Art

Amazon’s New Washington DC Tower Will Have A Hiking Trail Up The Side

Named The Helix, the glass spiral tower will be part of a complex of three office buildings that will make up Amazon HQ2. – Dezeen
Tags: Amazon, Art, Visual, 02.03.21, New Washington DC

Snubs And Surprises From This Year’s Golden Globes Nominations

The absence of the Shonda Rhymes-produced Regency-era blockbuster proves the Golden Globes isn’t just a popularity contest. Otherwise, the Netflix drama would have cleaned up in all categories this morning and likely on February 28. – Deadline
Tags: Art, Media, Netflix, Golden Globes, Shonda Rhymes, 02.03.21

When Artworld Value Is About Economic Value, We All Lose

Converting “qualities to quantities”, replacing “critical evaluation with economic, technical evaluation”, making “the price system” the ultimate judge, turning institutions into markets and individuals into competing contestants are all hallmarks of the neoliberal vision of a more efficient, productive society. They also characterise quite a lot of what is going on in the art world at the moment. – The Art Newspaper
Tags: Art, Issues, 02.02.21

You Love Classical Music But Spotify Isn’t Cutting It. Here’s A Comparison Of Streaming Platforms

Two of them, Idagio and Primephonic, have been created specifically for classical music listeners. The other four, Apple Music, Qobuz, Spotify and Tidal, cover all genres. As we’ll see, there are many different aspects to these services: their look and feel on the phone and the desktop, how you search, what audio quality they provide, their different ways of helping you choose what to listen to, and a number of special features. – BachTrack
Tags: Art, Music, IDAGIO, Primephonic, 02.02.21

An artist created a satirical 'blue-check homes' website for influencers to 'verify' their houses. Hundreds of people signed up.

Sattalat phukkum/Shutterstock A San Francisco-area artist created a fake site advertising 'blue checks' for homeowners. The site satirizes Twitter's verification process and the accompanying social status.  Danielle Baskin's satirical website received nearly 500 responses, SFGate reported.  Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories. Twitter verification is a status symbol in its own right, and one that inevitably engenders strong reactions: envy, disdain, or desperation to na...
Tags: Art, Twitter, News, San Francisco, Trends, Tech, Zillow, Bay Area, SFGATE, Baskin, Tech Insider, San Francisco Real Estate, Twitter Verification, Danielle Baskin, Annabelle Williams, Adam Scheuring

COVID Baby (with apologies to Mr. Sondheim)

(to the tune of Sondheim's "Broadway Baby") I'm just a COVID Baby,Isolating all day long,Fearing the infected throng,Surviving somehow.COVID Baby,Learning how to work from home,Like I'm sealed inside some dome;Apocalypse Now!Gee,It seems to meWe should agreeTo take on this task;It's true, The one thing youJust have to doIs wear a damn mask!COVID Baby,Captive of conservatives,Left to wonder just what gives,And why they're so mad. Hey! COVID denier!Your country's on fire!You and QAnon --You fell...
Tags: Musicals, Theatre, Live, Stephen Sondheim, Performing Arts, Broadway, Theater, Sondheim, Scott Miller, Musical Theatre, Follies, Pandemic, Broadway Baby, COVID-19, Schwartz Dietz, UberEats Cause

Taking Ballet Class Outdoors In The Middle Of A New York Winter

“Across the city, amateur and professional dancers are donning sneakers, masks and lots of layers to carry on with a familiar ritual that, for many, is essential to maintaining physical and mental health. … For the most part, [classes] have endured without interruption, a consistency that speaks to dancers’ desire to be physically present together, not cooped up in their apartments or separated by screens.” – The New York Times
Tags: Art, Dance, 02.02.21

Journalists Are Coming To Terms With Their Relationships With Tech Companies. How About Academics?

Just as journalistic embargoes aren’t universally bad or unprofessional, academic embargoes might not be either. But conversations about the ethics of “access scholarship” are far less mature than debates about “access journalism.” (Though such journalism still dominates cultures of political reporting, it at least has a name and prominent critics.) – NiemanLabs
Tags: Art, Issues, 02.02.21

Dante’s Descendant Wants Poet’s Conviction On Corruption Charges Reversed

In 1302, caught on the wrong side in one of Florence’s perpetual factional struggles, Dante Alighieri was fined and banished on a probably trumped-up charge of corruption in political office; summoned home from Ravenna the following year, he refused to come, and his sentence was commuted to death by burning. Now Dante’s great-great-many-times-great-grandson, astrophysicist Sperello di Serego Alighieri, is working to get his ancestor exonerated. – The Guardian
Tags: Art, People, Florence, Dante, Ravenna, Dante Alighieri, 02.01.21, Serego Alighieri

Key Lesson For Theatres In The Pandemic? Adapting Is Key

“Are we going to come out of this moment with a new model or new models? No. But what if we were in a constant state of evolving our model? What if we didn’t do what we just did … and get so entrenched in it that getting out of it and moving past becomes this national conversation and crisis? What if we were always evolving in some way? – Brooklyn Rail
Tags: Art, Theatre, 02.02.21

Key Lesson For Theatres The Pandemic? Adapting Is Key

“Are we going to come out of this moment with a new model or new models? No. But what if we were in a constant state of evolving our model? What if we didn’t do what we just did … and get so entrenched in it that getting out of it and moving past becomes this national conversation and crisis? What if we were always evolving in some way? – Brooklyn Rail
Tags: Art, Theatre, 02.02.21

How Did Zombie Figurative Art Become So Popular?

