“The £110m Factory arts centre is set to be built on the site of the old Granada Studios in Manchester city centre … But now it needs approval for a second time after designers realised the glazed exterior would play havoc with the centre’s acoustics. They have also discovered that the theatre design was too complex and the orchestra pit too small.” The architects are OMA, Rem Koolhaas’s firm.
Remember The Good Old Days When NPR Was Weird?
“In March of 1983, a listener would have clicked on the radio hoping to hear an update about Reagan’s plans for what the media was calling ‘Star Wars.’ Instead she would have heard the whoosh of tires, the voice of a hospital intern in North Carolina trying to figure out how to care about all his patients, the sound of a man taking swigs of whiskey as he drives to Florida to see his mom one last time before she dies, and the voice of Scott Carrier describing the light bounce of the red rocks of Arizona.”
Germany’s Most Embarrassing Musical Export
It might not even be an export. It might only be possible within Germany: “Of the current top five albums on the German charts, two are schlager records. To put it into perspective, that would be like if the number three and four albums on the US Billboard Hot 100 were Christian rock about cats.”
The Trump Era Is Changing What Books Are Being Written And Bought (Is It Harder Now?)
“For authors whose books were released in the thick of the political storm, to booksellers watching readers flock to dystopian works, the Trump administration has succeeded in influencing our consideration of books—not necessarily for better or for worse, but in ways that demonstrate how much we need words to survive and provide solace for troubling times ahead.”
Air India Once Amassed The World’s Greatest Collection Of Modern Indian Art – What’s Happened To It?
They don’t know – and that’s the problem. For much of the state-owned airline’s history, it was one of a very few serious buyers of living Indian artists’ work – in effect, a national art patron. Now that much of that artwork is worth many thousands of dollars (or more) a piece, there’s no proper inventory of what Air India bought over the years or where it’s supposed to be – and some of it has been turning up in the private market.
Protesters Demand That ICA Boston Cancel Dana Schutz Show Because Of ‘Open Casket’ (Which Is Not In The Show)
Evidently believing that Schutz hasn’t been punished enough for having shown her painting of the murdered Emmett Till at the Whitney Biennial, a group of activists wrote in an open letter, “The institution will be participating in condoning the coopting of Black pain and showing the art world and beyond that people can co-opt sacred imagery rooted in oppression and face little consequence … Please pull the show. This is not about censorship. This is about institutional accountability.”
Turin’s Big New Tate Modern-Style Arts Complex Set To Open With William Kentridge And Tino Sehgal
“After Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof and London’s Tate Modern, the trend for converting industrial buildings into contemporary art spaces looks set to continue in the northern Italian city of Turin. The Officine Grandi Riparazioni (OGR), an H-shaped complex of 19th-century railway repair workshops covering an area of 35,000 sq. m, is due to reopen as a privately funded ‘arts and innovation centre’ on 30 September with a trio of site-specific artists’ commissions and two weeks of free concerts.”
Why Is Hollywood Making Movies ABout Emojis And Video Games And Legos?
This trend toward I.P.-based movies has been profound. In 1996, of the top 20 grossing films, nine were live-action movies based on wholly original screenplays. In 2016, just one of the top 20 grossing movies, ‘‘La La Land,’’ fit that bill. Just about everything else was part of the Marvel universe or the DC Comics universe or the ‘‘Harry Potter’’ universe or the ‘‘Star Wars’’ universe or the ‘‘Star Trek’’ universe or the fifth Jason Bourne film or the third ‘‘Kung Fu Panda’’ or a super-high-tech remake of ‘‘Jungle Book.’’ Just outside the top 20, there was a remake of ‘‘Ghostbusters’’ and yet another version of ‘‘Tarzan.’’
Are Working Class Actors Returning To The Theatre? Jim Cartwright Says Yes
“The working class thing is an attitude. It’s a burning, it’s a feeling inside,” Cartwright says. “That’s what came in the ’50s. It wasn’t just that they were from a particular area or a particular economic strata. They carried with them a certain fire. That’s what we’re building in the classes. We’re not just classes – we’re a bit of a movement really and we’re a quiet revolution. And we’re coming. If you won’t let us through the doors, we’re coming over the walls and through the stalls. We’re coming in. It’s time. And anyone out there who feels the same as I do, join us, because it’s time for change in theatre. It really is time for change.”
Report: Creative Industry Jobs Are Fastest-Growing Sector In The UK
“The latest employment statistics from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport found that almost two million people worked in the creative industries in 2016, a 5% increase on the previous year. Across the UK, employment grew by 1.2% year on year. The overall number of creative industries employees has grown from 1.5 million in 2011 to 1.9 million in 2016, now making up 6% of all UK jobs.”
He Launched The Careers Of David Lynch, The Coen Brothers, And John Sayles – And Now (At Last) He’s Directed A Movie Himself
“He was sometimes a producer, more often a distributor and exhibitor. He decided to buy Mr. Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977) after seeing only half of it and made it a cult hit. Before that, he invented the phenomenon of the midnight movie, with El Topo (1970), selling out the Elgin for six months, followed by Pink Flamingos … Now, at 82, [Ben] Barenholtz has directed his first dramatic film. ‘I’ll never be Kubrick,’ he said, smiling. ‘But I wasn’t afraid either.'”
Should Serious Dancers Really Go To College?
