“Mosul’s celebrated museum has not recovered since Islamic State group jihadists ravaged its ancient treasures several years ago, but part of the complex reopened Tuesday to showcase more contemporary art … [in a] 29-artist exhibit, titled ‘Return to Mosul.'” — Yahoo! (AFP)
Leonardo Fingerprint Discovered On A Drawing
The sheet with the thumbprint is entitled The Cardiovascular System and Principal Organs of a Woman (around 1509-10). Although fingerprints have been found on other Leonardo drawings, the one on the medical sheet as “the most convincing candidate for an authentic Leonardo fingerprint” among the Queen’s 550 or so Leonardos. – The Art Newspaper
Chicago Journalist Jim DeRogaitis Tried For Years To Get The World To Listen About R Kelly. Why Was He Ignored?
Mr. DeRogatis veers from expletive-laden indignation to choked-back tears when describing the effects of Mr. Kelly’s alleged behavior with what he estimates to be at least 48 women. But he has a special frustration with the rest of the news media, which, he says, failed to follow The Sun-Times’s investigative lead, and for years made light of the charges or ignored them altogether. – The New York Times
At Age 98, This Artist Is Getting Her Big Break
She was friends with Frida Kahlo and Isamu Noguchi, posed for Man Ray, and married Mexican surrealist Wolfgang Paalen, yet she made her own work for decades without promoting it. But she was a standout of last summer’s “Made in L.A.” at the Hammer; this year she has huge shows at Hauser & Wirth and the Serpentine Gallery; for her 100th birthday in 2020, she’ll get a retrospective in Mexico City that will later tour the U.S. Meet Luchita Hurtado. — T — The New York Times Style Magazine
This City’s One Of The Two Or Three Biggest Movie-Production Cities In The World, And You Probably Haven’t Heard Of It
It’s Hyderabad, India’s fourth-largest city, sixth-largest metro, and the home of the world’s largest film studio, Ramoji Film City, the heart of the movie industry in Telugu, India’s third-most spoken language (after Hindi and Bengali). — The Guardian
Existentialism, Experience, And Our Implicit Biases
How do your own implicit biases shape the abilities you develop and the opportunities you pursue? What effects do they have on your own mental health? How can we be liberated from the constraints they quietly impose on us and from the distress they can cause us? – Aeon
Why Journalists Are Addicted To Twitter
“For many of us, the most difficult part of the job is ringing the doorbell of a bereaved family, or prying into the opinions of unwelcoming strangers. Twitter has created a seductive universe in which the reactions of a virtual community are served up in neatly quotable bits without need for uncomfortable personal interactions.” – Washington Post
In France – A Golden Age For Comic Books
There are now more comic books published annually in France and Belgium than ever before. “It’s a kind of golden age. There has never been so much talent. There have never been so many interesting books published.” – The New York Times
Staging The Stories Of The Murdered Women Of Juárez
Dramaturg Trevor Boffone takes an in-depth look at La Ruta, a new play about the epidemic of violence against the women of the Mexican border city, written by Isaac Gómez and recently premiered in Chicago by Steppenwolf. — HowlRound
British Museum Says It Will Be International Watchdog For Looted Antiquities
Using their expert knowledge of archaeology, a sophisticated new database, and plenty of detective work, the dedicated team at the British Museum is working closely with colleagues in Cairo and Khartoum to identify problematic objects and expose fictitious provenances. – Artnet
‘Paraconceptual’ Artist Susan Hiller Dead At 78
After earning a Ph.D. in anthropology and doing field research in Central America, she moved from the U.S. to London and began her art career in the 1960s. While grouped with the Conceptualists, she called herself a “paraconceptualist” because of her interest in paranormal phenomena, which she incorporated into her multimedia work. — The Art Newspaper
They’re Both Native Americans And Native New Yorkers, And For 50-Odd Years They’ve Been Performing Native Dance In The City
The Thunderbird American Indian Dancers were formed in downtown Brooklyn in 1963 by a group of mostly Mohawk neighbors who were the first generation in their families born off the reservation. Now the group preserves and performs indigenous dances from across North America. Reporter Siobhan Burke talks with the Thunderbirds’ director, 82-year-old Louis Mofsie. — The New York Times
Study: Song Lyrics Have Become Angrier, More Pessimistic and Unhappy
“The results show a clear trend towards a more negative tone,” write Kathleen Napier and Lior Shamir of Lawrence Technological University in Michigan. “Anger, disgust, sadness, and conscientiousness have increased significantly, while joy, confidence, and openness expressed in pop-song lyrics has declined.” – Pacific Standard
At 60, Can Aprile Millo Make A Comeback To Opera Stardom?
