, and some strange choices and omissions. (Beavis and Butt-Head and not Bugs Bunny or Bullwinkle? Really??)
How Julie Kent Plans To Reshape Washington Ballet
Her predecessor, Septime Webre, “stamped the Washington Ballet as a showcase of youthful punch and audience-friendly showmanship. … [Kent] She aims to groom the Washington Ballet in the more refined, elegant language of the classics and first-rate contemporary works.”
How Do You Make Emergency Drills Less Annoying? Turn Them Into Choreography
“Emergency evacuation drills, though necessary, are a pain: they seem to always happen when we least expect it and interrupt us when we’re at our most productive. At SIGNAL gallery, the procedure becomes a delight, with artist Madeline Hollander transforming what we’ve all rehearsed with irritation into a mesmerizing performance.”