AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Institutions reinventing themselves
Good Morning,
Several stories today about institutions discovering they don’t actually need a center. Alabama’s WLRH dropped NPR programming and its audience grew (AL.com); public media more broadly is finding that losing federal money surfaced a donor base it had assumed was tapped out (Current). Neither result makes the cuts a good idea, but still. Makes you think…
Rethinking the model shows up in Australia too, where four regional performing arts centers have pooled resources to originate the big work the capital-city companies used to (Limelight). In Buffalo, the AKG has split its director job in two (BTPM) — an admission that the singular-visionary model maybe should be rethought.
A terrific essay asks why “ancient history” still means Greece and Rome (Aeon).
And today’s saddest stories: the Kennedy Center is empty enough that the volunteer tour guide is now the story (NYT). And Betye Saar, who spent 70 years making art from what the culture threw away, has died four days short of 100 (Yahoo).
Lighter: Emily Wilson has seen Nolan’s Odyssey and would like a word (London Review of Books).
- A Chagall Etching Is Liberated After Languishing For 20 Years In Customs
The etching, L’Acrobate au violon (1924), and another work were confiscated from a shipment of art being taken from France to Switzerland in 2005 after French agents determined that the items weren’t authorized to leave the country. The pieces were rediscovered after two decades, and the Chagall is now on display in Besançon. – Artnet
- The Ancient World Beyond Greece, Rome and Egypt
The de facto equation of ‘ancient history’ with ancient Mediterranean history, at least in most of the Anglosphere, has endured for many generations. But we are on the cusp of a dramatic shift in perspective that is producing a much bigger, broader and more exciting view of ‘the ancient world’. – Aeon
- Meet The Costumer Who Paints New York City Ballet’s Pointe Shoes
“To be a shoe colorist for New York City Ballet, as Tim Foster has been for 15 years, is to occupy a small yet important niche. Most pointe shoes and ballet slippers are manufactured in a pale pink. But the company’s repertoire requires a rainbow of hues.” – The New York Times
- They’re Still Making New Discoveries At Pompeii
ISSUES
- A Chagall Etching Is Liberated After Languishing For 20 Years In Customs
The etching, L’Acrobate au violon (1924), and another work were confiscated from a shipment of art being taken from France to Switzerland in 2005 after French agents determined that the items weren’t authorized to leave the country. The pieces were rediscovered after two decades, and the Chagall is now on display in Besançon. – Artnet
- They’re Still Making New Discoveries At Pompeii
- After Decades Of Anonymity, One Of The Guerilla Girls Unmasks Herself
“The founding member of Guerrilla Girls known by the pseudonym Liubov Popova has revealed her true identity: she is 83-year-old US-based painter and sculptor, Joyce Kozloff, a major figure in the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s.” – Ocula
- Buffalo AKG Museum (Formerly Albright-Knox) Splits Its Director Job In Two
“Cathleen Chaffee, who currently serves as … Chief Curator, is the museum’s incoming artistic director, while Jillian Jones, AKG’s deputy director, will become executive director. Under a new co-leadership structure, Chaffee will oversee the museum’s exhibitions and public-facing programs. Jones will guide overall strategy, operations and finances.” – Buffalo Toronto Public Media
- How Museums Are Using Data To Shape The Experience
Perhaps the biggest opportunity created by detailed data is the ability to provide personalized recommendations. Supplementing traditional curation with analytical methods, more recently including machine learning and artificial intelligence, has become more common. – Ars Technica
MEDIA
- Performing Arts Centers In Australia’s “Second Cities” Form A Network