In the 1980s and ’90s, she was one of the Metropolitan Opera’s reigning sopranos, considered a latter-day exemplar of Golden-Age Verdi singing. “Then, at what should have been the height of her career, things petered out, … [and] over the past decade, she has barely sung in public at all.” But now she’s aiming to return to the Met stage. “It’s not about voice; the voice has been functioning,” she says. “But when you go through a lack of confidence, you’re not going to want to be anywhere.” — The New York Times
Opera Star David Daniels Arrested On Sexual Assault Charges
The 52-year-old countertenor and his husband were taken into custody for extradition to Texas, where a singer alleges that the couple drugged and raped him while Daniels was performing at Houston Grand Opera in 2010. — MLive (Michigan)
James Turrell Shuts Down Skyspace At MoMA PS1 Until Condo Construction Across Street Is Done
Scaffolding for the 5Pointz luxury apartment tower (built on the site of the now-destroyed street-art mecca) has moved into what Turrell intended as an unobstructed view of the sky in his Skyspace installation, titled Meeting, at the MoMA outpost in Queens. So the museum has agreed to his request to close the installation until the scaffolding is no longer visible. — Hyperallergic
€3.1 Million EU Project To Revamp And Modernize Egypt’s National Museum
“The renovation project, entitled Transforming the Egyptian Museum of Cairo, … focus[es] on areas such as collection management, communications and audience engagement.” The Louvre and the British Museum will participate, along with institutions in Turin, Berlin and the Dutch city of Leiden. (But they won’t be sending the Rosetta Stone back to Cairo.) — The Art Newspaper
Man Who Walked Out Of Moscow Museum With Painting Did It ‘To Settle Debts’
Denis Chuprikov, 32, was arrested and confessed to the theft of the painting — Ai Petri, Crimea (1908) by Arkhip Kuindzhi — just a day after he was caught on security cameras rolling the canvas up and walking out of the Tretyakov Gallery with it. — The Moscow Times
Biography Of Jewish Girl Hidden By Author’s Family In WWII Wins Costa Prize For Book Of The Year
“[Bart van Es’s] The Cut Out Girl beat Sally Rooney’s widely praised novel Normal People, Stuart Turton’s debut novel The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, JO Morgan’s poetry collection Assurances and Hilary McKay’s children’s book The Skylarks’ War to the award for the year’s ‘most enjoyable’ book.” — The Guardian
Facebook Says People Want Relevant Ads. These Researchers Beg To Differ
“We find consistently that people are wary of marketers tracking them, don’t understand the complexities of data mining, and don’t like to be discriminated against based on information that companies have about them and others. They may therefore see personalization as a double-edge sword. Personalization can provide them with material they like, but it just as well could be used to shape their behavior or beliefs, or even cause them to lose out on discounts to more desirable consumers.” – The New York Times
Some Frank Talk About Truth And Science
Let us start with some genuine philosophical questions about truth in science. Here are three: 1) Does science aim at truth? 2) Does science tell us the truth? 3) Should we expect science to tell us the truth? – Aeon
How HBO Plans To Keep Up In The Age Of Streaming Giants
Time Warner had kept HBO on a tight leash, allowing an estimated $1.5 billion annual budget for original content in 2018—play money when compared with Netflix’s reported $10 to $11 billion. That forced HBO to pass on the very shows and show-runners that put the streamers in the cultural conversation and in direct contention with HBO as the rulers of cinema-quality television. – Vanity Fair
DeepFakes Explained – How Seeing-Is-Believing Is Going Away
CNN offers some great demonstrations of how fake videos in which people can now say and do things they never did will challenge one of the bedrock truths of our time – that you can believe what you see. – CNN