This time it’s professional photographer Eric McNatt suing over Prince’s use of an image he took of former Sonic Youth leader Kim Gordon. “The complaint outlines at length Prince’s brazen attitude towards appropriating works, and his disposition toward previous legal actions against him, including the case brought by photographer Patrick Cariou.”
Some Museums Are Speaking Out Post-Election To ‘Affirm Their Roles As Safe, Open Spaces’
The president of the Tenement Museum, for instance, posted a message saying he and his staff “explain to visitors that Americans in the past sometimes lost confidence in their national future and lashed out against immigrants in reaction. We try to help visitors appreciate that immigrants often had to build new lives in the face of hostility.”
The Artist Who Won Britain’s Hepworth Prize Plans To Share It Equally With All The Other Finalists
Sculptor Helen Marten said, “In the light of the world’s ever lengthening political shadow, the art world has a responsibility, if not to suggest a provisional means forward, then at least show an egalitarian platform of democracy. I believe the hierarchical position of art prizes today is, to a certain extent, flawed.”
A Museum In Poland Gets ‘World Building Of The Year’ Honors
Here’s what the jury said about Robert Konieczny + KWK Promes’ National Museum in Szczecin, Poland: “This project enriches the city and the life of the city. It addresses a site with three histories, pre-World War II, wartime destruction, and post-war development, which left a significant gap in the middle of the city. This is a piece of topography as well as a museum.”
The Way To Get More People To The Theatre: Stop Making Them Read Shakespeare In High School
Let’s face it, most people don’t read any plays at all before high school. “To introduce teens to plays on the page with Shakespeare is akin to teaching calculus to students before they’ve learned algebra, or even multiplication.”
The Six Stories We Tell Again And Again
So this team of scientists starts using math to analyze books, and they decide there are six story arcs. But wait: “The book that fit the Icarus arc best was a collection of 196 yoga sutras.”
Aside From ‘Hamilton,’ How Will Theatre (And Other Arts) Respond In The Age Of Trump?
Howard Sherman: “There will be more plays – and poems and books and movies and perhaps even operas and symphonies – about the new America that looms. The America that was revealed by a rash of racist and misogynist attacks in the past week, has been present all along in some quarters. It has now been given leave to emerge based on a perception that law enforcement may be less concerned.”
Off-Broadway Actors Get A Long-Overdue Pay Raise
“Stage acting has long been a poorly paid profession, and it is not unusual for union members to agitate for higher wages. But Off Broadway performers said their campaign this time was different because their wages had become increasingly unacceptable – in most cases, Off Broadway actors are paid no more than $593 a week, in roles that generally last only a few weeks, and they have to pay 10 percent to an agent, 2.25 percent to their union, and about 30 percent in taxes, leaving them with take-home pay that does not, they say, cover the cost of living in New York.”
In Only Four Years, Tamara Rojo Has Completely Transformed The English National Ballet
Tamara Rojo “is the company’s marquee ballerina (along with a fellow Royal Ballet alum, Alina Cojocaru), somehow managing to keep up her technical form and artistry while acting as a one-woman visionary, manager, cheerleader and glamorous high-profile ad for her organization.”
What Might Donald Trump’s Attitude Toward The Arts Be? Who Knows?
“Though he has been front-and-center in public life for more than four decades in the country’s cultural capital, Mr. Trump has left a meager trail to suggest what positions he might take on public arts funding and arts education, along with issues like censorship and economic policies that would affect creative industries, not to mention how he and the first lady, Melania Trump, might decorate the White House.”
Post-Election Is There Still An Art Market? Duh – Of Course…
“When the election happened we didn’t know what to expect. But the week has ended on a high with the Monet and Phillips moving up a level and now this. There is still a market.”
China Starts Exporting Orchestras To The Rest Of The World
“Once, classical music generally travelled from the West to the rest. Now China is reversing the exchange, not merely performing Western classical music in China, but exporting it.”
Revered Landscape Architect Diana Balmori Dead At 84
New Yorkers will recognize her floating island of water-filtering plants in the Gowanus Canal (Brooklyn’s own Superfund site) and the palm-filled Winter Garden in the former World Financial Center (currently Brookfield Place). But among her greatest projects are the reclamation of an old industrial area in Bilbao and the landscape plans (which were integrated from the start with the built architecture) of South Korea’s new administrative capital, Sejong City.
Nacho Duato, After Berlin Misadventure, Says He Will Not Direct Another Dance Company
The Spanish choreographer, who earned worldwide renown at the helm of the Compañía Nacional de Danza in Madrid, has not had an easy time of it at the Staatsballett Berlin – which announced in September, three years ahead of time, that his contract would not be renewed. Back in Madrid for a gala, Duato explains what he’ll do instead. (in Spanish; Google Translate version here)
NY Phil’s $200K Composer Prize Goes To Louis Andriessen
The 77-year-old Dutchman, whose influence on contemporary music in the U.S. has been great, is the third winner of the Philharmonic’s Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music, which also includes a commission for a new orchestral work.