Four of Australia’s leading regional performing arts organisations have joined forces to establish a new national pathway for developing and presenting large-scale Australian theatre, backed by funding from Creative Australia. – Limelight
- At The Empty Kennedy Center, A Volunteer Tour Guide Soldiers On
“In a dogged demonstration of love and loyalty for an institution that has elevated life for her and millions of visitors, (Sandy Weisswasser) still arrives every Monday for her tour day, knowing she may soon find the doors locked.” – The New York Times
- Kennicott: Trump’s Smithsonian Complaints Are Laughable
Visitors who pass these signs on the way into the museum may find them concerning; when they pass them on the way out, they will probably find them laughably at odds with what they have just experienced. – Washington Post
- In The Ongoing Saga Of Portland’s Performing Arts Centers, The Mayor Has Made His Support Clear
Mayor Wilson now supports a 3,000-seat city-owned performance hall at Portland State University, while the venerable, earthquake-unprepared Keller Auditorium would be rebuilt as as 1,200-1,800 seat venue. Keller supporters are incensed. – Oregon ArtsWatch
- Meta Glasses Are Now Banned At Comic-Cons In The UK After Secret Filming Issues
“A number of guests had told the company they would be reluctant to appear at Comic-Con shows again after cases of recordings taking place without their knowledge. The ban is applicable to Meta glasses and any other ‘wearable recording devices.’” – BBC
MUSIC
- Authors Have Mixed Feeling About Anthropic “Win”
One possible way for authors to get a fairer shake in the age of AI could be through the licensing of their work to AI companies. – NPR
- The Return Of “Tamizdat”: Why So Many New Russian Books Are Being Published Abroad
“Freedom Letters … (is) one of a growing number of cultural organizations that have joined forces with bookstores, wholesalers and book-fair organizers to build a literary resistance among the Russian diaspora. Together, they publish, sell and distribute books that can’t get through Russia’s restrictive new censorship laws.” – Bloomberg
- Literary Crisis? I Think Not
I don’t want to totally wave away the issues these pieces are gesturing towards, but I’d argue the fear that we’re sliding into a post-literate society rests on a category error that feels endemic at this point. – Becoming Literary
- Students Are No Longer Reading Full Books
Before we ask our students to read difficult material, those of us who teach in college owe it to all of them to explain that reading books in their entirety matters. If we won’t, or can’t, then higher education will have a bleak future. – The Conversation
- AI Companies Are Buying Up Old Books And Destroying Them As They Scan
Once focused on helping libraries, distributors, and book shops find and sell books, ISBNdb now helps AI companies bulk-buy anywhere between 1,000 to one million books per order, according to 404. – Futurism
PEOPLE
- Institutions reinventing themselves
Good Morning,
Several stories today about institutions discovering they don’t actually need a center. Alabama’s WLRH dropped NPR programming and its audience grew (AL.com); public media more broadly is finding that losing federal money surfaced a donor base it had assumed was tapped out (Current). Neither result makes the cuts a good idea, but still. Makes you think…
Rethinking the model shows up in Australia too, where four regional performing arts centers have pooled resources to originate the big work the capital-city companies used to (Limelight). In Buffalo, the AKG has split its director job in two (BTPM) — an admission that the singular-visionary model maybe should be rethought.
A terrific essay asks why “ancient history” still means Greece and Rome (Aeon).
And today’s saddest stories: the Kennedy Center is empty enough that the volunteer tour guide is now the story (NYT). And Betye Saar, who spent 70 years making art from what the culture threw away, has died four days short of 100 (Yahoo).
Lighter: Emily Wilson has seen Nolan’s Odyssey and would like a word (London Review of Books).
