Ravensburger was brought to court by the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, where the real Vitruvian Man lives. The museum claimed that it was owed financial compensation from the puzzle manufacturer, even though the 500-year-old artwork in question belongs to the public domain. - Artnet
Where Quantitative Aesthetics is really newly intense across society—in art and everywhere—is in how social-media numbers (clicks, likes, shares, retweets, etc.) seep into everything as a shorthand for understanding status. - Artnet
Like Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse before her, Susan Stroman is a director-choreographer who should really be called a choreographer-director. In this show, “we make New York City definitely a character in the show,” says Stroman. - Dance Magazine
According to the letter, “coupling lower than average attendance with the fact that arts funding is the smallest fraction of philanthropic giving means that there are simply not enough resources available for the short term health and long term viability of the Metro Atlanta cultural arts community.” - ArtsATL
"I remain optimistic that the theatre has been around for a long time, and it’s going to continue. I just feel that way. There’s no doubt that our younger audiences brains’ have been rewired by the speed of the culture. But honestly, I sit with young audiences looking at an O’Neill play..." - American...
So far, this year's two superhero releases, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Shazam! Fury of the Gods, have underperformed at the box office and received grudging reviews (47% and 51% on Rotten Tomatoes). Nor did this decline and fall start with them. - BBC
It's the cold waters of the Baltic that kept intact the remains of the wrecked Gribshunden, the flagship of King Hans of Denmark and Norway which sank in 1485. Archaeologists have discovered saffron threads, peppercorns, almond shells, ginger, clove, and black mustard. - Atlas Obscura
Apple has turned classical music’s diversity of metadata into the new app’s raison d’être. And, with so many of what Apple calls “data points”—over 50 million bits of information drawn from their database of recordings—it suddenly makes complete sense. - Van
Lynn Riggs rode a cattle train, worked in New York as an extra in cowboy movies and in Hollywood churning out studio screenplays, wrote Green Grow the Lilacs in France and was in the Army when Oklahoma! debuted on Broadway. Yet he never left behind his difficult prairie childhood. - Smithsonian Magazine
"In my life, thanks to Philadelphia and Chicago, I’ve been to Wichita, Des Moines, Ames, Toledo… For me, to make music, it’s not that I conduct in Salzburg and I try my best. Because every time you try your best, it’s a disaster. Everything becomes mannered, exaggerated, chettera, chettera." - Van
"Curator Erin Schoneveld breaks down five seminal posters from the exhibition (at New York's Poster House Museum) that reveal how art reflects history — and how history influences art." - Fast Company
If and when machines can “write essays” that are more deftly organized, more thoroughly researched, and more persuasive than our student’s efforts, then writing’s purpose will cease to reside solely in the finished text. It has never solely resided there, of course, but we too often act and teach as if it does. -...
Julia Voss, author of the first-ever biography of Europe's first abstract artist, talks about the influence which the 19th-century scientific revolution had on the mystical artist, how hard she tried to get shown, the appalling sexism she faced, and the voices she heard. - Artnet
Her most radical initiative was “02020,” a plan to hand over the programming, the keys to the building and the entire annual production budget to a collective of artists. The idea was to extend experimentalism into every part of the organization. - The New York Times
"Lead producer Mike Bosner … and his team enacted the old-school practice of preview pricing: selling tickets for a show's pre-opening period at a significantly lower price point than after the show's official opening — and advertised this accordingly." - Broadway News
"As Hollywood emerged from the pandemic, its biggest film productions dipped in diversity after years of incremental progress. … Opportunities were notably greater for women and people of color on streaming platforms than in theatrically released films." - AP
"The BBC is set to slash its annual output by 1,000 hours worth of shows to cope with savings requirements that have shot up by some 40 percent to almost half a billion dollars." - The Hollywood Reporter
"From the waning years of Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration through the presidencies of 10 succeeding chief executives, Mr. Russell poked fun at the foibles and flaws of the well-known, the pompous and the powerful in monologues replete with pithy one-liners and musical ditties. He called himself 'a political cartoonist for the blind.'" - MSN...
