Stories

The Trust “said it wanted to increase the average eight-second viewing time for an artwork, as a way of reducing stress and developing emotional resilience.” Great in theory, possibly a huge challenge in practice in front of any popular painting or sculpture. - BBC

At least, according to a director of movies about the sex lives of Norwegians. “It could be regarded as utopian,” he says. - The New York Times

“The new-play results nationwide and in New York are very close to parity after all, while the all-play results, which include all the Shakespeares and Dickenses, are closer to the old 60/40 divide we were used to seeing about a decade ago.” - American Theatre

Sure, he said that, but what he meant was that he "just stopped doing that particular type of work so could do some other work.” - The Guardian (UK)

“Success can be a blessing and a curse in video games. Critical acclaim can mean big sales, which help to fund your next work. But praise also brings pressure to improve on what came before, and those expecrations only grow as the gap between releases widens.” - BBC

Or actually: “Books about books, or bookstores, or people who work in bookstores, or in publishing, or in libraries, or anything book-adjacent.” - LitHub

“King’s improvisational skills were formidable, even by the standards of a music built on improvisation. ... She would rearrange songs on the fly, and she often slipped from lyrics to scat singing. Her range was equally impressive.” - The New York Times

OK, OK, that’s just a (widely shared) prediction, but in any case - here are the details for the big ceremony tonight. - The New York Times

“Avrotros said it too could no longer justify Israel's inclusion ‘given the ongoing and severe human suffering in Gaza’ and the ‘serious erosion of press freedom.’” - BBC

The only truly good news from the report: Performing arts was “the sector with more increased attendance over the past year than libraries, community, and educational organizations.” - American Theatre

From the street, it certainly looks like Kapoor’s work; coming up from the train platform, it looks like something by James Turrell. - Dezeen

A decision to tear up an agreement between the National Gallery and Tate, which has prevented the National Gallery from collecting works created after 1900, could create “bad blood” and a situation in which the two galleries are “at each other’s throats”, according to senior sources. - The Guardian

Largely funded by the US embassy in Baghdad, the restoration of the temple and the north retaining wall are part of the Future of Babylon Project, initiated 15 years ago, which aims to document, waterproof and stabilise structures throughout the 2,500-acre site. - The Art Newspaper

Many more now have signed deals with the AI companies which commonly include the use of their content as reference points for user queries in tools like ChatGPT (with citation back to their websites currently promised) as well as giving them the use of the tech to build their own products. - Press Gazette

“By studying copper isotopes taken from samples of the statue, scientists were able to identify that the metal originated from the Yangtze River in eastern-central China. … Researchers argue that the figure closely mirrors tomb guardians from the Tang dynasty” and that Marco Polo’s father may have brought it to Venice. - NBC News