“The truth is that it took a long time for e-books to ‘arrive’; Amazon was far from first. There, admittedly, was a comfort level that had to be worked out with the electronic book, which gave Amazon the perfect opportunity to swoop in. Tonight’s Tedium talks about the evolution of electronic books before the Kindle. I’d tell you to turn the page, but we’re not really working with paper here, are we?”
Vandal Who Slashed $3 Million Painting Was Owner’s Own Son, Say Police
Almost exactly one year ago, an unknown man jogged into the Opera Gallery in Aspen, walked up to Christopher Wool’s painting Untitled 2004, cut it twice with a knife, and jogged right out. Police now say that Nicholas Morley flew from London for the express purpose of damaging the artwork, which had been consigned to the gallery for sale by a holding company owned by Morley’s father. (Just days later, Dad tried to convince the gallery that news reports of the slashing had made the painting more valuable and that they should raise the price.)
Second Major Museum Of Contemporary African Art Opens In Cape Town – And It’s Poached Staff From The First
Just last September, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) opened in a repurposed grain silo on the Cape Town waterfront. And just last week, the Norval Foundation, funded by real estate financier Louis Norval, opened in a new building on a suburban estate near Table Mountain. What’s more, both the executive director and the chief director of the Norval came from Zeitz MOCAA.
At Work With One Of Britain’s – And Now Hollywood’s – Top Casting Directors
“There was a moment, somewhere in the nexus between Game of Thrones and The Crown, where it felt as if [Nina] Gold’s name was gliding through the credits of every high-end show on TV. Her 167 credits include many grand British success stories – The King’s Speech, The Theory of Everything, the Paddington movies and every Mike Leigh film since Topsy-Turvy. But in the past few years, she has ascended into Hollywood’s mega-franchise league (the Star Wars saga, sequels to Jurassic World and Mamma Mia!). Gold is partly responsible for the impression that British actors have colonised Hollywood.”
Digital Art On Your Wall By Subscription
Meural is one of the more notable startups in the digital art subscription space. For hardware that is ultimately just a high-end digital photo frame, the companies are more focused on the idea that a certain type of consumer is interested in a monthly subscription to digital art. It’s a wild idea that has been a tough one to chase.
The Sackler Protests Continue, This Time In DC
On Thursday, the Nan Goldin-led group PAIN traveled to the capital to protest the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery of Art. Goldin said, “We are here to call out all of the Sacklers. … The Sackler brothers built an empire of pain.”
The New Lynching Memorial Is ‘Gut-Wrenching And Beautiful’
“That’s the genius of the museum’s design. It neither shies away from nor revels in the horrors it asks you to contemplate. … It grabs you by the throat but makes sure not to choke you. It confronts without condemning. It provides hope through the sculptures, and footprints, of brave women in Montgomery who were the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. They overcame and so can we.”
Sam Hamill, Poet And Founder Of Copper Canyon Press, Dies At 74
Hamill also sparked a massive movement of poets against the war with Iraq after being invited to a White House symposium in 2003. “He built a website to present the poems he received, and the White House eventually canceled the symposium. More than 135 poetry readings and other protests were held around the country on Feb. 12, the day the symposium was supposed to begin. More than 13,000 poets submitted work to Mr. Hamill’s website, some of which, including poems by John Balaban, Ursula K. Le Guin and Adrienne Rich, were collected in an anthology, Poets Against the War.“
A New Institute To Study Failure
Research on failure as a motivator is limited, though the evidence that does exist suggests that students can grow both from learning about the failures of other successful people and from experiencing failure themselves. Crucially, for failure to “work,” research indicates that educators and parents need to encourage students to figure out what went wrong and try to improve. “Failure needs to give people a chance to regroup and rewind the clock,” Xiaodong Lin-Siegler explained. Her main goal, she said, is to help students realize that failure is a normal part of the process of learning.
What It Takes To Be A Festival Director These Days
Preserving a special sense of meaning is pivotal for Jane Moss. “There are lots of festivals around. You need to stay focused on a festival that has meaning of some sort.” She has found that the most successful performing arts events “always have enormous passion attached. For a festival, you need somebody who is an advocate and who is passionate about what they are presenting. Audiences do not want programming based on a focus group. They tend to respond to vision. If you start with the premise: ‘We want an audience of XX and therefore will do YY, because we think we know what they will like’, it almost never works. The audience will respond to a director who has passion.”
The Art Of Rejection Letters
Knowing that you may never get a response is disheartening. Yet many embrace the uncertainty and even lean into it. For those playwrights, rejections become the most common form of communication with theatres.
Why Do So Many Kids Decide They Hate Poetry? Could It Be From Writing Haiku In Grade School?
Chris Harris: “I imagine it’s popular in grade schools because it’s a simple format. Then again, My Dinner with André has a simple format, but I’m guessing it doesn’t play gangbusters at a nine-year-old’s birthday party. … Experiencing poetry solely through prefab formal structures like haikus, acrostics, cinquains and diamante poems could make students feel like poetry is just some sadistic fiend’s attempt to make English even more complex and irritating. ‘POETRY: It’s like regular writing, but with even more rules!'”