"Three days after voting to cease publication and lay off its journalists, the nonprofit publisher of the Texas Observer said on Wednesday that it would change course and keep the 68-year-old liberal magazine going, following an emergency appeal that crowdsourced more than $300,000." - The Texas Tribune
"The final evaluation has found that the Unboxed festival, commissioned by Theresa May in 2018 and named a 'festival of Brexit' by Jacob Rees-Mogg, brought together a fraction of the audiences initially hoped for. It nevertheless met later, radically downgraded predictions and delivered on its economic objectives." - The Guardian
Where Quantitative Aesthetics is really newly intense across society—in art and everywhere—is in how social-media numbers (clicks, likes, shares, retweets, etc.) seep into everything as a shorthand for understanding status. - Artnet
These accusations of harmful magic were often combined with the suspicion that fortunetellers were frauds taking advantage of popular credulity. In the 17th and 18th centuries, many European countries abandoned attempts to prosecute witches. - The Conversation
There is a part of me that, despite myself, wants to entertain the possibility that the world really does have supernatural dimensions. I don’t believe the Universe contains supernatural forces, but I feel it might. - Aeon
Theory of mind helps us communicate with and understand one another; it allows us to enjoy literature and movies, play games and make sense of our social surroundings. In many ways, the capacity is an essential part of being human. What if a machine could read minds, too? - The New York Times
In 21st-century culture, knowingness is rampant. You see it in the conspiracy theorist who dismisses contrary evidence as a ‘false flag’ and in the podcaster for whom ‘late capitalism’ explains all social woes. It’s the ideologue who knows the media has a liberal bias – or, alternatively, a corporate one. - Psyche
The traditional construct of the intellectual has produced and reinforced bigoted ideas of group hierarchy—the most anti-intellectual constructs existing. But this framing is crumbling, leading to the crisis of the intellectual. - The Atlantic
It's the cold waters of the Baltic that kept intact the remains of the wrecked Gribshunden, the flagship of King Hans of Denmark and Norway which sank in 1485. Archaeologists have discovered saffron threads, peppercorns, almond shells, ginger, clove, and black mustard. - Atlas Obscura
"The final evaluation has found that the Unboxed festival, commissioned by Theresa May in 2018 and named a 'festival of Brexit' by Jacob Rees-Mogg, brought together a fraction of the audiences initially hoped for. It nevertheless met later, radically downgraded predictions and delivered on its economic objectives." - The Guardian
"We don't have — and may never again have — another one-stop watering hole where many of the planet's most interesting celebrities, politicians, activists, scientists, journalists, comedians and other assorted smart people will rub elbows with one another and also with you." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
"Dallas Theater Center officials have hit the brakes on a proposed $308 million plan to revamp the Kalita Humphreys Theater and the surrounding 10-acre park after pushback over the price tag and size. … Neglect and lack of investment have led to the theater falling into disrepair." - MSN (The Dallas Morning News)
"From supporting educational efforts to assisting professional theaters to funding performance spaces, Walt Disney World has been an engine driving the growth of the Central Florida arts scene. The contributions not only come in dollars but also through costumes, equipment and other necessities — even the carpet." - Orlando Sentinel
For the past few years, social-media platforms have used creator funds to lure content creators from their rivals with the promise of money to be made on top of the usual sponsorship dollars. But they seem more and more like empty PR stunts. - Variety
Apple has turned classical music’s diversity of metadata into the new app’s raison d’être. And, with so many of what Apple calls “data points”—over 50 million bits of information drawn from their database of recordings—it suddenly makes complete sense. - Van
"In my life, thanks to Philadelphia and Chicago, I’ve been to Wichita, Des Moines, Ames, Toledo… For me, to make music, it’s not that I conduct in Salzburg and I try my best. Because every time you try your best, it’s a disaster. Everything becomes mannered, exaggerated, chettera, chettera." - Van
The Symphony musicians formed the SA Phil almost immediately after their orchestra died, and their entire first season has been a rallying cry for the future of symphonic music in the state’s second-largest city. - Texas Monthly
The problem was the way that classical music is categorized. The structure of classical music is completely different from pop music’s, which makes it extremely difficult for it to function in the streaming era. - The Wall Street Journal
