Art

From Stage to Page: Pandemic Edition

I've written posts about cool musical theatre books, about cool videos, about cool theatre books not about musicals, and lots more. And it occurred to me that I've read a lot of good books since I wrote those posts, so I feel that you, Dear Reader, deserve a sequel. So here are some of the interesting books I've been reading lately...Flop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century, by Stephen Purdy. A really fun, quirky, slightly snarky tour through the carnage of Spider-Man, Lestat, Urban Cowboy, Th...
Tags: Amazon, Race, Theatre, Chicago, Stephen Sondheim, Performing Arts, James Lapine, Broadway, Theater, Oklahoma, Broadway Musicals, Harley Granville Barker, George, Joey, Rodgers, Hammerstein

The Double Bind For Writers Of Color

The writer of colour is thus trapped in a double bind. Racism must be investigated and challenged, but what does it mean if there is only one acceptable framework for addressing the issue? What does it mean if diversity initiatives laud only one kind of story? – The Walrus
Tags: Art, Words, 12.15.20

What Art Restoration Might Have To Teach Us About Repairing The Environment

“I discovered that there are important parallels between the theory and practice of repairing damaged art and that of repairing damaged nature. But there’s an important difference. The environmental sciences investigate processes of nature that have endured billions of years, and yet scientific thinking about the repair of ecosystems is but decades old. Artistic production is, on the other hand, of relatively recent origin, yet systematic thinking and writing about the repair of tarnished art i...
Tags: Art, Ideas, 12.15.20

First Audi ABT RS7-R in North America

The first new ABT RS7-R Limited Edition version of the 2021 Audi RS 7 has been completed by GMP Performance in Mooresville, North Carolina, at their facility in Lake Norman. This performance Sportback joins an exclusive club of just 125 units worldwide from ABT. The RS7-R has an abundance of carbon fiber body parts to […] The post First Audi ABT RS7-R in North America appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
Tags: Europe, Design, German, Autos, North America, Audi, European, Cosmetics, Abt, Mooresville North Carolina, Enthusiasm, News Blog, Tuners, RS 7, RS7-R, GMP Performance

A Historic Detroit Music Venue To Become An Amazon Factory?

“Amazon, you’re building a new $400-million, 3.8-million-square-foot distribution center on the old State Fair site. The area where the bandshell sits is slated to become a parking lot. The bandshell is an important piece of American music history, as well as Detroit music history. It would be a tragic loss if it were to end up, like so many historic Detroit buildings, as a parking lot. The music industry has suffered greatly in 2020 due to COVID-19 and we’re not out of the woods yet.” – Detroi...
Tags: Amazon, Art, Music, Detroit, 12.15.20, Amazon Factory

Frick Tricks: Reinvention to Convention, as Peripatetic Displays Move from Brutalist to Beaux Arts

While many museums are experimenting with quirky new ways of organizing their permanent-collection displays, the Frick Collection is going in the opposite direction: It will use its planned temporary occupation of the Breuer building to unveil a more conventionally coherent presentation of its holdings than was seen in its flagship building. – Lee Rosenbaum
Tags: Art, Ajblogs, Breuer, Frick Collection, 12.15.20

The Source Story For ‘King Lear’ Had A Happy Ending. Why Did Shakespeare Make It A Tragedy?

Basically, because of all the plagues everyone had been through, says Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director Greg Doran. “There is a big change in tone in his later work. Academics have speculated that this was to do with political unrest and change, the wake of the gunpowder plot, but experiencing the pandemic this year has made it clearer to me what lies behind it. Shakespeare just could no longer write straightforward comedies, or give a happy ending to Lear.” – The Observer (UK)
Tags: Art, Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare, King Lear, 12.13.20, Greg Doran

Are Movie Studios Killing Theatres In Favor Of Streaming?

The Wall Street imperative now is too strong to resist. The conglomerates are sacrificing the future of moviegoing for the pandemically friendly practice of moviestaying. We were heading that way before COVID. Now we’re there. Outside the river of streaming content, for most studios the rest is just sentiment and small potatoes. – Chicago Tribune
Tags: Art, Media, Audience, 12.15.20

Giant, Centuries-Old Headless Buddha Discovered In Chinese City

“The 9m-high (30-foot) statue, with its head missing, was uncovered on a cliff between two high-rise residential buildings in the Nanan district of Chongqing. It is not clear when the statue was carved” — it’s believed to date to the Qing dynasty — “and local authorities are still investigating its cultural value.” – South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
Tags: Art, Visual, Chongqing, South China Morning Post, 12.15.20, Nanan

