http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/ Copyright 2012 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:36:52 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.33 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss "To pass through Grand Central Terminal, one of New York's exalted public spaces, is an ennobling experience, a gift. To commute via the bowels of Penn Station, just a few blocks away, is a humiliation. What is the value of architecture? It can be measured, culturally, humanely and historically, in the gulf between these two places."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/dismal_penn_sta.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/dismal_penn_sta.shtml visual Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:36:52 -0800 "A self-published author has beaten names including Lee Child, James Patterson and Stieg Larsson to become the bestselling ebook author on Amazon.co.uk for the last three months of 2011, the online retailer said on Wednesday."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/selfpublished_e.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/selfpublished_e.shtml publishing Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:31:04 -0800 "The cold war between north American booksellers and Amazon has hotted up this week, with the booksellers joining together to announce that they will not be selling any of the titles published by the online retailer."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/opposition_to_a.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/opposition_to_a.shtml publishing Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:29:32 -0800 "For some reason, it's taking a lot longer than in literature and the visual arts to reach equilibrium. It was deemed (just about) acceptable by the 19th century for female writers to be published, yet it's only in the last couple of decades that female composers have really emerged, blinking, out of their garrets and into publishing houses and record label offices; so, without a little helping hand, there might be a long way to go yet. So wherefore the imbalance?"... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/why_is_it_takin.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/why_is_it_takin.shtml music Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:27:51 -0800 "When, then, did pop art become mind candy, bubblegum, an uncritical adoration of bright lights and synthetic colours? Probably when money got involved, and Warhol was shot, never again to be as brave as he was in the 60s, or when Jeff Koons gave Reaganomics its art, or when Damien Hirst made his tenth million. Who knows? The moment when pop art sank from radical criticism to bland adulation is impossible to pinpoint."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/pop_art_just_an.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/pop_art_just_an.shtml visual Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:18:19 -0800 "As the art business continues to globalise, its growth depends upon making scholarship reliable and accessible. Because, in the end, the experts are the only candidates who can provide the adult supervision the market desperately craves."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/is_the_art_mark_7.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/is_the_art_mark_7.shtml visual Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:14:34 -0800 "The government, led by Viktor Orban, stands accused of systematically replacing key figures in cultural institutions, staging pro-government exhibitions, rethinking permanent museum displays and replacing historic statues to fit its political agenda."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/hungarian_gover_1.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/hungarian_gover_1.shtml issues Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:12:16 -0800 "Gross box-office revenue in Canada for the year totalled $1.001-billion, a 3 per cent decline from 2010. Canadian films accounted for about 3 per cent of that, grossing $28.3-million in total, down 16 per cent from the $33.5-million tallied in 2010."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/canadian_box_of.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/canadian_box_of.shtml media Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:02:00 -0800 "Researchers have found that sending an electrical jolt to a part of the brain that plays a key role in memory improved people's ability to learn -- and remember -- their way across an unfamiliar landscape."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/your_brain_jolt.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/your_brain_jolt.shtml ideas Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:54:34 -0800 "If the scientific community wants to engage and inform the public, science fiction is an excellent strategy. Stories captivate people, they survive the test of time, and they become part of the popular culture."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/how_science_fic.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/how_science_fic.shtml publishing Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:49:17 -0800 The company "is being split by controversy over founder and artistic director Edward Villella's earlier-than-expected retirement, announced last September in a way that shocked company members and the dance world. ... [Some] board members, major donors and dancers are questioning the decision and contend he was forced out at the apex of his career."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/battles_at_miam.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/battles_at_miam.shtml dance Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:04:20 -0800 "Orchestra Victoria spends most of its time in the pit at the State Theatre supporting performances of the national ballet and opera companies. But after a year marked by tense industrial negotiations and uncertainty about its future, the orchestra has announced a program designed to raise its profile around the state."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/melbournes_no_2.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/melbournes_no_2.shtml music Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:03:21 -0800 "While higher education is generally regarded as a good (mainly because folks with college degrees make more than folks who lack such degrees), there has been considerable debate in the United States as to whether or not higher education is a public good" (and thus deserving of funding by taxpayers). A look at a few of the arguments pro and con.... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/is_education_re.