Since the 1 February 2021 coup in Myanmar created a new generation of fugitive political activists – among them artists, filmmakers, musicians and creative workers – a calculated sense of curatorial care has underpinned numerous shows. - ArtReview
"During the dance company’s roughly 200 shows over eight weeks, a dancer can do up to 650 kicks in a single day. ... While this signature kick is a festive feat of physics in its own right, the math on stage also makes the magic." - Popular Science
"In 1933, Fox Studios was nearly bankrupt. Founded by William Fox in 1915, it thrived during the silent-movie era. By the time the Great Depression arrived, it was operating at a loss, owed millions and share prices had plummeted. To the rescue: one blonde, curly-haired little girl." - BBC
If Pop art recognised the media image as our new ‘nature’ and Minimalism was an art of phenomenological sensibility, Electric Op proposes perception as an artifact of relations among biological, material, technological and intellectual systems. More challenging yet are our relations with that which we cannot see, or don’t yet know how to see. - ArtReview
These days, the favored term for an Internet powerhouse is “creator,” and in the course of this year a threshold of creatordom was passed. We don’t talk so much about podcasters, musicians, authors, or pundits anymore; they are simply creators, a catchall for people who are famous for making stuff across any number of platforms. - The New Yorker
From fireworks injuries to the collapse of UArts to Venice Biennale drama to prison sentences for the original climate-protesting art vandals, here are 26 events and developments that made 2024 the year it was. - ARTnews
Croce was loved for her wit — but not by those she skewered. Her criticism could be wicked, even merciless. She once described the feet of the ballerina Carla Fracci as “flapping along the floor like a loose mudguard.” The choreography of Gerald Arpino, she wrote, was a “love letter from an illiterate all in capitals.” - The New York Times
More than five decades of severe repression under father Hafiz and son Bashar al-Assad left Syria with no structure for any kind of art scene and almost no living experience of free expression. Here four artists who have spent recent years in exile share what they expect and hope for now. - Artnet
Netflix, which first emerged as a destroyer of video stores, has developed a powerful business model to conquer television, only to unleash its strange and destructive power on the cinema. In doing so, it has brought Hollywood to the brink of irrelevance. Because Netflix doesn’t just survive when no one is watching — it thrives. - N+1
Lebanon's book industry is historically one of the Arab world's most important, due to the country's relative tolerance and press freedom. But this year's violence has made traveling to book fairs risky, and Hezbollah's party headquarters, an aerial bombardment target, are in a neighborhood that's a major logistics center for publishers. - Publishers Weekly
"Consuming culture is good for your health and wellbeing – and generates £8bn a year worth of improvements in people’s quality of life and higher productivity. That is the conclusion of the first major UK research to quantify the impact the arts and heritage can have on physical and mental health." - The Guardian
The initial versions of characters Popeye and Tintin (though not yet their most famous versions) are becoming available, as are key novels by Faulkner, Hemingway and Steinbeck; early sound films by Hitchcock, De Mille, and the Marx brothers; and hit songs by Cole Porter and Fats Waller. - AP
Or, to put it another way, the show is having to take too many breaks. Tennant, Cush Jumbo, and their colleagues have had to leave the stage mid-show twice this week: once due to an audience disturbance and once because a colleague lost her voice. - The Standard (London)
The injunction requires Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music to stop distributing Adele's "Million Years Ago" in any and every format during an ongoing plagiarism claim by a Brazilian composer. The Brazilian subsidiaries of the labels will be fined $8,000 "per act of non-compliance." - AFP (Yahoo!)
"Prosecutors accused the former cable news commentator and host of playing a leading role in a scheme to deceive Ozy investors and lenders by inflating revenue numbers, touting deals and offers that were nonexistent or not finalized, and flashing other false indications of Ozy’s success." - AP