NYC’s 4,500 Teaching Artists Are Out Of Luck

The Department of Education’s arts budget was $21.5 million in the last school year. The line item pays cultural organizations that find and pay artists to go into classrooms and teach kids how to dance, act, sing, paint, write, and learn all kinds of other creative skills. The arrangement works pretty well because New York City has two things in abundance: public school students and artists with both creative expertise and rent coming due. So business was booming for the city’s 4,500 teaching ...
Tags: Art, NYC, New York City, Issues, Department Of Education, 12.15.20

Calls Grow For Americans For The Arts’ CEO To Resign

Volunteer members of an AFTA advisory council on Friday publicly called for Robert Lynch and his senior executives to resign, saying that after three months of working behind the scenes for reform, they realize AFTA is an “organization with no desire to change.” At the same time, current and former staff have alleged that senior leaders “created and condoned a hostile work environment . . . rife with bullying, intimidation, retaliation, and harassment.” – Washington Post
Tags: Art, Issues, Afta, Robert Lynch, 12.15.20

Curious Cribs: Mushroom House Bursts on Rental Market

A rare opportunity has arisen for those wishing to live among the truffles — or at least in eye-catching circumstances. The regionally famous James Johnson-designed Mushroom House, in Perinton, N.Y., near Rochester, is seeking a fancifully minded tenant willing to pony up $5,500 a month. Though the by-any-standard idiosyncratic home was modeled after a sprig […]
Tags: New York, Design, Rochester, James Johnson, Mushroom House, Perinton, More Dirt

The Birth Of America’s Penny Press

“When Benjamin Day came up with the plan of selling newspapers to the poor in 1833, he did so with the ravenous maw of poverty threatening to swallow him up…. Within four months [of its first issue on September 3, 1833], The Sun‘s circulation was 5,000; within a year, 10,000. In two years, 19,000 copies of The Sun were sold every day, making it the best-selling newspaper in the world.” – The New York Review of Books
Tags: Art, America, Words, Penny Press, Benjamin Day, 12.15.20

Trump And The Culture Wars, The Source Of His Power

James Poniewozik: “[His] campaign, as much as it was about wall-building or Islamophobia or ‘law and order,’ was also about a promise to defend and uphold his followers’ culture over the enemy’s. … To an audience that had been told for years that showbiz celebrities disdained their values, here was one of their celebrities, a real celebrity from TV, taking their side. … The message: Your stars are being canceled. Your shows are being canceled. You are being canceled. Only I am the network execut...
Tags: Art, Issues, James Poniewozik, 12.14.20

Get Inside the Head of a New York City Christmas Tree: A Gonzo Short Film from Artist Nina Katchadourian

For every year this Christmas tree Brings to us such joy and glee O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree Such pleasure do you bring me… All over New York City, tree stands are springing up like mushrooms. Unlike the fanciful windows lining 5th avenue, the Union Square holiday market, or Rockefeller Center’s tree and skating rink, this seasonal pleasure requires no special trip, no threat of crowds. You could battle traffic, and lose half a day, dragging the kids to a cut-your-own farm on Long I...
Tags: Google, Art, New York, Film, College, Life, New York City, Canada, Brooklyn, New Jersey, Vermont, Long Island, Rockefeller Center, Andrew, Facebook Twitter, Union Square

City Of Seattle Starts An Arts Real Estate Company

“In an effort to combat cultural displacement and gentrification, the city is taking the rare step of creating a “mission-driven” real estate development company so that it can create, purchase, manage and lease property for arts and cultural spaces — which could include a wide range of venues and organizations, including galleries, bookstores, nonprofit dance companies and cultural community centers. The new entity would likely also develop and manage a new “Creative Economy Hub” on the second...
Tags: Art, Issues, 12.16.20, Seattle Starts An Arts Real Estate Company, Creative Economy Hub

AI Can Now Translate Movie Dialog In The Actors Voices

Deepdub, which came out of stealth on Wednesday, has built technology that can translate a voice track to a different language, all while staying true to the voice of the talent. This makes it possible to have someone like Morgan Freeman narrate a movie in French, Italian or Russian without losing what makes Freeman’s voice special and recognizable. – Protocol
Tags: Art, Media, Morgan Freeman, Audience, Freeman, 12.16.20

All Hollywood Is Furious At Warner Bros. (Nobody Blames The Streamers)

“In the aftermath of WarnerMedia’s decision to put its entire 2021 slate of films on its HBO Max streaming service the same day the titles open in theaters, the AT&T division seems to recognize the need for damage control — but not quite how to go about it.” – The Hollywood Reporter
Tags: Art, Hbo, Media, Warner Bros, WarnerMedia, 12.15.20