“The J6 is beating Taylor Swift,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday, two days after the rally. “It’s Donald Trump and the J6 prisoners, and on iTunes, and on Amazon, and on Billboard, which is the big deal,” he said, adding, “now I feel like Elvis.” - The Daily Beast
Most of his work is inspired by the natural environment, but in Vespers of the Blessed Earth, receiving its world premiere this week by the Philadelphia Orchestra and The Crossing, He's more direct than he's ever been about the damage caused by human activity. - The New York Times
Ravensburger was brought to court by the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, where the real Vitruvian Man lives. The museum claimed that it was owed financial compensation from the puzzle manufacturer, even though the 500-year-old artwork in question belongs to the public domain. - Artnet
"Curator Erin Schoneveld breaks down five seminal posters from the exhibition (at New York's Poster House Museum) that reveal how art reflects history — and how history influences art." - Fast Company
New York investigators say that the seven-foot-tall, headless nude statue, believed by scholars to be of Roman emperor Septimius Severus, was looted from the archaeological site at Bubon, Turkey, in the 1960s. The museum is also surrendering two other antiquities to the Ankara government. - The New York Times
Allowed to delve into the structure’s innards as never before during the ensuing reconstruction (which is set to finish in 2024), a team of French scientists has gleaned new insights into the cathedral’s original construction. - Big Think
"Last week, the Rembrandt House Museum reopened in Amsterdam after a four-month closure, offering 30 percent more Rembrandt in the building where the artist lived and worked — plus a forthcoming artist residency program that harkens back to the history of students studying there under the Dutch Golden Age master." - Artnet
In 1985, a couple walked into an art gallery on the campus of the University of Arizona and left 15 minutes later with a rolled-up Willem de Kooning shoved up the man’s jacket. In 2017, the painting was finally recovered – not by the FBI, but by a trio of house clearance guys in...
If and when machines can “write essays” that are more deftly organized, more thoroughly researched, and more persuasive than our student’s efforts, then writing’s purpose will cease to reside solely in the finished text. It has never solely resided there, of course, but we too often act and teach as if it does. -...
"Three days after voting to cease publication and lay off its journalists, the nonprofit publisher of the Texas Observer said on Wednesday that it would change course and keep the 68-year-old liberal magazine going, following an emergency appeal that crowdsourced more than $300,000." - The Texas Tribune
Reading has always been a very personal thing. Now, however, I have a little percentage tracker on my home page, Goodreads friends applaud my progress each time I finish a book, and it feels … strangely comforting. - The Guardian
After a brutal decline following the Great Recession, print-book sales are up 33 percent in the past 10 years. If the high costs and complexity of the ebook market for libraries pushes more readers to purchase print books (or ebooks), that is a feature, not a bug, for the publishers. - The Atlantic
"Newsletter company Substack, which reportedly struggled to fundraise last year amid a broader downturn in the tech market, wants its next round of financing to come directly from its pool of writers." - Quartz
The question of where a story should begin and end is one that recurs throughout “White Cat, Black Dog,” and is part of what gives the stories a melancholy air of flux and fragility. - The New Yorker
So far, this year's two superhero releases, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Shazam! Fury of the Gods, have underperformed at the box office and received grudging reviews (47% and 51% on Rotten Tomatoes). Nor did this decline and fall start with them. - BBC
"As Hollywood emerged from the pandemic, its biggest film productions dipped in diversity after years of incremental progress. … Opportunities were notably greater for women and people of color on streaming platforms than in theatrically released films." - AP
"The BBC is set to slash its annual output by 1,000 hours worth of shows to cope with savings requirements that have shot up by some 40 percent to almost half a billion dollars." - The Hollywood Reporter
"The airwaves floating across America are sliced up into chunks (some wide, some incredibly narrow) where different services and uses are permitted to broadcast and receive radio signals. It is an incredibly complex system; to explain the importance of managing this invisible resource, the NTIA publishes a wall chart." - Fast Company
