“Gagosian himself is estimated to clear $1 billion in sales annually and is among a small group of gallery owners whose appetites are omnivorous: He works across the contemporary and modern eras, representing living artists like John Currin and Mark Grotjahn while also dealing on behalf of the estates of Alberto Giacometti, Richard Avedon and Helen Frankenthaler.”
Archives for April 2016
London’s National Gallery Needs More Space, Says Director
Gabriele Finaldi said the floor space of the gallery “hasn’t actually changed pretty much in a generation and we are now having 50% more visitors, and potentially that is going to grow in the future”.
Dancing With The Stars (Or At Least Their Holograms)
Madame Tussaud’s in Tokyo has opened a new attraction. “Visitors can waltz and disco with Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Lady Gaga, Beyonce and Marilyn Monroe, or pirouette in a “Swan Lake” ballet with Olympics figure skating champion Yuzuru Hanyu.”
BBC Commits To 50-50 On-Screen Gender Parity Casting By 2020
The BBC said that, by 2020, 50% of on-screen and on-air roles will be filled by women, including lead roles in all genres, with a similar 15% target set for black, Asian and minority ethnic people on screen. In terms of the representation of LGBT people, the BBC has committed to an 8% target, which is also the target set for disability on screen. However, this does not include a commitment to having 8% of lead roles filled by disabled talent, with the BBC pledging “some lead roles”.
Canadian Television? What’s That? Now The Nightmare Of Needing To Figure It Out
“Changing Canadian broadcast and content regulations is a hellish task. The public feels very differently from the industry, and the creative side of the industry, especially in TV, doesn’t really want creativity – it wants jobs. It is implausible that all sides will agree on a paradigm that benefits everybody. Even more unlikely is the sudden emergence of great Canadian television.”
Chicago Symphony’s Pioneering “Beyond The Score” Project Is Canceled
“The cost of all the extra elements far outweighed the revenue from ticket sales. And the ability to attract large philanthropic funds to support the project after its third or fourth or fifth year became very difficult. For the last five years, it was losing quite a bit of money.”
Why Are People Flocking To Improv Classes? Because It Makes Them Better People
Julie Brister, a teacher at Upright Citizens Brigade: “I think improv helps people become better humans. It makes people listen better. Improv rules are life rules. And so, if a lot more people are taking improv, a lot more people are being thoughtful in their daily life about how they interact with each other.”
Lost Score To Missing Malcolm Arnold Symphony Discovered On EBay
It is thought that Sir Malcolm Arnold, a manic depressive, schizophrenic and alcoholic, could have given the work away in lieu of payment to a plumber or repairman, after the Court of Protection stopped him accessing his bank account.
Jodie Foster’s Entire Career Has Been Motivated By Fear Of Failure
“Oh my God, yeah. If Mother Teresa is propelled to do good works because she believes in God, I am propelled to do good works because of how bad I feel about myself. It’s the first place I go. ‘Oh, what did I do wrong?'”
Odd: Why Are Our Actors Of A Different Color A Different Color?
“You don’t see Leonardo DiCaprio, Sandra Bullock, and Tom Cruise painting their faces to win roles, but this color-changing gambit has practically become required of black dramatic actors who want to appear in big-budget movies.”
Gay Dance Clubs Decline As The Culture Moves On
“The new generation just doesn’t support large dance clubs. They spend money on special events I do, like my RuPaul’s Drag Race, Pride and Halloween events. But the days of the weekly dance party are over, at least for now.”
What Does Isabelle Huppert Think About While She’s Acting? Nothing
“In fact, when I act I don’t think about anything. My acting depends on the staging: you know, you put the camera in front of me, and I do it.”
When A Robot Kills, Is It Murder Or Product Liability?
Responding to a new short story about a robot who/that kills her/its owner, a legal scholar considers issues of robotics law that will arise sooner or later.
You Can’t Handle The Truth: Reality Is *Nothing* Like What We Experience With Our Senses, Argues Cognitive Scientist
“Sure, when we stop and think about it, we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like … Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now?” Rather the opposite, says Donald Hoffman: humans evolved as we did because our brains couldn’t process the world as it is (or not all of it).
Will We Ever Be Able To Send Smells Through Our Smartphones?
It’s certainly possible: inventors have been working on ways to add aromas to telecommunications for 25 years or so. Yet the products have never caught on with the public. One part of the problem is “olfactory illiteracy”; another is for inventors to understand why and how users would use scents to communicate.
30 Years Of Chernobyl In Literature
“Through three decades of literary response, Chernobyl has undermined the sort of authoritative depiction that might bring closure. But something closed can be forgotten. The finest works express profound doubts about the power of language to absorb a disaster of this magnitude, and so continually reopen it to new ways of being remembered.”
Gay-Themed Bollywood Films Challenge Indian Taboos
“Bollywood has a long history of portraying gay characters with clichés or using them as an ostensibly comic sideshow. Often they are sexual predators whom the male leads, epitomes of heterosexual masculinity, must be wary of. But several recent movies have challenged those stereotypes, suggesting that attitudes in India’s movie industry, or at least within an influential section of it, may be changing.”
This Year’s Tonys Could Be The Opposite Of #OscarsSoWhite
The slate of nominees for 2016’s Broadway awards looks likely to be the most diverse in history – and not only because of Hamilton.
Utah Symphony, Once Foundering, Is On An Upswing, Thanks In Part To Government Funding (!)
The orchestra – which has a popular and energetic music director (Thierry Fischer), big education and state touring programs, and growth in both single-ticket sales and subscriptions – gets nearly a fifth of its operating revenue from state and local governments.
Melbourne Symphony Posts Both Record Attendance And Deficit
“The $577,653 deficit, detailed in its annual report, comes after the MSO ended 2014 with more than $200,000 in surplus. The orchestra actually increased its box office takings last year ($10.2 million up from $10 million) but chairman Michael Ullman said it wasn’t enough.”
Dance World Reels From Dismissals At Pennsylvania Ballet
“Within hours of the [Inquirer] article being published, it spread like wildfire among dancers on social media. Many were outraged. Others expressed sympathy for the company members who were let go. But I’ve also seen comments from Philadelphians who are very happy with Angel’s vision and welcome the changes. It’s a big change, and one I’d say many expected.” Which makes it no easier for the now-out-of-work dancers.
Is This How The Civil War At Romania’s National Ballet Got Started?
The conflict over Johan Kobborg’s job as artistic director of the Bucharest National Opera’s ballet company has spun out of control. Craig Turp traces the seeds of the trouble to a right-wing nationalist website, and he gives a solid recap and analysis in English of how the mess has unfolded so far.
Billionaire Didn’t Realize Her Picasso Had Been Stolen Until A Dealer Tried To Sell It
Billie Tisch (widow of Laurence Tisch of Loews Corp. and CBS) has sued South Florida art dealer Kenneth Hendel for the return of a 1928 portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter that she last saw in 2009 but didn’t know had been taken until a few weeks ago. Hendel insists he purchased the painting lawfully and has legal title to it.
ISIS Destroys Two City Gates In Nineveh
“National Geographic has received exclusive photographs that appear to confirm the destruction of the Mashki and Nergal Gates by the Islamic State (ISIS) at the ancient site of Nineveh in Iraq.”
A Symphony For Tape Decks (Talk About Historical Instruments …)
No Sharps, No Flats is an installation made up of 30 partially deconstructed boom boxes with tape decks, each one containing a composition by metro D.C. musicians. All of the music is in C major. Harmonious? Not for long – because it’s all on cassette tape, which has problems you youngsters don’t know about and the rest of us may have forgotten …