Wednesday, December 14
How Wars Destroy Physical History
"In times of conflict, civilian homes are invariably singled out for attack. In recent decades, whole villages have been eradicated in various parts of the world, from Saddam Hussein's Iraq to Rwanda and Darfur. But homes are not the only type of building that has been targeted. Countless libraries, museums, churches and monuments have also been destroyed, representing an incalculable loss to the world's cultural patrimony."
New Statesman
12/11/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 6:29 pm
Study: Violent Video Games Affect Response To Real Violence
Researchers "have found that people who play violent video games show diminished brain responses to images of real-life violence, such as gun attacks, but not to other emotionally disturbing pictures, such as those of dead animals, or sick children. And the reduction in response is correlated with aggressive behaviour."
New Scientist
12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 6:24 pm
78 Ideas That Mattered This Year
The New York Times Magazine surveys the intellectual landscape for its annual list: "Once we have thrown back all the innovations that don't meet our exacting standards, we find ourselves with the following alphabetical catch: 78 notions, big and small, grand and petty, serious and silly, ingenious and. . . well, whatever you call it when you tattoo an advertisement on your forehead for money."
The New York Times Magazine
12/11/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 6:07 pm
Click here for more Ideas stories...
Ideas stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
A Solution For The Museum Looted Art Mess?
American museums should not grudgingly cough up artifacts piece by piece, like thieves caught with swag. They should make a virtue out of adversity and offer to share their disputed antiquities en masse with plaintiff countries--this applies above all to the Getty, which can afford to lead the world by example and precedent. The Getty should flaunt its courage with a grand public change of heart. It should offer to build Getty museums abroad in the Guggenheim Bilbao manner to house its antiquities in style and to create a system of permanently shared collections."
OpinionJournal.com
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 9:25 am
Detroit Mayor Closes Historical Museum
Acting quickly on a re-election mandate to fix the city's finances, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick on Tuesday announced the layoffs of 400 city workers, the closing of the Detroit Historical Museum and transfer of management of the Detroit Zoo.
Detroit News
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 8:00 am
Italians To Help Rebuild Iran Museum
A group of Italian experts has undertaken to refurbish Iran National Museum as part of Italy's program to develop cultural and economic cooperation.
Iranmania
12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 10:38 pm
Dumping On The Turner Prize (No Matter What)
"Over the years since its low-key beginnings the Turner has provided the media with many healthy inches of outrage. Now this year they complain that the show was not shocking enough. The Daily Mail says of Starling?s Shedboatshed: 'To the casual observer it is just a shack.' Maybe 'casual observers' should stay out of art galleries."
The Times (UK)
12/14/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 7:32 pm
Earliest-Known Mayan Painting Discovered
A major find of an ancient Mayan painting changes what we know about the history of Mayan culture. "The find, a 30-by-3-foot mural in vivid colors depicting the ancient culture's mythology of creation and kingship, is the centerpiece of a larger mural, parts of which were first discovered and exposed in Guatemala four years ago. New radiocarbon tests revealed the painting to be 200 years older than originally estimated, dating to about 100 B.C."
The new York Times
12/14/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 7:29 pm
The New Art: Everything And The Kitchen Sink
"Whether you call it the New Cacophony or the Old Cacophony, Agglomerationism, Disorientationism, the Anti Dia, or just a raging bile duct, the practice of mounting sprawling, often infinitely organized, jam-packed carnivalesque installations is making more and more galleries and museums feel like department stores, junkyards, and disaster films. It is an architecture of no architecture, a gesamtkunstwerk or "total artwork," whose roots are in opera, Dada, the Merzbau, and the madhouse."
Village Voice
12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 7:20 pm
Is There A Moral In This About How To Dispose Of Stolen Art?
Police in california arrest three men after they "allegedly brought a stolen painting valued at more than $40,000 into Atherton gallery Sense Fine Art for appraisal."
San Francisco Examiner
12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 6:11 pm
Click here for more Visual Arts stories...
Visual Arts stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
 Sponsor
The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative brings artistic masters from different disciplines together with highly promising young artists for a year of creative collaboration in a one-to-one mentoring relationship. Find out how this unique programme has changed the lives of some of today?s most talented artists.
Opera In The Popular Culture (What It Is)
"Even as opera remains the butt of jokes, opera-styled pop -- big, booming voices delivering mellifluous melodies over lush, orchestral arrangements -- keeps popping up at the top of the charts. The field isn't especially large, but it encompasses a fairly wide array of stars, from the male quartet Il Divo to teen soprano Charlotte Church, and from former Andrew Lloyd Webber star (and spouse) Sarah Brightman to occasional Luciano Pavarotti duet partner Andrea Bocelli."
The Globe & mail (Canada)
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 10:07 am
Omaha's New Symphony Space
Omaha has a new concert hall. "For a mere $92 million, Nebraska's largest city has a sonically satisfying 2,000-seat concert hall and a 'black box' space that can seat as many as 450."
Dallas Morning News
11/19/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 7:49 am
Click here for more Music stories...
