“The U.S. government’s lack of a proper infrastructure to adequately support the arts is matched by many philanthropic institutions that are often reluctant to support projects and activities beyond their own communities or outside U.S. borders.”
The Top 10 Artists Lost To The World Because Of World War I
“The first world war occured at one of the most creative moments in the history of art.”
London Needs More ‘Pop-Up’ Theatre – But It’s Hard To Come By In The West End
“Producers constantly say that West End ticket prices are so high because of the high rents charged by theatre owners, and this would be a way to circumvent those demands – although of course the costs of kitting out a pop-up venue are likely to be very substantial indeed.”
Ballet: Suddenly, It’s The Workout Of The Fashion World
“If yoga and pilates are now standard, with classes from gyms to chilly church halls, ballet – which has a level of technique so punishing that only a tiny chosen few will actually succeed – is perfect for fashion. It’s inherently elitist in its quest for physical perfection.”
Algorithm “Mutates” Art
“The algorithm mutates the image in different ways: chopping it in half, overlaying it on another image or randomly altering it. The resulting images are either culled or kept depending on how closely they adhere to the user’s initial stylistic choices, and the process repeats. The person can stop the process at any time and select an image they like, or let it keep running.”
A History Of Literary Censorship
“A more legitimate literary objection to censorship is its implicit portrayal of a reader as the sort of person who jumps off a cliff when asked. Notions such as “obscenity” or “abasement before the west” make literary language a tool of subversion and ascribe to the novelist the hypnotist’s capacity for making a previously obedient or prudish member of the public throw stones or unzip.”
Prado Museum: Just To Clarify – We’ve Know For A Long Time About Our Missing Art Works
“The only new element presented in the audit undertaken by the Tribunal de Cuentas in 2012 is the that fact 41 works have been located, the whereabouts of which had been unknown since 1978 when the first report by the Fiscalía General de Reino was published on the situation of works from the collection of the Museo del Prado on deposit with other institutions.”
Protesting Performers Have Been Interrupting French Festival This Summer
“Throughout the three weeks of the festival there have been almost daily demonstrations. Several shows have been stopped or disrupted, though the worst nightmare of the organisers – total cancellation of the entire event, as happened in 2003 – has happily been avoided.”
NYC Mayor Fires Eight Board Members Of Queens Library System
“The board members were removed after they voted in April against firing Thomas W. Galante, director of the Queens library system, who has been under investigation for using money earmarked for library improvements for renovations to his personal office and for steering contracts for the work to a friend.”
Head Of Big New Arts Center In Beverly Hills Out After First Season
“The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, which only recently completed its inaugural season, confirmed Thursday that Executive Director Lou Moore has left the fledgling arts organization. Moore, who spent more than a decade raising money to construct the new center and then led its 2013 opening and first season, left the organization on Tuesday.”
Andy Serkis, Star Of A Movie Medium That’s Anti-Star By Its Very Nature
“Serkis, whose resume includes playing some of the least likely critical favorites of all time – Gollum, King Kong, and Godzilla – seems like an ideal spokesman for motion-capture if it wants high-brow cred. … [Yet] the singular focus on him in some ways clashes with the collaborative, chameleonic spirit of motion-capture, a field that has a long and glorious tradition of eschewing thespian concerns entirely.”
Angel Corella: “I Have A Lot Of Plans” For Pennsylvania Ballet
They include “closely coaching the dancers, touring more, giving outdoor public performances, organizing outreach programs with schools, and bringing in new choreographers. He listed Christopher Wheeldon, Wayne McGregor, Justin Peck, and Liam Scarlett as possibilities. He also wants to reassure his dancers and artistic staff.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.24.14
Big Questions Re: Museum of African Art’s New Dream
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-07-25
Celebrating the Power of SLAKE
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-07-24
Koons, Whitney, Wynn and My “Greater Fool” Theory of Trophy Art
AJBlog: CultureGrrl | Published 2014-07-24
Managing expectations
AJBlog: Sandow | Published 2014-07-24
Survivor stories
AJBlog: Performance Monkey | Published 2014-07-24
What is Creative Placemaking?
AJBlog: Field Notes | Published 2014-07-25
When Manhattan Became The Capital Of The World (In The 1920s)
“Beginning with the reconstruction of Park Avenue in the early 1920s, Midtown became a destination neighborhood for the city’s ultrarich, eager to abandon their stand-alone Fifth Avenue palaces in favor of contemporary “mansions in the sky.” Alongside the real estate boom came a decadent new night life and a host of more serious cultural diversions, all of them fueled, in Miller’s telling, by a steady supply of ambition, energy and illicit booze.”
TV Edges Out Movies At This Year’s Comic-Con
“Television has been growing here like kudzu in recent years, but this time around it seems to have finally blocked out the light for much of anything else to be noticed.”
New York City Is Introducing A New ID Card (And It Wants Cultural Groups To Help)
“To broaden the appeal of a card that will be available to all New Yorkers early next year but is designed to help those who do not have a driver’s license or other official identification, the administration has asked some of the city’s most prominent cultural institutions to offer benefits, like memberships or discounted tickets, to cardholders.”
British Government Backs Down On Cuts To Music Education
“This is undoubtedly good news. That extra £17 million (the government says £18 million, but no-one quite understands their arithmetic), means the total amount spread around the music hubs will rise to £75 million. This will reverse the decline of recent years, which has been steep.”
80s Band Duran Duran Sues Its Own Fan Club
“The band, known for hits such as Notorious and Hungry Like the Wolf, are claiming that Chicago-based company Worldwide Fan Clubs have breached contract by not paying the band promised revenue.”
How Popular Culture Of The 1920s Became Obsessed With King Tut
“The tomb’s discovery, at the start of the Roaring Twenties, followed the global upheavals of World War One. Mass media was able to bring news of objects being carried out of the tomb to a wider audience, faster than ever before. America, in particular, became obsessed by “King Tut” – as he became known. Even US President Herbert Hoover used the name for his pet dog.”
Met Opera’s Peter Gelb Gives Unions Ultimatum: Contract In One Week Or Lockout
“The labor strife at the Metropolitan Opera took on a new urgency Wednesday when its general manager, Peter Gelb, sent the company’s orchestra, chorus, stagehands and other workers letters warning them to prepare for a lockout if no contract deal is reached by next week.”
When Richard Strauss Faced Down American GIs
Alex Ross investigates the truth behind the famous old World War II story of how Strauss convinced U.S. soldiers not to commandeer his house by telling them, “I am the composer of Der Rosenkavalier and Salome.”