Such quirky, esoteric mash-ups feel less like stylistic innovations and more like branding exercises, reflecting a present in which one’s ability to market oneself is more important than mastering a craft or coming up with fresh ideas. – The Spectator
Tags: Art, Visual, 01.30.21

The Times’s ‘Five Minutes That Will Make You Love {Piano/Sopranos/String Quartets}’ Series? It’s Working

Says classical music editor Zachary Woolfe (who came up with the idea in the shower), “It has doubled our audience for classical music. It’s gratifying that whatever we do, people are willing to explore and be into it.” – The New York Times
Tags: Art, Music, Times, Audience, ZACHARY WOOLFE, 02.03.21

We Live In A Dystopian Time. Is That Why Dystopian Novels Have Gone Away?

“We inhabit a dystopian reality, which may account for the dearth of dystopian fiction. Yet the novels of Zamyatin, Huxley and Orwell continue to cast a powerful spell. All of them end in defeat for the protagonists, but in each case a possibility of revolt remains.” – New Statesman
Tags: Art, Ideas, Orwell, 01.27.21, Zamyatin Huxley

Staging Theatre In A Row Of Empty Miami Beach Storefront Windows

“The pandemic closed the city on March 13, the eve of the opening of Miami New Drama’s first musical. To keep the 5-year-old company going, [artistic director Michel] Hausmann … commissioned seven notable playwrights — five Latino or Latina, two Black — to write short works that would fit under the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ rubric. … Guides led audience groups of 12 from store to store, where they listened to the actors over iPods Velcroed to their bright red, socially distanced chairs.” – The New Yo...
Tags: Art, Theatre, Miami, 02.02.21, Michel -RSB- Hausmann

Scientists Are Trying To Determine The Basis Of Beauty

There is no shortage of theories about what makes an object aesthetically pleasing. Ideas about proportion, harmony, symmetry, order, complexity and balance have all been studied by psychologists in great depth. The theories go as far back as 1876—in the early days of experimental psychology—when German psychologist Gustav Fechner provided evidence that people prefer rectangles with sides in proportion to the golden ratio (if you’re curious, that ratio is about 1.6:1). – Scientific American ...
Tags: Art, Ideas, 02.02.21, Gustav Fechner

A Leading Classics Scholar Condemns Classics As A Field

Dan-el Padilla Peralta’s “vision of classics’ complicity in systemic injustice is uncompromising, even by the standards of some of his allies. He has condemned the field as “equal parts vampire and cannibal” — a dangerous force that has been used to murder, enslave and subjugate. “He’s on record as saying that he’s not sure the discipline deserves a future,” Denis Feeney, a Latinist at Princeton, told me. – The New York Times
Tags: Art, Ideas, Princeton, Dan el Padilla Peralta, Denis Feeney

Golden Globe Nominations 2021: ‘Mank’, ‘The Crown’, ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’, ‘Nomadland’

Streaming services thoroughly dominate the roster: Hulu took 9 nominations, Amazon Studios 10, and Netflix a whopping 42. Among notable details: Tom Hanks and Spike Lee were snubbed, and of the five nominated directors, three are women. (For a complete list of nominations, click here.) – Variety
Tags: Art, Media, Tom Hanks, Netflix, Spike Lee, Hulu, Ma Rainey, Amazon Studios, Mank, 02.03.21

AI Robot Recommends ‘The 67 Best Books To Give A Woman’

“On its face this list is a little concerning — in a few years, robots might render humans’ book-recommending jobs obsolete. I, a human with a book-recommending job, am indeed a little concerned. [Ed. note: Call me when the robots can write a good coherent sentence.] But if humans aren’t stepping up to do the necessary work of recommending 67 books to give a woman, I’m not going to tell a robot they shouldn’t.” – Literary Hub
Tags: Art, Words, 02.01.21

Why Men Should Spend Less Time Watching Porn And More Time Reading Erotica

“Finding your thrills in erotic literature, rather than in video scenes, might take a little longer, but it means caring more about the characters involved, which brings more meaning to the sexual scenes,” says totally unbiased erotica author Max Sebastian. “I’m not sure than any other literary genre or visual media honestly appreciates male sexuality the way that erotica can,” says the (female) host of a podcast about the genre. – InsideHook
Tags: Art, Words, 02.01.21, Max Sebastian

How buying art went digital and why it won't go back, from the CEO of digital platform Artsy

Mike Steib. Courtesy of Artsy Artsy CEO Mike Steib says he steered the art marketplace to record sales — a 170% increase — in 2020. Steib sees this as just the start of the industry's digitization. More people wanted to add art to their lives in 2020, and he says Artsy helped them discover it.  Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Artsy had a pretty good pandemic year. In data shared with Insider, the online art marketplace revealed it saw e-commerce sales skyrocket 170% las...
Tags: Google, Art, Europe, Digital, US, Trends, Strategy, Tech, Wealth, Culture, Luxury, Artsy, XO Group, Arts & Culture, WEDDINGWIRE, Luxury Art

