“Speaking to colleagues and journalists at the show’s opening, curator Clare Lilley was frank that she would have liked to include a 50/50 split of men and women — but had been unable to do so. Given the recent focus on the issue of representation and Lilley’s awareness of the issue, the question lingers: Why? The curator, who is also director of programs at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, went on to explain that she saw a lack of financial support from galleries for ambitious sculpture by women.” – Artnet
How The Semi-Colon Beat Out The Other Punctuation Marks
The humanists tried out a lot of new punctuation ideas, but most of those marks had short life spans. Some of the printed texts that appeared in the centuries surrounding the semicolon’s birth look as though they are written partially in secret code: they are filled with mysterious dots, dashes, swoops, and curlicues. – Paris Review
Tarantino And Women
He doesn’t exactly have the best reputation when it comes to the women in his movies. And then there’s his exchange with a reporter at Cannes this year. “His curtness in dismissing the concerns of a woman journalist (dredging up memories of his painfully testy exchange with critic Jan Wahl in 2003) made the exchange explode across the internet. And it reignited a conversation that’s dogged the director for years and that has, post-#MeToo, risen in volume: As a filmmaker, is Tarantino bad to — or for — women?” – BuzzFeed
Making The (Big) Leap From Edinburgh Fringe To Broadway
The musical Six is about – what else – the wives of Henry VIII, a musical inspired by Beyoncé and Ariana Grande. That makes it an obvious candidate for Broadway, right? Yep: “The show started out in a 100-seat venue at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017 before moving to London’s West End. It will open at New York’s 1,000-capacity Brooks Atkinson Theatre next February.” – BBC
The Hotel Lobby As Gallery For Contemporary Art
And not just the lobby – some hotels commission artists or exhibits for every bit of space, including rooms, conference rooms, cafeterias and much more. – The New York Times
Vivian Paley, Pioneering Educator And Author Who Believed In The Power Of Story, Has Died At 90
Paley won a MacArthur “Genius” Grant for her work. Her methods met with resistance during the era of quantification and textbook standardization, but “in addition to teaching children, she mentored a generation of teachers, held workshops and lectured about her experiences in the classroom” – and wrote 13 well-regarded books about the educational rewards of storytelling as a pedagogical practice. – The New York Times
Libraries Have Become Community Centers. But It’s Still Important To Be About Books
Of course, libraries have never been only about books! But reading and books are more important than ever for contemporary society, and public libraries occupy a unique position as a public reading institution. – The Conversation
Science Is Having Difficulty Replicating Some Big Studies. The Question Is What To Do About It
A consensus is finally beginning to emerge: Something is wrong with science that’s causing established results to fail. One proposed and long overdue remedy has been an overhaul of the use of statistics. – Nautilus
Study: Prices For Female Artists Rising Faster Than For Male Artists
“Sotheby’s Mei Moses found that between 2012 and 2018, sales results rose just eight percent for men, while women saw the price for their work go up an astonishing 73 percent. By comparison, the study found that resale markets for men and women had been about the same over the 50 previous years.” – Artnet
Tracy Flick Is Not A Villain, And We’ve Misunderstood ‘Election’ All Along: A.O. Scott
“Somehow I didn’t remember — or didn’t see — what has been right there onscreen the whole time. Which is that Mr. M is a monster — a distillation of human moral squalor with few equals in modern American cinema — and that Tracy Flick is the heroine who bravely, if imperfectly, resists his efforts to destroy her. She’s not Moby-Dick to his Ahab so much as Jean Valjean to his Inspector Javert.” – The New York Times
The Indie Publisher That Soared Too High And Fell To Earth
Chicago’s Curbside Splendor was named “Best Indie Book Publisher” by Chicago magazine in 2014, featured on Bustle’s “13 Indie Presses You Should Know” list in 2017, and even profiled in Lit Hub’s 2016 story on retail stores opened by indie presses. But behind the scenes authors and staff weren’t being paid… – LitHub
Should Theatre Critics Also Be Artists? Does It Make Them Better?
“Why should we take seriously the words of someone who doesn’t understand the great amount of work involved in creating a performance? A critic’s opinion is unreliable if it’s based only on a writer’s personal preference. Personal preference tells the reader what the writer enjoys, it doesn’t tell the reader why the writer enjoyed it.” – Howlround
Karsten Schubert, Gallerist Who Championed Young British Artists Movement, Dead At 57
“His first exhibition was of the sculptor Alison Wilding, whose work he continued to show until his death. It was in 1988, though, that … three of the [Goldsmiths] art school’s new graduates – Gary Hume, Michael Landy and Ian Davenport – had their first West End exhibition at Karsten Schubert Limited.” – The Guardian
New York Times Names Gia Kourlas Staff Dance Critic
Kourlas has been writing reviews and features for the Times on a freelance basis since 2000; she has also been dance editor of Time Out New York and an editor of The Paris Review. – The New York Times
“Lion King” Box Office Tops $1 Billion
The movie, which features the voices of Beyonce and Donald Glover, joins Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel and Aladdin in Disney’s $1bn class of 2019. – BBC
My Friend Oliver Sacks
“We were close for a long time. I was his photographer, colleague, friend, subject, and occasional collaborator. He used to say that he wanted to take off his white doctor’s coat and see Tourette’s in real life, outside a clinic or hospital. I facilitated this not only as a photographer, but also as someone with access to others with the same condition.” – New York Review of Books
The Summer I Worked For Hal Prince
Let’s put “job” in quotation marks. Being Hal Prince’s apprentice was a huge honor, almost (in my family) like getting into law school, but there were different degrees of apprenticeship. – The New York Times
What Will Boris Johnson Mean For UK Arts?
Johnson threw his weight behind expensive projects such as a new cultural and educational quarter and the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower in the Olympic Park, and relocating the Museum of London to Smithfield. But on other aspects of arts and culture funding, his record is patchy. – Arts Professional
Alexa Is Leading British Radio Listeners Away From The BBC
“While, traditionally, people might tune a radio to their favourite station and leave it there, listening on devices such as Amazon’s Alexa involves asking for a channel each time – so there are more opportunities for convincing people to try something different … [such as] niche digital-only outlets.” – The Guardian
Who Gets To Participate In Designing The Future?
“Almost all of the major advances in AI development are currently being made in silos, disparate laboratories, secret government facilities, elite academic institutions, and the offices of very large companies working independently throughout the world. Few private companies (as of this writing) are actively sharing their work with competitors, despite the efforts of such organizations as OpenAI, the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, and the Future of Life Institute to bring awareness to the importance of transparency in building AI.” – Nautilus