Although schools like Juilliard and Bennington College have made degrees acceptable for modern dancers for decades, the competitive ballet world (which often follows a philosophy of “the younger the better”) tends to discourage higher education.
Not With A Pop, But With A Hiss, The Higher-Education Price Bubble Is Deflating
Derek Thompson: “Altogether, the numbers paint a clear picture: The higher-education market is not bursting, like a popped soap bubble; but it is leaking, like a pierced balloon. What’s going on? The explanation is a little bit of weak demand, a little bit of over-supply, a big crackdown on for-profit colleges, and, perhaps, a subtle shift in culture.”
Menil Collection’s New Drawing Institute Will Not Be Opening This Fall
“The public opening of the MDI, originally scheduled for Oct. 7, has been postponed until sometime next year. Three planned exhibitions for the space are also being shuffled. Menil Collection director Rebecca Rabinow said the organization’s earlier move-in plan was ‘probably a little too aggressive.'”
What The Hell Does Michael Moore Want Now? To Go On Broadway And Change People’s Minds
“Now Mr. Moore, this willfully disheveled, 63-year-old hybrid of Noam Chomsky and P. T. Barnum, expects theatergoers to pay Broadway ticket prices to watch him in a one-man show, The Terms of My Surrender. After his previous documentaries, books and television shows, does he have anything left to say, and does he really believe it will make a difference?” Dave Itzkoff goes to a rehearsal to find out.
Auschwitz Artifacts To Go On Tour, Very Carefully
“More than 72 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the first traveling exhibition about the Nazi death camp will begin a journey later this year to 14 cities across Europe and North America, taking heartbreaking artifacts to multitudes who have never seen such horror up close.”
Angry Ex-Wife Destroys $1M Worth Of Violins In Luthier’s Workshop
“The alleged victim, Daniel Olsen Chen, 62, a Norwegian national living and working in Japan, is a former violinist who maintained a making and repairing workshop in Nagoya. He posted a video of the destruction on his YouTube channel, AV Daniel Violin, and has claimed that in total 54 instruments and 70 bows were damaged, including his own Amati, the value of which he places around 50m yen ($450,000).” (includes video)
June Foray, Voice Of Rocky And Natasha On ‘Bullwinkle’, Dead At 99
“Foray was also the voice behind Looney Tunes’ Witch Hazel, Nell from Dudley Do-Right, Granny in the Tweety and Sylvester cartoons and Cindy Lou Who in Chuck Jones’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, among hundreds of others.”
Ex-Met Museum Director Philippe De Montebello Goes To Work At A Gallery
“[He] doesn’t exactly need another job. He is chairman of the Hispanic Society of America; a professor at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts; an honorary trustee of the Prado Museum; and a host of the PBS TV program NYC-ARTS. But now Mr. de Montebello has decided to add yet one more, becoming a director of Acquavella Galleries, effective immediately, where he will focus on the curation of special exhibitions and the development of publications.”
Mandy Patinkin To Star In Broadway Musical For First Time In 17 Years
Patinkin will spend three weeks at the end of the summer as Pierre in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812. “This marks Patinkin’s first role in a Broadway musical since 2000’s The Wild Party, and his first time on Broadway since his 2011-12 season concert An Evening With Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin.”
How That Glorious Italian Marble Gets Wrenched From The Earth
“The story of Italian marble is the story of difficult motion: violent, geological, haunted by failure and ruin and lost fortunes, marred by severed fingers, crushed dreams, crushed men. Rarely has a material so inclined to stay put been wrenched so insistently out of place and carried so far from its source.”
Colosseum Archaeological Park Approved By Italy’s Council Of State
“Italy’s top administrative court has also unblocked the international selection process for a new director to oversee the ancient amphitheatre and its surrounding monuments, including the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill and Domus Aurea. The decisions of 24 July overturn a challenge by the mayor of Rome through the Lazio regional administrative tribunal (TAR) on 7 June.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.26.17
Fireflies Are Out …
“Veselka” cucumber conundrum soup
You can tell the temperature by the firefly rate of thorax blinking, which can be hypnotic, like the gleam of this cucumber seed in fluorescent kitchen light. Those seeds, covered in slime, scoot like baby roaches onto counter or floor when you run a spoon down the center of your split green sausage to scoop them out. … read more
AJBlog: Out There Published 2017-07-26
This is Reading — Artists Make Magic
In mid-July, I traveled to Pennsylvania to see a show. It was straight-up MAGIC. I can’t stop thinking about it. … read more
AJBlog: The Bright Ride Published 2017-07-23
How Opera America Helped Spark A New Era In American Opera
“New music is a culture that tends to romanticize risk, and I think we ought to push back on that romanticizing. For all its aesthetic innovation, new music remains a job for many people.” Perhaps the same could be said of new American opera. Debates over its future highlight a complex web of expectations concerning not only the importance of radical artistic vision but also the commercial realities and conventional operatic norms of larger institutions that cannot afford to fail in the same way that smaller organizations might.
China Blacks Out Foreign Movies And Sees Home-Grown Movies Top The Box Office
China’s government, intent on building a domestic film industry to rival Hollywood’s, typically bans imported releases during peak moviegoing periods, such as national holidays and summer vacations. The blackouts — officially called “domestic film protection periods” — have historically given a summer bump to local films.