Music stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
Ground Zero And Culture? Maybe They're Incompatible
Is there still a chance that some cultural vision will emerge for the site of the World Trade Center? "Given the intense emotions associated with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some panelists suggested that the competing visions for the 16-acre site - memorial, business hub, neighborhood gathering place - were ultimately incompatible."
The new York Times
12/14/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 7:23 pm
New York's Cultural Elite?
New York Magazine critics have made their lists...
New York Magazine
12/12/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 6:38 pm
In Charlotte - Library And Children's Theatre Combine
The city of Charlotte's Public Libray and its Children's Theatre decided to collaborate on a new home. "Occupying a city block in 'Uptown Charlotte'?the growing cultural hub of the city?this freestanding, 102,000-square-foot, two-month-old building is radical for a number of reasons. For one thing, when library and theater leaders agreed to create a joint-use facility, instead of just building a structure that would house both institutions side by side, they took a far riskier step?creating a daringly original space with its own identity and, eventually, its own life."
School Library Journal
12/01/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 8:46 am
Click here for more Arts Issues stories...
Arts Issues stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
Pianist Gyorgy Sandor, 93
"Mr. Sandor was born in Budapest and studied piano with Bartok and composition with Kodaly at the Liszt Academy of Music there. He began to travel widely as a concert pianist in the 1930's, and settled in the United States after his American debut at Carnegie Hall in 1939."
The New York Times
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 9:29 am
John Simon In Three Volumes
Critic John Simon is out with three volumes of his collected pieces. "The irony of this is that writers (and bloggers) who benefit, likely without realizing it, from Simon's path-blazing, pre-eminent debunking of crap are some of his most vocal critics. It seems almost foolish to have to point out that Simon's reviews were politically incorrect well before the tide began to turn against PC, yet his detractors, who remain determinedly stuck on autopilot, could use a little nudging."
New York Press
12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 6:00 pm
Click here for more People stories...
People stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
Why Pinter Matters
"The winner of this year?s Nobel Prize in Literature, Harold Pinter, as a playwright, a screenwriter, a director, and a mentor, has had an enormous influence on the theatrical landscape of his time. He began his career as an actor, and, even at the outset, with comparatively crude command, he turned his actor?s understanding of subtext into a metaphysic."
The New Yorker
12/12/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 6:32 pm
Click here for more Theatre stories...
Theatre stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
How "Alt-" Will New Alt-Weekly Chain Be?
"A half-century after New York's Village Voice launched the genre of alternative weeklies, there's still plenty of war, injustice and corporate domination around. But the anti-establishment counterculture has moved topside. Rock 'n' roll jingles hawk luxury cars, mutual funds come with social consciences and alternative weeklies have become a profitable, parallel universe to the mainstream media. In an unmistakable sign that the counterculture has morphed into corporate culture," now two "alt-weekly" chains are merging...
Los Angeles Times
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 9:49 am
Ten-Year-Old Wins A Book Deal
A ten-year-old girl's book about surviving her parents' divorce has been picked up by a publisher. "When her mother and father separated three and a half years ago Libby Rees wrote a list of the things that helped her make sense of what was going on. The result was a 60-page book called Help, Hope and Happiness, published by Aultbea Publishing based in Inverness."
The Guardian (UK)
12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 6:41 pm
Celeb Mags Headed Down
After seeing big circulation increases earlier this year American celebrity magazines have seen some shrp declines. "Us has seen the steepest drop-off, with fourth-quarter sales running about 15 percent below its January-through-September average. People is down about 9 percent; Star, 8 percent, and In Touch, 5 percent, said sources. (People, Us and In Touch are all on pace to report a year-over-year increase for the second half as a whole, however; Star will be slightly down.)"
Women's Wear Daily
12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 6:03 pm
Click here for more Publishing stories...
Publishing stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
Surviving Hollywood's Dark Year
This has been "Tinseltown's most disappointing box-office performance in 15 years as audiences, dazzled by their entertainment choices and disappointed by the mediocre films on offer, turned away from the cinema in droves." So what's in store for 2006? The Globe & mail (Canada)
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 10:09 am
Canada's Top Ten Films
The fifth annual list, which does not rank the films in order, is organized through the Toronto International Film Festival Group to promote Canadian film. Though Canada's filmmaking veterans were highly visible this year, TIFF director Piers Handling referred to 2005 as a "powerhouse year" because the old guard were augmented by some strong first-time filmmakers. The Globe & mail (Canada)
12/14/05
Posted: 12/14/2005 10:03 am
Click here for more Media stories...
Media stories submitted by readers
More reader-submitted stories... | submit a story
Giving A Damn About Dance
So what makes a lively dance "scene," asks Lane Czaplinski. "I find it ironic that while we (people who care about dance) are always quick to site the problems in the field--a lack of resources, waning attendance, regurgitated aesthetics, etc.--that we are also quick to take offense at precisely the kind of provocative writing that can get people to give a damn. If there is any threat to the dance field, it is that not enough people care about it. Perhaps this is because people read too much puffy marketing rhetoric and too many namby-pamby reviews that do nothing to enliven one?s engagement with the form."
ArtsJournal Dance Forum
12/13/05
Posted: 12/13/2005 10:45 pm
Click here for more Dance stories...
Dance stories submitted by readers
|
