For many decades, Los Angeles had been known as a Black migrant "magnet." Folks came for the promise and the sunshine. The Black population in L.A. has dropped 30% since 1990, according to census data. What happens when your population falls below a certain percentage? What's the magic number? 10%? Nine? Seven? Slip below this and you fade away...
" was one of the most accessible and charismatic figures to emerge from the New Orleans-inspired jazz revivalist movement that played such a significant part in shaping British popular music between the late 1940s and mid-'60s." - The Guardian
Online Viewing Rooms have certain advantages: collectors like the price transparency many fairs have demanded, and gallerists enjoy saving money on costly flights, hotels, and dinners. On the downside, the novelty of the online fair wears off quickly given the relative lack of excitement that accompanies staring at a screen. - Artnet
"They're our holy fools, who — even when no one is watching — keep the art's sacred fires burning. Rehearsal isn't so much a preparation-to-show as it is a kind of religious practice — as endless, deliberative, and open to inspiration as a Shaker meeting." Helen Shaw reports on what's kept them busy through the pandemic: their own original...
Enter the Uffizi Diffusi project. Meaning "scattered Uffizi," it's a reimagining of Italy's "scattered hotel" concept, in which individual "rooms" are located in different houses of a village. In this project, artworks stored in the Uffizi's deposit will be put on show throughout the surrounding area of Tuscany, turning Italy's most famous region into one big "scattered" museum. -...
The structural troubles those papers were facing before 2020 were bad enough; then COVID shut down their main sources of ad revenue (performance venues, bars and clubs, restaurants). " there are many that, against all odds, have survived. In true alt-weekly edge, it's a stubborn, punk refusal to let go. Here are four of their stories." - The Daily...
Parasite got six Oscar nominations and four awards, none of them for any of its actors. That case continued a pattern that has held even with Asian-led films in English: Slumdog Millionaire, Life of Pi, The Last Emperor, and so on right back to Flower Drum Song in 1961. And the pattern may be about to repeat itself with...
Weirder than ever before, no doubt. As the voters fill out their ballots this week and next, none of the shows they're considering have been onstage for a year, and they can't vote in a given category unless they've seen all the nominees. What's more, one of the major awards has only one nominee, but it's still possible for...
"The Man of To-morrow's Lament" — written as the superhero's internal monologue as he walks through the city with Lois Lane, ruing that they can never have children together — was submitted to, and rejected by, The New Yorker in the summer of 1942 and then disappeared. - Times Literary Supplement (UK)
" said that arts, entertainment and events venues can reopen April 2 at 33 percent capacity, with a limit of 100 people indoors or 200 people outdoors, and a requirement that all attendees wear masks and be socially distanced. Those limits would be increased — to 150 people indoors or 500 people outdoors — if all attendees test negative...
"A military antiques expert alerted police after being called in to give advice regarding an inheritance in Bordeaux in January and becoming suspicious about the luxurious helmet and body armour in the family's collection. … The are thought to have been made in Milan between 1560 and 1580. They were donated to the Louvre in 1922 by the...
It was six years ago last week that extremist forces rampaged through the place, smashing ancient Assyrian sculptures with sledgehammers, burning books, looting anything sellable, and wrecking the building. Here's a look at how a consortium assembled by the Smithsonian, the Louvre, the World Monuments Fund, and the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage is assessing the extent...
To wander through 125 years of book reviews is to endure assault by adjective. All the fatuous books, the frequently brilliant, the disappointing, the essential. The adjectives one only ever encounters in a review (indelible, risible), the archaic descriptors (sumptuous). So many masterpieces, so many duds — now enjoying quiet anonymity. - The New York Times
"Its lessons include: never marry; have no children; lawyer up early; keep tight control of your cover designs; listen to the critics while scorning them publicly; when it comes to publishers, follow the money; never give a minute to a hostile interviewer; avoid unflattering photographers; figure out what you’re good at and keep doing it, book after book, with...
“There are so many benefits to all this stuff, It’s going to make theatre more accessible. It’s going to help tackle the issue of diversity. It’s going to enable us to tell stories in completely new ways. And I know from experience that it actually encourages live audiences to come to the theatre. It’s actually going to support the...
