These historic gardens, originally built for Agra’s nobility, are two of the city’s few riverfront gardens that survive today. The project of bringing them back to their original glory has involved restoring their original plantings, reactivating their water features, and creating a visitor center. – Atlas Obscura
Anonymous Was A Woman And Its No-Longer-Anonymous Funder
“Last year, 77-year-old artist Susan Unterberg revealed that she’s the patron behind this grantmaking outfit” — which selects ten female artists over 40 each year for $25,000 grants — “though the nominators and final award panel members will remain shrouded in mystery. … While supporting creative women constitutes a grantmaking niche, its focus on equity aligns well with the ongoing social justice trend in arts funding.” — Inside Philanthropy
Can Onerous Grant Reporting (We’re Bored Already) Be Made More Meaningful?
Often, reporting results after a grant can be long, arduous and ultimately not of much use. To anyone. So now there’s a new initiative to see if reporting can be made more useful and less cumbersome. After all, we all hope that grants make an impact, right? – Arts Professional
After 30 Years, Emily Mann To Retire From McCarter Theatre Center
“In her role at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, Mann has overseen more than 160 productions, including more than 40 world premieres, since she became [the artistic director and resident playwright] in 1990. In that time, the theater won a Tony Award for outstanding regional theater, and Mann was twice nominated for Tony Awards as a playwright and director, as well as winning a Peabody Award and numerous NAACP awards.” — NJ.com
Artist/Self-Mutilator Pyotr Pavlensky Sentenced For Setting Fire To Bank Of France
The high-pain-threshold artist, who claimed political asylum in France in May 2017, ignited the façade of the country’s central bank the following October. A court has sentenced him to time served (a year) plus a two-year suspended sentence. His ex-girlfriend, who fled with him, received a 16-month suspended sentence. The pair was also fined more than €21,000, which they say they won’t pay. — Hyperallergic
Music Festivals Have Become Huge Business. Now What?
As the music festival-industrial-complex has become another way of American life, it’s also been increasingly and reasonably subjected to litmus tests reflecting the increased social awareness that society has taken on over the past several years. – New York Magazine
New Initiative To Extend The Arts With Technology
The aim is that by using devices such as mobile phones, Extended Reality (XR) headsets and streaming into live performance environments, or even in the home, audiences will be able to experience live performance in entirely new ways. – Arts Professional
Spotify Is Now Selling Sponsorship Of Its Personalized Playlists
“It feels, pretty simply, like yet another example of a tech company creating a highly personalized product in seemingly warm partnership with its users, then realizing that it can trade on this goodwill to make money.” – Vox
The U.S. Poet Laureate Has A Podcast, And It’s Coming To Public Radio
Tracy K. Smith, author of Life on Mars and Wade in the Water, started a podcast in November. Now it’s moving up the podcast chain to the motherlode of podcasting success, public radio. – The New York Times
Is A Mysterious Shark Species Discovered In A Museum Actually Long Extinct?
This is what happens when you poke around in old collections: Three unknown shark specimens spur scientists to look at other dead animals, not to mention live ones, to determine the sharks’ closest relatives and to see if any may still be alive. – Gizmodo
We Know You Love ‘Bird Box,’ But Could You Please Not Drive While Blindfolded?