"People say a lot of things about GB News: it's ridden with glitches, it's a hotbed of right-wing conspiracies, nobody watches. But nearly two years on from its launch, some people are definitely watching. … What's attracting people to watch? Has the outlet professionalised? How right-wing is it?" - Press Gazette (UK)
The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists has turned to shaming brands including Rogers and Walmart as it seeks higher pay, protections and benefits amid fractious talks to renew the National Commercial Agreement with the Institute of Canadian Agencies (ICA). - Toronto Star
Like Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse before her, Susan Stroman is a director-choreographer who should really be called a choreographer-director. In this show, “we make New York City definitely a character in the show,” says Stroman. - Dance Magazine
"Mathilde Caillard's energetic dance became a meme for young activists opposing the reform. The slogan chanted in the clip, "Retraites, climat: même combat! Pas de retraités sur une planète brûlée" ("Pensions and climate are the same fight! No pensioners on a scorched planet"), became a rallying cry." - Le Monde (in English)
Earlier this month David McAllister became interim Artistic Director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet in Wellington, as Patricia Barker departed following a troubled tenure. He'll be filling the same role (under more peaceful circumstances) at the West Australian Ballet in Perth when AD Aurélien Scanella steps down. - Limelight (Australia)
The new season of the podcast The Turning looks at the life of the choreographer; the heights, the difficulties, and the suffering that dancers experienced working with him, and how the still-powerful influence of his aesthetic led directly to many of the problems ballet is facing today. - MSN (The Washington Post)
The newly revamped space "is a boon for a New York dance scene still recovering from the setbacks of the pandemic. But it’s also an opportunity for an institution that was once central to dance in New York to regain importance, a possible realignment with a storied past." - The New York Times
For instance, anytime there's a scene in a club, a choreographer will suggest moves for the extras so they don't look awkward (which is easier than you'd think). And they'll help manage crowd scenes as well as any set piece where timing and execution are crucial. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
According to the letter, “coupling lower than average attendance with the fact that arts funding is the smallest fraction of philanthropic giving means that there are simply not enough resources available for the short term health and long term viability of the Metro Atlanta cultural arts community.” - ArtsATL
"I remain optimistic that the theatre has been around for a long time, and it’s going to continue. I just feel that way. There’s no doubt that our younger audiences brains’ have been rewired by the speed of the culture. But honestly, I sit with young audiences looking at an O’Neill play..." - American...
Lynn Riggs rode a cattle train, worked in New York as an extra in cowboy movies and in Hollywood churning out studio screenplays, wrote Green Grow the Lilacs in France and was in the Army when Oklahoma! debuted on Broadway. Yet he never left behind his difficult prairie childhood. - Smithsonian Magazine
"Lead producer Mike Bosner … and his team enacted the old-school practice of preview pricing: selling tickets for a show's pre-opening period at a significantly lower price point than after the show's official opening — and advertised this accordingly." - Broadway News
The problem is historic: because this area has been underdeveloped for years, the UK doesn’t have a strong path for shows to follow, and that leads to a lack of desire for risk-taking among audiences and investors alike. Hence the plethora of adaptations taking over West End stages. - The Guardian
Through Phantom, Lloyd Webber presented an argument for the destiny of musical theater itself. The operatic tradition had always been divided over the relationship between music and drama, and this debate had reemerged in Lloyd Webber’s day. - New York Magazine
Julia Voss, author of the first-ever biography of Europe's first abstract artist, talks about the influence which the 19th-century scientific revolution had on the mystical artist, how hard she tried to get shown, the appalling sexism she faced, and the voices she heard. - Artnet
Her most radical initiative was “02020,” a plan to hand over the programming, the keys to the building and the entire annual production budget to a collective of artists. The idea was to extend experimentalism into every part of the organization. - The New York Times
"From the waning years of Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration through the presidencies of 10 succeeding chief executives, Mr. Russell poked fun at the foibles and flaws of the well-known, the pompous and the powerful in monologues replete with pithy one-liners and musical ditties. He called himself 'a political cartoonist for the blind.'" - MSN...