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/is_education_re.shtml issues Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:01:36 -0800 The 'More than Magic' competition, run by the Tulsa chapter of the Romance Writers of America, this year for the first time declined to accept any gay- or lesbian-themed entries. (Sex with vampires, werewolves and aliens is fine.) The backlash was so swift and fierce that organizers have now cancelled the event.... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/romance_writing.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/romance_writing.shtml publishing Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:39 -0800 "It's hard to overstate the importance of new musical instruments in history. The piano's dynamic range allowed for a subtlety in composition previously unimagined. The modern drum set paved the way for jazz. Rock and roll would not have happened without the electric guitar. ... So what happened? Why has there been such a drought of [successful] new instruments - especially in rock and pop, which thrive on novelty?"... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/why_is_it_so_ha_2.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/why_is_it_so_ha_2.shtml music Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:59:51 -0800 "The ballet company at Milan's famous La Scala opera house fought back Wednesday, after one of their leading dancers was fired for giving interviews in which she said the industry has an anorexia problem. ... 'There is no anorexia emergency, and whoever is part of our world knows that well,' said the company."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/anorexia_theres.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/anorexia_theres.shtml dance Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:59:03 -0800 It's "a completely unreliable guide to decision making. ... [We're] often confident in our intuitive judgments even when we have no idea what we're doing. And to make matters worse, we tend to evaluate the reliability of other people's decision making on the same basis - if they're confident, they must know what they're talking about."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/you_know_what_t_1.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/you_know_what_t_1.shtml ideas Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:57:30 -0800 The novelist "originally wanted to be an actor. ... He was an avid theatregoer, joined the Garrick Club at the age of 25 and had many theatrical friends ... He visited circuses and melodrama houses; his periodical writings covered vents and 'grimacers', waxworks, freak shows, actors, gaslight fairies and clowns."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/charles_dickens_3.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/charles_dickens_3.shtml people Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:56:45 -0800 From a study of polling data published last year in Urban Affairs Review: "We find that ... [cities] that provide easy access to convenient public transportation and to cultural and leisure amenities promote happiness. Cities that are affordable and serve as good places to raise children also have happier residents."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/good_urban_desi.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/good_urban_desi.shtml ideas Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:55:59 -0800 Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, still has a collection of Art Deco and Italian Modernist buildings that were constructed when Mussolini's Italy controlled the country. Present-day Asmarans now seem to consider these landmarks part of Eritrean culture and heritage, rather than colonial impositions.... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/is_this_africas.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/is_this_africas.shtml visual Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:55:54 -0800 "Now it's been revealed that the 10-year-old Jack Russell, who will retire from feature film-making after the Academy Awards ceremony, is leaving the biz due to a mystery illness that has baffled experts and cost his trainer thousands of dollars in vets' bills."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/the_real_star_o.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/the_real_star_o.shtml people Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:54:32 -0800 "Last year's top five had one film, the fourth Twilight, with a US setting; two, if you count the last Transformers, which really belongs to the multimillion-dollar globetrotters that rule the roost now. The new orthodoxy is: if a film is set in America, with strong American themes, the less chance it stands in the new globalised mainstream."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/americas_global_1.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/americas_global_1.shtml media Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:53:31 -0800 Sure, it makes sense that India would forbid The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - all that rape and violence. But Burma/Myanmar banned The Simpsons Movie over pigment, the French government cut the entire second half of an African art documentary, Ireland banned the Marx Brothers' Monkey Business for anarchy, and China blocks all films depicting time travel.... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/foreign_countri.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/foreign_countri.shtml media Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:52:46 -0800 A retired Chicago Public School teacher gets feisty after being robbed of a classical music cruise... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/classical_music_73.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/classical_music_73.shtml music Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:26:47 -0800 "I learned the importance of breath. There was a thing I learned in my lessons from Estelle -- to breathe from your back. She would always say, there's room in the back -- that you expand three dimensionally. ... I use it all."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/meryl_streep_ho.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/meryl_streep_ho.shtml people Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:17:52 -0800 "Using Rice's Connexions platform, OpenStax will offer free course materials for five common introductory classes. The textbooks are open to classes anywhere and organizers believe the programs could save students $90 million in the next five years if the books capture 10 percent of the national market."