Now We Can All See The Staging Of ‘Unstageable’ Novel ‘2666’
The Goodman Theater’s five-and-a-half-hour stage adaptation of Roberto Bolaño’s mammoth, seemingly unstageable novel 2666 drew a stream of ardent fans of the Chilean novelist to Chicago in 2016. The scope and technical complexity of the production – which involved five distinct sets, 15 actors playing 80 characters, and an elaborate movie-within-the-play – made subsequent productions difficult. But now those who were unable to make the trip can binge-watch the entire thing online [for free], from a couch anywhere in the world.”
Non-Profit Theatres Were A Big Part Of Broadway This Season
In the season that concluded last night, 33 new shows opened in Broadway houses. But while Broadway is usually spoken of in commercial terms, it’s worth noting that 10 of those shows were produced by the subsidised companies resident at Broadway venues. That’s 30% of this year’s total output.
A Play Staged On A Series Of Shoebox-Sized Sets
“Flight, from Glasgow-based theater company Vox Motus, is not exactly theater in the traditional sense. In fact, there are no live performers. The entire story is told via 230 miniature dioramas on a rotating carousel. Audience members sit in private booths along the perimeter of the carousel, listening to a soundtrack through headphones as the tiny scenes pass by and light up, one after the other.” (audio)
Gina Gibney’s Growing Dance Empire
“Gina Gibney runs two enormous dance spaces in New York City: Together they contain 23 studios, five performance spaces, a gallery, a conference room, a media lab and more. Gibney is now probably the largest dance center in the country. … The new branding calls for it to simply be called Gibney (as opposed to Gibney Dance), to reflect its range of public programs, affordable work space and commitment to social justice issues. … Gibney also houses the Gibney Dance Company, which was founded in 1991.”
Dancing With Death: The Murky Ethics Of Filming People In Life-Threatening Danger
“The Deminer” – a documentary about a Kurdish Peshmerga officer who disarms mines – “makes for nervous viewing. Each of the four detonations we see ratchets up the sense of inevitability. It’s not quite a snuff movie, though haunted by a similar balefulness. What moral responsibilities do documentary-makers have when their subject is a danger to himself?”
One Of World’s Biggest Gallerists Proposes ‘Tax’ On Large Galleries At Art Fairs
“David Zwirner, whose namesake art gallery is one of the world’s largest, said he was prepared to pay more for space rental at art fairs if the extra money could help smaller galleries take part as well.”
Documenta Names Its Third Director In Less Than A Year
“On 1 November [Sabine] Schormann will replace Wolfgang Orthmayr, a producer of musicals who was appointed interim managing director in April. His beleaguered predecessor, Annette Kulenkampff, left her post before her contract ended as the result of a budget deficit of €5.4m following the 2017 edition.”
‘Toxic Culture’ Of Harassment Rampant In Professional Music World: Study
“Musicians from across the industry took part in a survey by membership organisation the Incorporated Society of Musicians. … Of the 600 musicians who took part in the survey, 47% said they had experienced discrimination, including sexual harassment and other inappropriate behaviour, in the course of their work.”
Mezzo-Soprano Huguette Tourangeau Dead At 79
A winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions in 1964, the Canadian mezzo had a career at the Met and many North American companies, but she was best known as Joan Sutherland’s co-star on a series of opera recordings conducted by Richard Bonynge, including (among others) Norma, Maria Stuarda, Lucia di Lammermoor, and Les Contes d’Hoffmann.
Controversial Statue Of Stephen Foster In Pittsburgh Comes Down
“The move followed an October decision by the Pittsburgh Art Commission, which found that the statue should be removed within six months and hosted in a private, ‘properly contextualized’ location. Many residents have held that the sculpture – showing a shoeless African-American banjo player seated at the famed composer’s feet – is condescending or outright racist. Speakers at commission meetings last year largely agreed.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.26.18
Homer And His Unique Way of Seeing
Winslow Homer has always been a complicated artist, and now he will be viewed as an even more complicated one. What’s going to do that is an exhibition opening in June at … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2018-04-26
A Dorough Tribute
In the aftermath of Bob Dorough’s death on Monday, increased attention is going to his extensive body of songs. Among Dorough’s greatest admirers is the Swedish trumpet player and singer Mårten Lundgren. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-04-26
The Bizarre Russian Big Money Culture Machine
Those who are familiar with the state’s cultural agenda in Russia are no longer surprised by these kinds of events, but it’s still difficult to get used to. You’re a good artist if you earn a lot, and preferably, have a wide audience. For the BraVo prize, as written on the website, any artist could be nominated, so long as they had the potential to “reach an audience of three billion.” In a state where culture, whether serious or for entertainment, still belongs to the service sector at the legislative level, more is more.
How Communist Bulgaria Became A Hotbed Of Thinking (And Worrying) About Robots
Bulgarian engineers and cyberneticians, champions of this new technology, increasingly worried about what this meant. In the ivory towers of places such as the Institute of Technical Cybernetics and Robotics in Sofia, they wrote detailed papers on robotic movement, image recognition, planning algorithms. They ran experiments and built labs to test how to perfect Man-Machine Interfaces – from the design of the perfect office that would minimise an office worker’s eye-strain to the future melding of human and machine vision.