{"id":764,"date":"2016-02-07T12:43:25","date_gmt":"2016-02-07T20:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/?p=764"},"modified":"2016-02-09T07:39:40","modified_gmt":"2016-02-09T15:39:40","slug":"five-artsjournal-stories-you-shouldnt-miss-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2016\/02\/five-artsjournal-stories-you-shouldnt-miss-this-week.html","title":{"rendered":"Five ArtsJournal Stories You Shouldn’t Miss This Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"starvingartist\"<\/a>Ah, an old-fashioned press-banning. Feels like the good old days. Of the 162 stories we collected this week,\u00a0a few memes emerged:<\/p>\n

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  1. It was the week of artistic directors in dance.\u00a0<\/strong>First,\u00a0<\/span>Benjamin Millepied said<\/a>\u00a0he would be leaving Paris Opera Ballet after a rather short tenure. Why?\u00a0\u201cI want to regain my freedom and I want to create,” he said. “This job, as it exists today, is not something I want.” Paris Ballet lifer\u00a0<\/span>Aur\u00e9lie Dupont\u00a0takes over<\/a>. Being artistic director is tough today, increasingly entailing non-artistic duties and maneuvering. Other AD moves: \u00a0<\/span>Adolphe Binder<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>takes on Pina Bausch’s old company; Colin Conor becomes AD of the\u00a0<\/span>Jos\u00e9 Lim\u00f3n Dance Foundation<\/a>, and\u00a0<\/span>Washington National Ballet<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>loses its AD. [UPDATE:<\/strong> Roslyn Sulcas writes to remind that the week before, the La Scala company, following the October departure of Makhar Vaziev for the Bolshoi Ballet<\/a>, selected Mauro Bigonzetti to head the troupe<\/a>.]<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. This Week In Figuring Out Creativity:<\/strong>\u00a0Artificial intelligence is now powering your Google searches<\/a> (and making them better. AI uses neural nest, and scientists aren’t exactly sure why they work, but they do. “Artificial intelligence is the future of Google Search, and if it\u2019s the future of Google Search, it\u2019s the future of so much more.\u201d Back to humans for a moment. How do you raise creative kids?<\/a> Fewer rules. \u201cCreativity may be hard to nurture, but it\u2019s easy to thwart. By limiting rules, parents encouraged their children to think for themselves. And scientists say that simple practice won’t make you a good artist<\/a>. \u201cThe research goes somewhat against the old assumption that simply repeating a motor skill over and over again \u2013 for example, practising scales on the piano or playing the same level on your game over and over again \u2013 was the best way to master it. Finally, it’s important how you introduce new ideas.<\/a> “To generate creative ideas, it\u2019s important to start from an unusual place. But to explain those ideas, they have to be connected to something familiar.<\/li>\n
  3. This Week in Audience, Audience, Who’s Got The\u00a0Audience:<\/strong> There are so many ways that people watch TV shows these days that the\u00a0television industry has no idea<\/a> how to measure whether a show is a hit.\u00a0\u201cNielsen, the 93-year-old company that has long operated an effective monopoly over television ratings in the United States, is facing blistering criticism <\/a>from TV and advertising executives who see it as a relic of television\u2019s rabbit-ears past as the digital revolution transforms how people consume entertainment. Part of the complication? There are now 1400 (fourteen hundred!) TV shows<\/a>. What’s to be learned by the data we do have? Meanwhile,\u00a0\u00a0YouTube is trying to figure out how to cash in<\/a>. \u201cYouTube execs hesitate to compare their efforts to Netflix, Hulu or Amazon, but Red gives the streamer, which boasts more than 1 billion viewers, a foothold in the lucrative paid video business.” On a smaller (but significant) scale,\u00a0small London theatres seem to be thriving<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cHow do you engage with your community and how do you diversify your audience? But I think it\u2019s especially true in London which is growing so quickly and the population is changing all the time.\u201d But London’s National Theatre is downsizing<\/a>, even as it commits to attaining gender parity by 2021<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  4. The Easiest Way To Get Attention For Your Show? Try To Ban The Press:<\/strong>\u00a0That’s what the Harold Pinter estate tried to do<\/a> for a new Wooster Group production of “The Room” in Los Angeles. Cue consternation<\/a>.\u00a0Was it about money<\/a>? And outrage<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cThere\u2019s no other kind of journalism where the journalist says, \u2018Is it OK if I report this kind of story?\u2019\u201d And then the inevitable “non”-review<\/a> in the LA Times. Case closed? Not quite, as the same rights-holder tries to shut down another play in Seattle<\/a> with one-hour’s notice.<\/li>\n
  5. Gallery owner Ann Freedman is\u00a0accused<\/strong> of “selling fake Rothkos for millions of dollars\u2014and using false citations to authenticate them.” But in an art market governed largely by pretense and money, does a masterpiece have any intrinsic value?<\/a>” So fakes. Fakes are getting so good,\u00a0\u201cone can imagine a near-future museum with every important artwork in the world \u2013 the entire contents of E H Gombrich\u2019s 1950 classic The Story of Art \u2013 made manifest in a single super-didactic replica collection<\/a>. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as no one feels fooled.”<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And a few leftovers:<\/strong><\/p>\n