- A Chagall Etching Is Liberated After Languishing For 20 Years In Customs
The etching, L’Acrobate au violon (1924), and another work were confiscated from a shipment of art being taken from France to Switzerland in 2005 after French agents determined that the items weren’t authorized to leave the country. The pieces were rediscovered after two decades, and the Chagall is now on display in Besançon. – Artnet
- The Ancient World Beyond Greece, Rome and Egypt
The de facto equation of ‘ancient history’ with ancient Mediterranean history, at least in most of the Anglosphere, has endured for many generations. But we are on the cusp of a dramatic shift in perspective that is producing a much bigger, broader and more exciting view of ‘the ancient world’. – Aeon
- Meet The Costumer Who Paints New York City Ballet’s Pointe Shoes
“To be a shoe colorist for New York City Ballet, as Tim Foster has been for 15 years, is to occupy a small yet important niche. Most pointe shoes and ballet slippers are manufactured in a pale pink. But the company’s repertoire requires a rainbow of hues.” – The New York Times
- They’re Still Making New Discoveries At Pompeii
PEOPLE
- Institutions reinventing themselves
Good Morning,
Several stories today about institutions discovering they don’t actually need a center. Alabama’s WLRH dropped NPR programming and its audience grew (AL.com); public media more broadly is finding that losing federal money surfaced a donor base it had assumed was tapped out (Current). Neither result makes the cuts a good idea, but still. Makes you think…
Rethinking the model shows up in Australia too, where four regional performing arts centers have pooled resources to originate the big work the capital-city companies used to (Limelight). In Buffalo, the AKG has split its director job in two (BTPM) — an admission that the singular-visionary model maybe should be rethought.
A terrific essay asks why “ancient history” still means Greece and Rome (Aeon).
And today’s saddest stories: the Kennedy Center is empty enough that the volunteer tour guide is now the story (NYT). And Betye Saar, who spent 70 years making art from what the culture threw away, has died four days short of 100 (Yahoo).
Lighter: Emily Wilson has seen Nolan’s Odyssey and would like a word (London Review of Books).
- A Chagall Etching Is Liberated After Languishing For 20 Years In Customs
The etching, L’Acrobate au violon (1924), and another work were confiscated from a shipment of art being taken from France to Switzerland in 2005 after French agents determined that the items weren’t authorized to leave the country. The pieces were rediscovered after two decades, and the Chagall is now on display in Besançon. – Artnet
- The Ancient World Beyond Greece, Rome and Egypt
The de facto equation of ‘ancient history’ with ancient Mediterranean history, at least in most of the Anglosphere, has endured for many generations. But we are on the cusp of a dramatic shift in perspective that is producing a much bigger, broader and more exciting view of ‘the ancient world’. – Aeon
- Meet The Costumer Who Paints New York City Ballet’s Pointe Shoes
“To be a shoe colorist for New York City Ballet, as Tim Foster has been for 15 years, is to occupy a small yet important niche. Most pointe shoes and ballet slippers are manufactured in a pale pink. But the company’s repertoire requires a rainbow of hues.” – The New York Times
- They’re Still Making New Discoveries At Pompeii
THEATRE
VISUAL
- The Ancient World Beyond Greece, Rome and Egypt
The de facto equation of ‘ancient history’ with ancient Mediterranean history, at least in most of the Anglosphere, has endured for many generations. But we are on the cusp of a dramatic shift in perspective that is producing a much bigger, broader and more exciting view of ‘the ancient world’. – Aeon
- What If More Intelligence Doesn’t Make Us Better?
If we think of intelligence as the ability to extract information from data, then even an infinitely advanced model endowed with infinite compute will be limited by the fact that there’s a limited amount of information that can be extracted from the data. – Noahpinion
- With So Much Abundance, Why Are We Bored?
For anyone with an Internet connection and a little discretionary income, the contemporary moment offers a superabundance of seductive distractions. Why then the pervasive mood of emptiness? Why are so many at once overstimulated and bored? – The Guardian
- This Booker-Winning Book Set In Taiwan Has Sparked A Cultural Reckoning
The author says she “wanted to tell Taiwanese people, ‘We do not really understand our own land’s history,’” partly because of the time Taiwan was a colony of Japan. – NPR
- Alert: Don’t Throw Away Your Old E-Reader
Of course don’t throw it away – get it to an e-waste recycler or dealer – but also, you can turn it into a Spotify controller or, perhaps coolest of all, a literary clock. – Wired