How Nikki Giovanni Has Remained A Household-Name Poet (!) For 50 Years

“Her staying power over half a century comes from a stream of acclaimed work, her proclivity for a punishing schedule of tours and readings, and a fearlessness born of not caring what foolish people think.” – The New York Times
Tags: Art, People, Nikki Giovanni, 12.16.20

Discovered: Earliest Known English Church Anthem Composed By A Woman

This setting of the Christmas hymn “Whilst Shepherds watch’d their flocks by night” for unison girls’ voices and organ was written ca. 1785 by Jane Savage, a composer and the daughter of one of Handel’s bass soloists, himself a composer and church musician. She created the piece for the choir of London’s Asylum for Female Orphans; as in Venice at the same time, the English capital in the 18th century had a number of institutions for abandoned or orphaned girls which became fashionable places to...
Tags: Art, Music, London, Venice, Handel, 12.15.20, Jane Savage

Mexico’s Museums Are Desperate — And Afraid To Say So: Commission

This isn’t even about COVID. According to the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art, the austerity measures that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador introduced in May of 2019 have led to budget cuts of 50% in the capital’s museums and 75% in regional museums; many staffers haven’t been paid for weeks or even months. And museum directors won’t raise this with the public or high officials for fear of reprisal. – Artnet
Tags: Art, Mexico, Visual, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, 12.11.20, International Committee for Museums

Yves Tanguy Painting Rescued From Airport Dumpster

An anonymous businessman had been planning to bring the surrealist work, worth an estimated $340,000, with him from Düsseldorf to Tel Aviv last week — but he mistakenly left the painting behind at the airport, where cleaners saw the cardboard carton containing the painting and put it in the recycling bin. And that is where the piece was found the following day. – Smithsonian Magazine
Tags: Art, Tel Aviv, Dusseldorf, Visual, 12.15.20

Ballet Company Ordered To Reinstate Dancer Fired For Breaking Quarantine

In February, the Korea National Ballet was on tour in the city of Daegu when a major coronavirus outbreak arose; the company cancelled the remaining performances and ordered its dancers to self-isolate. Na Dae-han, a corps dancer who had achieved some fame on Korean reality TV, skipped off to Japan with his girlfriend instead, and he was sacked. Now the National Labour Relations Commission has ruled Na’s dismissal unfair and told the KNB to take him back. – Gramilano (Milan)
Tags: Art, Japan, Dance, Daegu, KNB, Dae, 12.15.20, Korea National Ballet, National Labour Relations Commission

French Arts Workers March Against Extension Of COVID Restrictions

“Cinemas, theatres, museums and concert halls had been set to reopen, but days in advance Prime Minister Jean Castex announced a change of heart in response to France’s stubbornly high infection rate. No reopening will take place now until at least 7 January. … Holding slogans like ‘we’re going to die, and not even on stage’, some of the demonstrators told the BBC of their anger and distress at the lockdown.” – BBC
Tags: Art, France, Bbc, Issues, Jean Castex, 12.15.20

Hennessey F5 Supercar the World’s Fastest or Full of Hot Air?

The Hennessey Venom F5 supercar has been unveiled in advance of 2021 customer deliveries. The all-new Venom F5 is built to deliver what the company declares is an exhilarating all-around driving experience, coupled with unparalleled performance. With its power, low weight, and vehicle dynamics, the F5 brags about its handling, and how you may have […] The post Hennessey F5 Supercar the World’s Fastest or Full of Hot Air? appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
Tags: Design, Autos, Engines, Supercar, Hennessey, Hennessey Performance, News Blog, Tuners, 311 MPH, Venom F5

'There are plenty of schlongs in art' – Maggi Hambling defends her nude sculpture of Mary Wollstonecraft

Her tribute to the feminist icon caused outrage at last month’s unveiling, but the artist has no regrets. She hits back at her critics – and explains why this women’s rights pioneer had to be nakedMaggi Hambling is listing her favourite sculpted penises. “The Elgin marbles,” she says. “Michelangelo’s David. And Shelley’s, though it is rather small.” She means the Shelley memorial, Edward Onslow Ford’s attempt to depict the sea-shrunken corpse of the drowned poet. She takes a drag on her cigarett...
Tags: Art, Books, Women, Life and style, World news, Culture, Feminism, Art and design, Heritage, Sculpture, Men, Mayfair, Mary Wollstonecraft, SHELLEY, Maggi Hambling, Marlborough Gallery