UK’s Art Dealers Don’t Like New Anti-Money-Laundering Rules, But They’re Practicing Acceptance

“The new regulations … mandate that dealers must conduct specific checks on clients and report suspicious transactions that may suggest money laundering to the government. … The report found that asking art buyers for personal information — including identity documents and proof of address — remains art business’s biggest concern.” (And the paperwork’s a pain in the neck.) – Artnet
Tags: Art, UK, Visual, 02.02.21

Bristol Beacon showcases Big Jeff paintings

Art of Jeff Johns, aka Big Jeff, reflects love of live music and struggles with anxietyHe is a familiar and beloved figure on the Bristol music scene, a wild-haired, heavily bearded fan who can be spotted down the front at most gigs in the city rocking out to the upbeat numbers and swaying to the slower ones.But another side of Jeff Johns, aka Big Jeff, is being showcased at one of the cities most prestigious venues, the Bristol Beacon, formerly Colston Hall. Continue reading...
Tags: Art, UK News, Bristol, Jeff, Jeff Johns, Bristol Beacon

South Africa’s Most Versatile, Most Beloved Singer, Sibongile Khumalo, Dead At 63

“[She was] a virtuoso vocalist whose ease of motion between opera, jazz and South African popular music made her a symbol of the country’s new social order after the end of apartheid. … [President Nelson] Mandela famously referred to her as the country’s ‘first lady of song,’ and the title stuck.” – The New York Times
Tags: Art, People, South Africa, Sibongile Khumalo, 02.01.21, Nelson -RSB- Mandela

Arts Donations Down By 13% In North America And A Third In Britain — But There’s Good News!

Yes, 2020 was a no-good-very-bad year for the arts (and most everything else), but a new study from TRG Arts and Purple Seven has at least a few glad tidings. In the U.S. and Canada, half of the arts organizations surveyed took in more total gift income than in 2019, and three-quarters attracted more individual donors than the previous year. Even in the UK, which has less strong a tradition of arts philanthropy, the number of people making small donations went up. – TRG Arts
Tags: Art, UK, Canada, Britain, North America, Issues, TRG Arts, 02.02.21

Mexico Makes Legal Claim To Collection Of Pre-Columbian Art About To Be Sold At Christie’s

“The National Institute of Anthropology and History, a division of the Mexico government dedicated to the preservation of cultural artifacts, has filed a legal claim over 33 pre-Columbian objects set to be auctioned at Christie’s on February 9 in Paris. … The pieces scheduled to be sold include sculptures, vessels, masks, plates, and figures from Aztec, Mayan, Toltec, Totonac, Teotihuacan, and Mixtec cultures.” – ARTnews
Tags: Art, Mexico, Paris, Visual, Christie, National Institute of Anthropology and History, 02.02.21

The Bauhaus Chess Set Where the Form of the Pieces Artfully Show Their Function (1922)

Learning to play chess first necessitates learning how each piece moves. This is hardly the labor of Hercules, to be sure, though it does come down to pure memorization, unaided by any verbal or visual cues. Does the name “pawn,” after all, sound particularly like something that can only step forward? And what about the shape of the knight suggests the shape of the knight’s move? The form of a chess piece, in other words, doesn’t follow its function — and under certain sets of aesthetic princip...
Tags: Google, Art, Games, College, History, Harvard, Hercules, Seoul, Metropolitan Museum Of Art, Facebook Twitter, Walter Gropius, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Monier, Colin Marshall, Hartwig

Smithsonian acquires artwork based on Stewart Brand epigram

Alicia Eggert next to her artwork, This Present Moment (02019-20). Via The University of North Texas. The Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery has acquired a light sculpture based on quote from Long Now co-founder Stewart Brand’s book on long-term thinking, The Clock of the Long Now (01999). The epigram comes from the book’s final chapter, and has its origins in an exchange between Brand and his friend, the Beat poet Gary Snyder: While I was completing this book, the poet Gary Snyder sent me...
Tags: Quotes, Art, Future, Smithsonian, University Of North Texas, Gary Snyder, Renwick Gallery, Eggert, Alicia Eggert, University of North Texas The Smithsonian

'It's sheer! It's queer!': redesigning and diversifying beauty ads of the past

A new photo project revives 70s advertisements for beauty products yet recasts them with racially diverse and LGBTQ modelsLong before makeup moguls like Jeffree Star and Kylie Jenner were selling lip kits and mystery boxes on Instagram, there was the old-fashioned way of selling beauty products – in the pages of women’s magazines.Thin white women posed alongside phrases like “Lashes” or “Great look, great body, great mascara!” while donning blue eyeshadow and bright bursts of pink blush.
Tags: Art, Photography, Fashion, Instagram, Life and style, Transgender, Culture, Art and design, Beauty, Kylie Jenner, Jeffree Star