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/the_free_openso.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/the_free_openso.shtml publishing Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:11:38 -0800 "In extending Canada Reads to include works of non-fiction for the first time since the contest's inception 10 years ago, the CBC has inadvertently transformed a friendly, domestic literary debate into a geopolitical furor focused on volatile questions of truth and justice in distant totalitarian regimes."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/canadian_bookre.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/canadian_bookre.shtml publishing Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:03:45 -0800 "One couple failed because they Tweeted their every move. One man attempted to hook the picture off the wall with a long broom. Having eluded such elaborate ruses, Pulp Fiction will now be donated to Crime Stoppers, a division of the police, and will be auctioned off to raise funds for crime fighting."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/the_art_hotel_t.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/the_art_hotel_t.shtml visual Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:41:40 -0800 "A startup called SonicNotify embeds inaudibly high-pitched audio signals within music or any other audio track. When a compatible app hears that signal, it triggers any available smartphone function to link you to websites, display text, bring up map locations, display a photo, let you vote on which song a performer plays next and so on."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/the_music_that_1.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/the_music_that_1.shtml music Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:29:57 -0800 "He may be an artist so identified with his own moment that his flame will gutter when individual pieces of larger enterprises are broken up and confined in permanent exhibitions. This is the context where deceased artists (without their own museums) have to compete to be noticed and live on, and it's one reason painters have an advantage in art-history books."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/how_should_mike.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/how_should_mike.shtml visual Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:21:07 -0800 "M Shed in Bristol, Turner Contemporary in Margate, The Hepworth Wakefield and Glasgow's Riverside Museum are among the 10 museums in contention. The prize rewards excellence and innovation for a project completed or undertaken in the previous year."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/ten_museums_con.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/ten_museums_con.shtml visual Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:14:05 -0800 "The following are real, quirkily obtuse entries from the Missed Connections section of Charleston Craigslist, broken into lines and stanzas and minimally edited for clarity..."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/the_craigslist.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/the_craigslist.shtml publishing Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:10:42 -0800 http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/metropolitan_mu_1.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/metropolitan_mu_1.shtml visual Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:05:29 -0800 "The Class would be a school for boys aged 11 to 16, located in London ... [where] every pupil will take daily ballet classes as well as trying other dance classes across the week and studying an English Baccalaureate-style curriculum."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/london_plan_for.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/london_plan_for.shtml dance Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:04:43 -0800 My Image Studios, in the ground floor retail space of a new condominium building on West 116th Street in Manhattan, will combine a restaurant "with three theaters for live entertainment and independent films, as well as post-production studios, all to create a $21 million 'living room' of black and Latino-flavored arts and culture."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/ambitious_plans_1.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/ambitious_plans_1.shtml issues Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:04:05 -0800 "San Francisco Opera Music Director Nicola Luisotti has been appointed music director of Teatro di San Carlo of Naples, Italy, effective immediately. ... Founded in 1737, San Carlo is the oldest continuously active theater in Europe, and one of Italy's most prestigious opera houses, famous for its beauty and acoustics."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/sf_operas_nicol.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/sf_operas_nicol.shtml music Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:03:22 -0800 http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/antoni_tapies_8.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/antoni_tapies_8.shtml people Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:02:39 -0800 "Four years after designing the spectacular Bird's Nest Olympic stadium in Beijing, the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron and the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei are to reunite ... to design this year's pavilion - the 12th commission in what has become a major annual event on the architecture calendar."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/ai_weiwei_and_h.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/ai_weiwei_and_h.shtml visual Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:01:53 -0800 "[Write] a scene that would be impossible to stage. That was the first gauntlet Paula Vogel threw down to the 30 participants in her latest roving 'boot camp' on playwriting."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/paula_vogel_is.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/paula_vogel_is.shtml theatre Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:01:12 -0800 "In Nicolas Sarkozy's second crisis-budget plan, which raised taxes to try to plug the deficit, he raised VAT on books from 5.5% to 7%. ... Booksellers' unions are up in arms against the measure, which comes into force in April ... Some booksellers have hinted at a possible 'labelling strike' where they simply refuse to stick on new price tags."... http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/french_booksell.shtml http://www.artsjournal.com/artsjournal1/2012/02/french_booksell.shtml publishing Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:12 -0800