What the actual heck? Well, a lot of people opened bookshops in 2020, during the pandemic, because why not? Their jobs had evaporated, and the bookshops were a long-held dream. But in the UK's third hard lockdown, the numbers may change again - for the far, far worse. - The Guardian (UK)
Thanks so flipping much, pandemic and a government that refused to get its COVID response together in time to save the arts. Owner Joon Lee decided not to renew the lease after it ended in November. It's a serious loss: "'What Joon was able to cultivate there in terms of how artist-forward it was, that doesn’t exist anywhere else...
But not just best pic: "The film won best picture and best cinematography, while Zhao was awarded best director and star Frances McDormand was named best actress." That's a big sweep. - Variety
The Kamoinge Workshop was "a collective of black photographers who formed in 1963 to document black culture in Harlem, and beyond, from live jazz concerts to portraits of Malcolm X, Miles Davis and Grace Jones, as well as the civil rights movement and anti-war protests." - The Guardian (UK)
It's a path that others could follow, if they had the courage (and the funding). "Crossing Delancey is a culturally distinctive romcom, not one that mutes down its differences in an attempt to assimilate, and is all the more enjoyable for it, whatever the audience’s ethnicity. More pickle, less vanilla." - The Guardian (UK)
Johnson, who was also known for her public housing project designs, became famous for her "large-scale public projects, which often involved environmental remediation. For the Mystic River State Reservation, a nature preserve in Eastern Mass., a commission she received in the 1970s, she transformed a toxic landfill into a public park. The John F. Kennedy Park along the Charles River in Cambridge,...
It's desolate, empty streets; bridges with no tourists; the sidewalks near the Seine silent. What wouldn't we give now for the American diners of Hopper's later career, even if they're dysfunctional - at least there are multiple people in them. - Washington Post
Art isn't only for the One Percenters, even if that one percent can afford to buy a ton of multiples to go along with their laser-focused unique pieces. Despite how their allure faded after the 1970s, "Multiples have retained just enough of their 'provocative and disorienting message,' as Celant’s essay put it, to make them a good fit for...
Highsmith - author of The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train, not to mention The Price of Salt (renamed Carol to go along with the movie) - had a dark, dark well of self-hate that affected most of her fiction. And yet: "It feels good to be hunted. If you read the genres of suspense – crime...
The collective that makes the buildings - they call themselves AnonyMouse - are, they said through an interlocutor, "a loosely connected network of mice and men, originating in the town of Mälmo, in southern Sweden." - BBC
Renting your own movie theatre isn't cheap, but (once we can gather in greater numbers than two or three), it's not exactly unaffordable. And it makes some things far better: For instance, "when attending a public theater, your experience is completely reliant on the strangers in there with you. It all hinges on others adhering to theater etiquette rules,...
Seriously, Britain, what's up? "The best-known artists are the ones who wedded their style to 'human clay.' America, on the other, hand has seen Pop Art, Minimalism, and Color Field painting challenge their predecessor, Abstract Expressionism, which had challenged Regionalism and Conceptual Art; the proverbial 'Death of Painting' challenge all of painting; and marginalized artists challenge all of these...
And that's actually been great. For instance, once an opera in L.A. might have reached a thousand people in a sold-out night; during the pandemic, more than 22,000 watched the same opera online. "The experimentation afoot within companies like On Site and festivals like Prototype signal a new, vital place for experimental approaches to opera — which now feel...
He said that "the timeline hinged on the country reaching an effective level of herd immunity, which he defined as vaccinating from 70 percent to 85 percent of the population." In addition, audiences will likely be required to wear masks for some time, for the safety of performers and staff. - The New York Times
That's right, even the streaming device is getting into content now. (Actually, it already was; this is just the newest content it has acquired.) "Quibi’s content could be especially valuable because it features well-known celebrities. Hollywood also is hungry for new content because the COVID-19 pandemic has canceled or delayed new production. And the programming can help set Roku...
