ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

Stories

The Main Oscars Message? Hollywood Is Afraid

I feel for public figures in a way: damned if they do, damned if they don’t. After Sunday night, the film industry looks craven and weak – on the other hand, as Ricky Gervais memorably pointed out when he hosted the Golden Globes in 2020: “You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. - The Guardian

The Case For Playing Tchaikovsky With Period Strings And Bows

David Faber, cellist of the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam: “In the early days of recorded classical music, string players exclusively used gut strings. Musicians like Leopold Auer and Fritz Kreisler achieved a full, sustained sound closer to Tchaikovsky’s era than today’s practices.”  - The Strad

Artist Hal Hirshorn, Who Used Old-Fashioned Means To Make Unearthly Images, Has Died At 60

“An artist known for his ubiquity around New York City’s cultural scene, (he) nevertheless managed to exist outside its manic commercial hustle, using antique cameras and homemade paints to produce haunting photographs and landscape paintings.” - The New York Times

New David Byrne Immersive Theater Piece To Set Up In Historic Chicago Landmark

The piece, titled Theater of the Mind and based on current research in neuroscience, will be housed in a 19,000-square-foot space inside the Reid Murdoch Building on LaSalle Street for an indefinite run. (And what was the previous David Byrne immersive theater piece? Here Lies Love, the Imelda Marcos disco musical.) - Axios

Chicago’s Brand-New Social Change Theater Festival

“All of the performances (are) staged readings, with actors working from scripts without the costumes and sets of a full production. The goal is to workshop brand-new plays that cover big themes, from criminal justice reform and climate change to gender identity.” - WBEZ (Chicago)

Writing Opera For Children Is Serious Business (And It Can Be Lots Of Fun)

“For contemporary classical composers, writing children’s opera (is) like casting a spell that lets them be both big and small. Artists with highly experimental aesthetics get to embrace their silly sides and reconnect with the childlike urge to create. … As (composer Thierry) Tidrow often says, ‘They haven’t read Adorno.’” - The New York Times

Holland’s Famous Art Detective Locates Brueghel Stolen 50 Years Ago

“Woman Carrying the Embers vanished from the National Museum in Gdansk, Poland in 1974. Journalists from the Dutch culture magazine Vind spotted what they suspected was the painting at an exhibition in the Netherlands last year, and they alerted art sleuth Arthur Brand. - AFP (Yahoo!)

French Government Cuts Funding For Culture Pass By Half

“The French Government has announced a 50 percent cut in their lauded Culture Pass, four years after its nationwide launch for young people aged fifteen to eighteen to take up cultural activities.” - ArtReview

See Video Of Maurizio Cattelan’s Gold Toilet Being Stolen

“The heist of artist Maurizio Cattelan’s $6.1 million gold toilet from a British palace was caught on video that was just revealed to the court in the long-awaited criminal trial, as prosecutors explained how the men behind it smashed their way into (Blenheim) Palace … in September 2019.” - Artnet

The New Rationalism Versus The Humanities

In many ways, rationalism is the result of people with STEM educations attempting to tackle questions that had long been the purview of the humanities, guided by a stubbornly autodidactic conviction that definitive answers could be reached through a rigorous application of logic untainted by psychological biases. - The Point

Canada’s Quiet, Efficient System Of Book-Banning

Not all these phenomena constitute “banning” per se, but they all fall under what we might call the new “censorship consensus,” in which books are called upon to justify their existence through demonstrations of their moral value. - The Walrus

This Year’s Oscars Show The Hollywood Dream Still Lives

If there is something that unites “Anora” and “The Brutalist,” in terms both of onscreen story and behind-the-scenes process, it’s a masterful dedication to the art of the hustle. Baker and Corbet are well versed in it, having learned to temper their outsized visions with pluck, thrift, and resourcefulness. - The New Yorker

New Zealand University Students Protest Decision To Use AI To Replace Traditional Lecture Slides

Three AI programs are set to replace lecture slides in the University of Auckland’s Digital Marketing 304 class when the first semester of the year begins on Monday. “Complete bull****,” one student enrolled in the course said. - New Zealand Herald

Rethinking Swan Lake From The Point Of View Of, Well, The Swans

“They say a classical ballet isn’t over until the female protagonist dies.” Sure, OK, but what about the rest of the women/swans? - Dallas Morning News (MSN)

It’s Expensive To Make Culture. We’re Falling Behind

"We’ve now seen years and years of austerity, and it’s not just the arts that have taken a hit – it’s anything that sits on the periphery of the mainstream route to work. There do need to be questions asked about how we’re valuing the arts in this country.” - The Guardian

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss

function my_excerpt_length($length){ return 200; } add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length');