His 1981 novel, about a patient of Sigmund Freud's who ended up a victim of the Holocaust, was a huge success commercially and critically (it was runner-up to Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children for the Booker Prize), and its mimicry of Freud's letters was good enough to fool Anna Freud. - The Guardian
"A Dutch art collective can release an experimental erotic film showing the French novelist Michel Houellebecq having sex with young women in spite of the author's attempt to stop its circulation, an Amsterdam court has ruled." (The project, by the way, was Houellebecq's wife's idea.) - The Guardian
A novelist and essayist who was for several years considered a likely Nobel candidate, "(she) found herself ostracized in the (newly-independent) country of Croatia for refusing to embrace its aggressive nationalism and spent the rest of her life abroad." - The New York Times
Where Quantitative Aesthetics is really newly intense across society—in art and everywhere—is in how social-media numbers (clicks, likes, shares, retweets, etc.) seep into everything as a shorthand for understanding status. - Artnet
In August 2021, Apple purchased the classical-only streaming app Primephonic and immediately shuttered it, announcing that it would be reconfigured as an Apple product; 17 months later, that product has arrived. Here's a look at what's included in the new version — and what's missing. - Musical America
For the past few years, social-media platforms have used creator funds to lure content creators from their rivals with the promise of money to be made on top of the usual sponsorship dollars. But they seem more and more like empty PR stunts. - Variety
The excavated imperial tomb also had extra bricks, slathered with lime, which isn't usual. The combination of nails, bricks, and lime "strongly implied the use of protective charms to keep the 'restless dead' from interfering with the living." - The New York Times
"His artistic breakthrough came with 'John Somebody,' a playfully inventive work for solo electric guitar with taped accompaniment, which he assembled from 1980 to 1982, and which, as performed regularly and recorded in 1986, won him considerable acclaim." - The New York Times
When the BBC announced plans to close the UK's only full-time professional chamber choir right before its century mark, 140,000 people signed a petition - and alternative funders stepped in. - BBC
Hope Carasquilla was ousted from Tallahassee Classical School after several parents complained about the lesson in a Renaissance art class. (One parent called the sculpture "pornographic.") Carasquilla was the charter school's third principal since it opened in 2020. - HuffPost
The process is difficult even for organizations with strong financial and administrative support. For smaller companies with less funding, it is daunting. - Broad Street Review
Watching these wounds being inflicted is painful. People who work in culture and the arts in this country are exhausted. The 30% cut to Arts Council England in 2010, when the now chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, was culture secretary, has done huge and long-term damage. - The Guardian
"The artisans there — including a gold-leaf specialist, coppersmiths and wood carvers — fear that their meticulous work will be destroyed, as has happened in years past. Their frustrations have been intensified by the tighter control Israel has exerted over the compound in recent years, making repairs more difficult." - The New York Times
Of course, I sometimes still had to weather the churning roil of his stream of consciousness. I won’t try to replicate his frenetic, perseverating mode of expression here. But when Binstock grows focused, and whenever he writes, he sets out his arguments with precision. - The Atlantic
Paradoxically, we may come to want the things that we cannot have in an instant, that demand our time and patience before they will reveal all they have to offer: the art that demands that we slow down. - 3 Quarks Daily
