“Virtually every film in modern memory ends with some variation of the same disclaimer: ‘This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.’ The cut-and-paste legal rider must be the most boring thing in every movie that features it. Who knew its origins were so lurid?” Duncan Fyfe explains.
Archives for August 2016
New Russian Gérard Depardieu Gets A Cultural Center Named After Him In His New Hometown
“[The] French-born actor… on Saturday inaugurated a cultural and film centre bearing his name in Saransk, the capital of the Russian region of Mordovia in which Depardieu is a registered resident … [He moved there after] giving up his French passport as a protest against French president François Hollande’s proposal to tax France’s highest earnest earners at over 75 percent.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 08.29.16
In The Church Of Big Data, Artistic Judgment Is Just A Data Point
Lately we’re seeing a steady stream of stories at ArtsJournal about attempts to algorithmatize creativity. But that’s merely the frontier of the data-driven gospel, the idea that algorithms and intelligent machines will more efficiently be able to create the things we want. The mainstream orthodoxy of Big Data, though, is … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-08-29
The “Scoop” that Wasn’t: Fisher Collection’s 75%-25% Rule at SFMOMA Exposed Six Years Ago
In my previous post about the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s deal to display the coveted Doris and Donald Fisher Collection, I took the San Francisco Chronicle‘s Charles Desmarais at his word and … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-08-29
Thrice more unto the breach
The Mosaic Theater Company’s production of Satchmo at the Waldorf, which began previews last Thursday, opens tonight in Washington, D.C. This is, unlikely as it may sound, Satchmo’s twelfth staging to date.… read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-08-29
[ssba_hide]
Gene Wilder, 83
The comic actor, who was twice Oscar nominated, for his role in “The Producers” and for co-penning “Young Frankenstein” with Mel Brooks, usually portrayed a neurotic who veered between total hysteria and dewy-eyed tenderness. “My quiet exterior used to be a mask for hysteria,” he told Time magazine in 1970. “After seven years of analysis, it just became a habit.”
America’s Newsrooms Don’t Reflect Diversity Of The Country. Here’s Why It Increasingly Matters
“If the minority population is growing steadily, then common sense would say news organizations should be doing everything they can to attract minority audiences and better explain the complex issues America faces. But in a 2014 study by the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, only 25 percent of African-Americans and 33 percent of Hispanics said they felt the media accurately reflected their community.”
Counting Up The Art Damages From Italian Quake
“No artworks with the cachet of a Leonardo, Michelangelo or Giotto are among those lost in the quake. But art historians stress that local art of whatever pedigree helps to explain the cultural and artistic contexts that inspired the great masters. And just as importantly, local pride over this artistic heritage in churches or piazzas binds these centuries-old towns to their past.”
Have We Lost Interest In Old Masters Art?
“At a time when contemporary art is all the rage among collectors, viewers and donors, many experts are questioning whether old master artwork — once the most coveted — can stay relevant at auction houses, galleries and museums. Having struggled with shrinking inventory and elusive profits, auction houses appear to be devoting most of their attention and resources to contemporary art, the most popular area of their business.”
Hard Lessons About How The Art-Buying World Works, Courtesy Knoedler Fakes Scandal
“For collectors seeking information on the authenticity of specific works of art, there is no repository of authenticators’ reports, and experts doubt the value of a database that buyers could consult the way they check for stolen art (for example, through the Art Loss Register or Art Recovery Group). For one thing, not all reports are reliable.”
Edinburgh’s Theatres Thrive, Make A Profit
“Festival City Theatre’s Trust, which operates Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre and Studios and the King’s Theatre, saw an end-of-year profit of £180k – helped by a 40% rise in fundraising income – allowing it to meet reserve targets a year ahead of schedule. The theatres attracted 420,000 visitors overall, while the proportion of audience members drawn from the local area rose from 61% to 69%.”
The Church Of Big Data – A Quack Religion?
“Just as divine authority was legitimised by religious mythologies, and human authority was legitimised by humanist ideologies, so high-tech gurus and Silicon Valley prophets are creating a new universal narrative that legitimises the authority of algorithms and Big Data. This novel creed may be called “Dataism”. In its extreme form, proponents of the Dataist worldview perceive the entire universe as a flow of data, see organisms as little more than biochemical algorithms and believe that humanity’s cosmic vocation is to create an all-encompassing data-processing system — and then merge into it.”
