Christopher Knight on why this isn’t going to work – with a review of a new show embedded within the commentary: “Art museums have two audiences — one general, who may or may not have a genuine interest (there’s got to be someplace to take the in-laws over the holidays); the other a dedicated art audience, who range from passionate enthusiasts to committed professionals. … Lose the core and the museum is in trouble.” – Los Angeles Times
PBS Launches Subscription Streaming Service On Amazon Prime
“The new streamer, [called PBS Living and] costing $2.99 per month after a seven-day free trial, will offer classic PBS series like The French Chef, This Old House and Antiques Roadshow, along with more recent series like No Passport Required and Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street. The new channel will offer subscribers hundreds of episodes of PBS series across the food and cooking, home, culture and travel genres, with new content to be added each month.” – The Hollywood Reporter
The World’s First Virtual Reality Theatre Service
The platform, called LIVR, aims to make theatre “more accessible to all” by giving users a “fully immersive 360-degree experience” of live performance from their homes. Subscribers can stream shows using a mobile phone app for LIVR and watch them via a free virtual reality headset that is provided by the service. – The Stage
Books Need Readers To Be Books. But What About The Quality Of The Reader?
To exist as a book, the pages with their letters and spaces need a reader. We may think of books as unchanging material objects, but they only, as it were, happen when read; they have no absolute identity. And the nature of that reading—an experience extended over many hours, then mulled over for many more, for the book does not cease to happen the moment we turn the last page—will depend, to a large degree, on who the reader is. – New York Review of Books
Is Disappearing Or De-Platforming People Or Work Defensible In Free Speech Terms?
No-platforming is when a person is prevented from contributing to a public debate, either through policy or protest, on the grounds that their beliefs are dangerous or unacceptable. Open-speech advocates highlight what we might call first-order evidence: evidence for and against the arguments that the speakers make. But they overlook higher-order evidence. – Aeon
Why Have A Bunch Of Realistic-Looking Statues Turned Up In An Empty West Philly Lot?
“There is no indication at the site what the figures are or where they might go. There is no indication that a museum is in the offing. Just painted bronze figures in suits and beachwear standing on dirt in West Philly. … As unlikely as it may sound, it appears that the 4700 block of Market Street has been targeted by a somewhat reclusive private foundation — the Daniel Veloric Foundation — as the site for a museum sometime in the future.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
Has Literary Criticism Become Too “Nice.” Too Apolitical?
“Criticism” in The New York Times Book Review tends to look “positive,” by academic standards, not because it always says the book is good but because it offers market advice as to whether you should buy it, whether you will like it, without asking much about the market itself or about what it would mean about you or about the world if you did like it. – Chronicle of Higher Education
From Cattle Call to Company Contract, Here’s What It Takes to Join BalletX
“‘I’m going to walk through; it’s going to be so awkward,’ says BalletX artistic and executive director Christine Cox, addressing 119 auditionees and acknowledging the ever-intimidating clipboard she holds. The room bursts into laughter, and smiles linger as pliés begin.” Hannah Fox sits in on the audition. – Dance Magazine
What Brings Wounded Cities Back To Life? Culture, Says World Bank Report
“Investing in cultural institutions, spaces, and heritage can help build bridges between sparring communities in post-conflict urban areas and make disaster recovery quick, sustainable, and more effective. The authors argue that major cultural investments early in the reconstruction process will eventually pay off by making the city more attractive to investment and tourism, fueling economic growth.” Exhibit A: Medellín, once the most violent city in the world. – CityLab
MoviePass Has Been Losing Even More Money Than We Thought
The service’s parent company revealed in its third-quarter financial report “that the money-losing subscription service has fewer subscribers than previously disclosed, causing the firm to restate its revenue downward by 8.2 percent [$6.6 million] and its losses upward by 7.7 percent [$6.7 million].” – The Hollywood Reporter
Rijksmuseum Begins Talks With Sri Lanka And Indonesia About Returning Art Looted Art In Colonial Era
“‘It’s a disgrace that the Netherlands is only now turning its attention to the return of the colonial heritage’, Rijksmuseum director Taco Dibbets [said]. ‘We should have done it earlier and there is no excuse.’ … The Rijksmuseum has around 4,000 colonial objects, not all of which, Dibbits says, were stolen. All objects are owned by the state so museums cannot take the decision to return an object on their own.” – DutchNews.nl
A Gaggle Of Geese, A Pride Of Lions. A ??? of Emojis?
