Yearly Archives: 2021
Man Buys Lucian Freud Painting. Freud Gets Mad And Disowns It. That’s A Problem…
Or it was. Now the buyer has had the painting authenticated by three experts who confirm the authorship... - The Guardian
Ten Best Performances Of 2021 (Yeah, We Know, ’21 Isn’t Done, But…)
The list is utterly subjective and non-comprehensive—no matter how much you watch, there’s somehow much more you’ve missed—but it includes ten people (or groups...
What Ails Us: Our Search For Cures
Adam Phillips tells us again and again, the quest for self-improvement is itself the problem. What we suffer from “are our self-cures”, otherwise known...
The Korean Who May Be The Most-Listened-To Living Composer In The World Right Now
Korea accounts for 20 percent of worldwide classical music sales, with a much younger audience base than in the West. The K-pop juggernaut needs...
Tony Kushner, Architect Of A New Great Historical Mistake
Among my favorite Kushner quotes: “Dare to participate in the great historical mistake of your time.” The particular mistake he has in mind is...
The Saturday Evening Post Is Now 200 Years Old — And It’s Still Here
Most of us assumed the dear old mag had shut down forever. In fact, it was only closed from 1969-71, before being relaunched as...
Can You Really Copyright A Recipe?
U.S. copyright law seeks to protect “original works of authorship” by barring unauthorized copying of all kinds of creative material: sheet music, poetry, architectural works,...
US Architect Of Hermitage’s Planned Moscow Branch Unceremoniously Dumped
Hani Rashid of Asymptote Architecture says his firm worked for years on a design, got necessary approvals — and stopped getting any communication from...
The $150 Million Arts Initiative That Connected Arts And Communities
ArtPlace leaders announced their venture would prove the arts was an economic engine. Investing in arts and culture, “can be the economic equivalent of...
Does Putting A Broadway Show On Video Cut Into Sales? Quite The Contrary, Says...
The creator of Hamilton says the show's filmed version o on Disney+ has only increased demand for tickets to the staged production. (If only...
San Francisco Opera Is About To Turn 100 Years Old
When it comes to established and continuously active opera companies in North America, there is the Metropolitan, founded in 1883 ... and then San Francisco Opera....
Doing Standup Comedy In India Is Getting Dangerous
You can't say that the country is humorless, but the Modi government's laws can have people fined or jailed on mere accusations (even false...
What’s The Right Length For A Podcast? That Depends …
Hosting platform Acast says that the average episode length of its 100 most popular podcasts is 38'10" — but it's not that simple. Comedy...
Five-Ton, 12-Point Glass Star Installed Atop Highest Tower Of Gaudí’s Sagrada Família
The 23-foot-wide ornament now sits 453 feet above Barcelona, crowning the basilica's Virgin Mary Tower. Some of the neighbors are mightily irked by the...
Skeptical Eyebrows Are Being Raised Over Planned Changes At Notre-Dame in Paris
These changes include replacing rarely-used confession booths in the nave with art installations, installing new lights at head height rather than near the high...
Media Consumers More Engaged By Audio Than Other Formats, Says Research
A study that used biometric feedback to measure immersion found that participants were more deeply engaged by content delivered via radio or podcasts than...
Alice Sebold’s “Lucky” Pulled By Publisher And Film Version Canceled Following Anthony Broadwater’s Exoneration
The 1999 memoir, which launched Sebold's career, recounts the rape and beating she suffered at age 18 and Broadwater's subsequent trial and conviction for...
Israel Says It Has Found Archaeological Evidence Of Hanukkah Story
Excavations in the Lachish Forest, about 40 miles southwest of Jerusalem, have uncovered the remains of a Hellenistic fortress — a structure which the...
Tenor Juan Diego Flórez Gets His First Artistic Directorship
As of January 1, shortly before his 49th birthday, the Peruvian will take the reins at the event where his international career was launched:...
Inside The NFT Hype Bubble
After “community,” the second-most used word at NFT.NYC is probably “rich.” As in, “Do you want to be rich?” The speakers ask the audience...
How The Salt Lake City Tribune Escaped A Hedgefund, Went Non-Profit, And Stabilized
It’s been quite the turnaround. Utah’s largest newspaper escaped the clutches of the hedge fund Alden Global Capital in 2016 only to see its...
How The Arab Spring Changed Arab Literature
Tied to both the 2011 revolution and, to a lesser extent, the 1952 military coup that reshaped Egyptian society, the works reflect the ways...
Looted Ancient Sculptures From Palmyra Returned To Syria
The sculptures dating from the second or third century were smuggled into Switzerland in 2009 or 2010, before the outbreak of the Syrian war....
Met Museum Gets $125 Million To Jumpstart Modern Wing
The gift represents an important leap forward for the Met project, which is now expected to cost about $500 million and calls for creating...
Australian PM Introduces New Laws To Unmask Online Trolls
"The online world should not be a wild west where bots and bigots and trolls and others are anonymously going around and can harm...