Earthquake Exposes Fragility Of Italy’s Architectural Treasures
“Many experts maintain that Italy has among the world’s best anti-seismic standards already — at least on paper. But the problems in executing them are legion: money, corruption, tangled bureaucracy, shoddy construction and a lack of enforcement of national regulations at the local level.”
Man Versus The Machines – Be Not Afraid
“We are not in competition with our creations. They are the stuff we are made of. They are stuff we use to construct ourselves, together – a language, a culture, a looping feedback between things we have made but did not choose. If this is a crisis, it is one characterized not by winners and losers, but by shifts in what we believe ourselves to be.”
Are Non-Profits Limiting Themselves By Overworking Their Employees?
“There’s no doubt that nonprofits today face serious financial difficulties and constraints, but do they have no choice but to demand long, unpaid hours of their employees? Putting questions of fairness aside, is their treatment of their workers limiting their effectiveness?”
What Does A Bad Decision Look Like In The Brain?
“The brain is the most metabolically expensive tissue in the body. It consumes 20 percent of our energy despite taking up only 2 to 3 percent of our mass. Because neurons are so energy-hungry, the brain is a battleground where precision and efficiency are opponents. Glimcher argues that the costs of boosting our decision-making precision outweigh the benefits. Thus we’re left to be confounded by the choices of the modern American cereal aisle.”
As The Curtain Falls On Texas Rep, Does This Portend Bad Things For Theatres In The Suburbs?
“Funding isn’t there for the smaller groups. … The percentage that’s taken up by the bigger groups is really high and we have to share the rest.”
Ai Weiwei Removed From Major Chinese Bienniale
“Ai tweeted that he received a ‘vague letter’ from Yinchuan MoCA’s artistic director Hsieh Suchen that ‘the decision is made by higher officials’ due to the show’s status as part of China’s One Belt, One Road initiative to build a new Silk Road of overland economic and cultural exchange with countries to China’s west.”
Juan Gabriel, Superstar Mexican Singer And Songwriter (On Both Sides Of The Border)
“Sent to live at an orphanage at age four, Gabriel’s rags-to-riches story was as well-known as his glittery outfits and his unrelentingly romantic lyrics.”
The ‘Dance Detective’ Meets The Challenge Of Reconstructing Lost Choreography
“‘Discovering something great choreographers created is unlocking a piece of romanticized history,’ said Ms. Jones, an associate professor of dance here at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. ‘With work considered lost, curiosity compels me to dig into the past and reveal some of that mystery.'”
How The Tate Is Using Artificial Intelligence To Create A New – And Kind Of Weird – Experience
“The team have created and trained a ‘brain’ to a point where it is simulating certain human attributes and unleashed it online – and it is creating a gallery.”
The Woman Who Created The Modern Waterfront
And a lot more: “She and Deborah Allen were the founding co-editors in 1954 of Industrial Design, a groundbreaking publication whose pages look as fresh today as when they were laid out by the art director Alvin Lustig.”
The Books A New Author Reads On Book Tour Can Make Or Break Them
“I’d pick up others along the way. All would be serendipitous. I’m going to learn from them not only how to handle a book tour better, but how to *be* better, fully stop.”
Two Museum Directors From Opposite Coasts Meet At A Party …
“There were discussions of favorite architects, favorite cities and, yes, favorite museums.”
London Can Only Control Its Height-Obsessed Developers One Way
“The clusters that will dominate the Thames at Vauxhall and Blackfriars are not by any reasonable definition in the right place. The meretricious junk appearing in outer suburbs is not well-designed. Nor have towers so far done much to address the most pressing housing needs.”
Rap And Rock Don’t Make Chicago’s ‘Fine Art’ Cut
“The wide-sweeping aesthetic declaration comes as part of Cook County’s ongoing arguments about its tax code, and specifically the amusement tax levied against concerts, sporting events, ‘flower, poultry or animal shows,’ and any number of other ways the people of the Windy City get their kicks.”
What Is The Public Art In City Hall Park Saying?
“The Language of Things is a bit cerebral for a public art exhibition (the description does begin with a Walter Benjamin quote, which inspired the title); like the four speakers pointing inward in Watson’s sound installation, it can feel somewhat insular, even for art about codes.”