In written English right now, there’s little consensus on this question. National publications have not settled on a regular style. The Atlantic, for instance, used both (emoji, emojis) in the last quarter of 2015. – The Atlantic
What Stage Dancers Doing On-Camera Work Need To Know
“For dancers with a strictly concert background, making the transition into TV and film can feel like stepping into the unknown. The heightened speed of the rehearsals, ever-changing structure of the sets and somewhat alien nature of the cameras is enough to make even the most seasoned professional a little apprehensive. But dancers can apply the savvy they’ve learned on concert stages to on-camera opportunities.” – Dance Magazine
Orchestra Proposes New Hall In City Park. Community Protests Loss Of Said Park
“They’re moving us to a swamp, with no opportunity to grow our vision,” said Sami Scott, who helped organize a petition drive against the orchestra’s proposal. That petition has accumulated 300-plus signatures. – Sarasota Herald Tribune
Why The Cis Director Of The Trans-Themed Film ‘Girl’ Says He Has The Right To Tell This Story
Last year, Lukas Dhont’s debut feature won four prizes at Cannes and a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign film; Netflix bought the US rights. Then came the backlash — not only were a cis director and actor appropriating the story, but the film focused too much on the character’s body — and the US release was postponed. And then the woman on whose story the film is based spoke up — for Dhont. – The Guardian
One Of The Most Famous Prison Museums Addresses The Mass Incarceration Crisis
The Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, built in 1829, gets hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. “Talking about the site’s history didn’t seem like enough for Sean Kelley, senior vice president and director of interpretation. Two years ago, … [he] helped rewrite the museum’s mission statement, declaring that Eastern State would no longer be neutral in recognizing mass incarceration as a crisis.” Shannon Eblen has a look at the new exhibits that have gone up in response to that change. – The New York Times
After 36 Years, Minneapolis’s Zenon Dance Company Is Closing Down
“We are being forced out because of lack of funding,” said Linda Andrews, the company’s artistic director, citing the withdrawal of crucial grants by the Jerome Foundation and the philanthropic arm of Target stores. “Things look like they are changing pretty dramatically amongst the funding community, and a lot of organizations are affected by that.” – The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Riccardo Muti Joins Striking Chicago Symphony Musicians On Picket Line
While music directors usually stay silent about orchestras’ labor-management disputes, Muti said to the assembled media, “I am here with my musicians. … We try to get a better situation for their life, their pension, their work. Some people, they want to read my position with the musicians as against the board. This is not true. I would just like them to listen more carefully to the musicians, who represent one of the great orchestras of the world.” – Chicago Tribune
There Will Be No Strike At The Philadelphia Orchestra For (At Least) Four More Years
“About six months ahead of expiration of the current labor contract between the Philadelphia Orchestra Association and its players, the two sides have reached an agreement on a pact that keeps the peace for the next four years.” (Yannick, left, is very relieved.) – The Philadelphia Inquirer
One Of India’s Biggest Art Museums Is Inside Mumbai Airport
“Scattered throughout the four levels of Terminal 2 of Mumbai’s international airport are more than 5,500 pieces of Indian art and handicrafts, including tribal totem poles and a 3-D map of Mumbai built from recycled chips and circuit boards. Together they make up the Jaya He, GVK New Museum.” – The New York Times
Hal Blaine, 90, The Most-Recorded Drummer Ever
Although he was never a household name, anyone with a record collection almost undoubtedly owns one of Blaine’s songs. By his own count, he played on more than 6,000 tracks over the course of his career. – BBC
John Richardson, Picasso Biographer, 95
Richardson’s grandest and most acclaimed project was his multivolume biography of Pablo Picasso, the first part of which was published in 1991. (Two more volumes have been put out since; a fourth is expected to follow, though a publication date has not yet been set.) In 2008, Richardson was asked what made his biography different from books on the painter. He told Artinfo, “The fact that I knew him well and he opened up to me.” – ARTnews
Britney Spears, The Musical?
The show will have its world premiere this fall in Chicago at the James M. Nederlander Theatre. Previews begin in October. The show’s story centers on classic fairytale princesses like Cinderella and Snow White learning that being happy ever after may take some work. – Washington Post (AP)
The Venerable Dance Critic At 85
Deborah Jowitt, who has been reviewing since 1964, has probably vexed fewer choreographers than most other leading critics. She speaks of Taylor tenderly (“a genius”), and with gratitude. As the subject of her first review for The Village Voice (Nov. 9, 1967), he immediately wrote her with advice: She should have more confidence in her own views and not quote a senior critic to prop herself up. – The New York Times
Shulman’s ‘Age of Disenchantments’ Has Arrived
Aaron Shulman’s collective biography of the Spanish Panero family, The Age of Disenchanments — just out from Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins — has a cast of dramatic characters that is nothing less than stunning. – Jan Herman