People. Last week, Netflix asked us all – begged us, really – not to take the “Bird Box Challenge” – but someone wasn’t listening. “A teenager with her hat over her eyes drove into oncoming traffic in the city of Layton while taking part in the so-called ‘Bird Box Challenge.'” (No one was injured.) – BBC
The Latest Reading Accessory Is A Candle (Or Twelve)
Reading: It’s a lifestyle thing. “Candles are also now a common impulse purchase at independent bookstores, along with tote bags and coffee. There are shelves upon shelves of literary-themed ones at the Strand in New York, which famously brags of 18 miles of books.” – The New York Times
Composer Anthony Braxton Has Only Gotten Far Busier Since ‘Retirement’
To be fair, the MacArthur “Genius Grant” winner only retired from academia. Perhaps that’s why he’s cheerfully working on a five-day opera, a 12-album set of a previous cycle of music, and overseeing his foundation and his label. – The New York Times
An Ad Gone Viral Tells The Story Of Race And Ballet
The English National Ballet ad for Swan Lake stars a Black American dancer – but the show sure doesn’t. “Ballet is interesting because it can be seen both as an enclave of whiteness and privilege, and as an outrunner of change.” – Quartz
Alfred Glancy III, A Detroit Businessman Who Helped Save The DSO, Has Died At 80
Glancy “was perhaps the best example in his time of a Detroit business leader who took on important civic roles.” His leadership helped bring the orchestra back from an underfunded brink in the early 1990s. – Detroit Free Press
The Warhol Foundation Ends Its Smithsonian Ban
The ban started in 2010, when the National Gallery removed (aka censored) a video by artist David Wojnarowicz because of conservative political pressure. Every year since then the Foundation has reviewed its decision. “We thought that a period of time has to go by before you know whether someone has really changed,” says the Foundation president. – The New York Times
Why In The World Would Anyone In Hollywood Hire John Lasseter Again?
Is it that other Hollywood guys simply don’t give a damn what kind of damage the former head of Pixar did with years of harassment? Uh, basically. “With Lasseter’s return, Hollywood can finally get back to the business of celebrating all those geniuses who just happen to be male because so many of the women have left the room to avoid being groped and/or ejaculated in front of.” – Los Angeles Times
Warming Up A Movie Machine By Going Back To Its More Basic, Early Days
When you let someone who’s not Michael Bay direct a Transformers movie, sometimes you get a rather pleasant surprise – and serious animation artists at work for emotional scenes, as well. – The New York Times
After Banksy Paints A Garage Door In A Welsh Port City, Can The Nation Save It?
The guy who owns the garage has been having a hard time keeping the mural secure – and of course, as the mural’s fame spreads on Instagram, it’s getting massive traffic and interest from all over the world. Now, the Welsh government said that “it was taking over the cost of security and looking for a long-term solution.” – The Guardian (UK)
Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ Get A Rest, And Restoration, Break
On Friday, the Van Gogh Musem “announced the painting has been taken off the wall for research and restoration, months after scientists found the artist’s choice of a light-sensitive yellow paint was causing the flowers’ petals and stems to turn brown.” – The Independent (UK)
An Artist Worked For 15 Years On A Sculpture That Was Slowly Poisoning Her [VIDEO]
Toronto artist Gillian Genser works with natural materials, including mussel shells. Then she started to exhibit all of the symptoms of severe dementia … or heavy metal poisoning, but she didn’t work with heavy metals. Or did she? – BBC
Estonia Is Worried About Russian Influence, So It’s Turning – Naturally – To The Arts For Resistance
Yes, it’s about soft power in the European Union’s farthest border to the east – a stone’s throw from Russia. “From a defense perspective, building a happy, prosperous community in our border area is crucial. … But from a human perspective, it’s the decent thing to do anyway.” – The New York Times
Netflix Put Castilian Spanish Subtitles On ‘Roma’ In Spain Until Alfonso Cuarón Complained
You know, it’s hard to understand the word “mamá,” better put “madre” in there. Wait. What? “Netflix is essentially sending a message that the way we speak is not better than the way we write, and that’s a very old-fashioned idea,” said a linguistics professor. – The New York Times
Research: Why We Like Horror Films? They’re Good For Us
“Horror movies tend to imaginatively transport consumers into fictional universes that brim with dangers,” the researchers write. “Through such imaginative absorption, people get to experience strong, predominantly negative emotions within a safe context. This experience serves as a way of preparing for real-world threat situations.” – Pacific Standard
Arms Manufacturer Shamed Out Of Sponsoring Museum Shows Changes Its Name To Leonardo
Jeez, talk about artwashing. A string of PR disasters, including demonstrations against Britain’s National Gallery of Art for accepting sponsorships, led the Italian defense company Finmeccanica to rename itself after the Renaissance genius (who did, after all, design weapons and war machines). But the tactic hasn’t entirely worked: just last summer, the Design Museum in London came under fire (ahem) for hosting a reception for the company, despite the new name. — Artnet