“From at least the 16th century until as late as the early 1900s, a pigment made from mummified human remains appeared on the palettes of European artists … Painters prized ‘mummy brown’ for its rich, transparent shade. As a result, an unknown number of ancient Egyptians are spending their afterlife on art canvases, unwittingly admired in museum galleries around the world.”
God, Did I Write That? New York Times Gets Playwrights To Look Back At Their Teenage Work
“How mortifying would it be to page through the creative writing you did as a teenager? And then, years or even decades later, actually see it in print? That’s what we recently asked a set of notable playwrights” – among them Lynn Nottage, Neil LaBute, Tina Howe, Nicky Silver, and Marcus Gardley – “to do.”
How The Alt-Right Pepe The Frog Trolls Punked The ‘Normie’ Media
“So how the hell did they gain so much notoriety the Hillary Clinton campaign felt a need to respond to their memes? What happened? It all stems from an interesting collision between those trolls and another group of people – political journalists and operatives – who have very different incentive systems.”
How Blockchain Could Be The Next Big Disruption In The $15 Billion Music Business
“Any industry that in encumbered by inefficient intermediaries is in danger of disruption, and the music industry is ripe for it. There are many blockchain oriented startups in this area, but two of them shine through as having a unique, innovative perspective on what should be done.”
The First Woman Science Fiction Author Was A 17th-Century Duchess
“No one could get into philosophical argument with Lady Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and walk away unchanged. Born in 1623, Cavendish was an outspoken aristocrat who traveled in circles of scientific thinkers, and broke ground on proto-feminism, natural philosophy (the 17th century term for science), and social politics. In her lifetime, she published 20 books. But amid her poetry and essays, she also published one of the earliest examples of science fiction. In 1666. She named it The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World.”
Public Art Or Giant Gas Company Logo? Belfastians Duke It Out
“The 11-metre high structure was funded by Creative Belfast, a partnership between Belfast City Council and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, which invested £900,000 in seven large-scale projects showcasing the city’s cultural heritage. But Origin, which cost £100,000, has attracted poor reviews, with one critic accusing the project of ‘financial frippery’.”
Turning The Daily Go-To-Work Grind Into Dance
“Every day, billions of people in America and around the world wake up and start their daily rituals to eventually end up at work. Preparing for work can entail so many details, but for most it involves both mental preparation and some kind of physical preparation, whether it’s getting into office-appropriate clothing or physically traveling to one’s place of work.” Enter choreographer Dana Gingras and her company, The Holy Body Tattoo.
The Latest Front In The War On Ticket Bots: The Bette Midler ‘Hello, Dolly!’
“The situation is exacerbated because Midler’s engagement in the show will be a limited one, beginning performances on March 15th, 2017 and opening officially on April 20. No end date has been announced, … [but] it’s a marathon role and Bette will be 71 when she comes down the steps of Harmonia Gardens Restaurant.”
She’s Almost As Curvy As The Venus Of Willendorf, And She’s At Least 7,500 Years Old
“The marmoreal stone object, with such details as hip creases and an indented navel in a protruding stomach, weighs 1kg and is 17cm in length. Its uniqueness is due to its material (while this is stone, most figurines are clay), its skillful carving and its intact condition.”
$104,000 For Taxis: Auditors Blast Benjamin Millepied’s Paris Opera Ballet For Spending
“On Thursday, France’s state auditors, the Cour des Comptes, lambasted 10 directors for running up nearly €93,350 [$104,281] in taxi bills between them in 2013 and 2014 … [as well as meals worth] about €52,000 [$58,000] in 2014 by just four members of staff.”
Brazil’s Top Telenovela Star Drowns On Set As Bystanders Think He’s Shooting A Scene
“[Domingos] Montagner played the leading role in Velho Chico, a soap opera named after the São Francisco river where he died. The 54-year-old had gone for a swim with an actress after a day of shooting in the north-eastern state of Sergipe. … The actress, Camila Pitanga, cried for help but local people failed to act initially as they believed the drowning was a scene in the soap opera.”
People Are Standing In Line For Hours To Use This Gold Toilet At The Guggenheim
“The softness of gold has led to concerns about vandalism. People on social media have already been bragging about plans to deface the artwork.”
The Campus Novel Is, Guess What, Also So White
“There are no HBCU novels. Our first-generation Mexican American freshman opuses are far and few between. Don Lee’s The Collective takes a stab at shaking the framework, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao rattles the genre’s predilections as well, but the campus novel could just as soon be called The Adventures of Eccentric White Kids. For a genre built on the notion of change, it’s lacking an awful lot of it.”
Indianapolis Symphony Reaches A New Contract Deal A Year Early
“After the bitter 2012 contract battle that led to a monthlong lockout for musicians, ISO cites a string of successes, including three straight years of budget surpluses and major growth in ticket sales and fundraising.”
The Ballet Dancers In Berlin Seriously Do Not Like Contemporary Choreographers
“The petition states an ‘outright rejection’ of the idea of joint directors, demanding a single candidate ‘with a clear artistic vision and relevant experience.’ It contends that these appointments, announced three years in advance, are politically rather than artistically motivated.”
Curating An Irascible Abstract Expressionist
“It was thought that there was something weaker about them because they were more thinly painted. And it was then that there was this sort of equation between these lightly painted pictures and her being a woman (though neither Mitchell nor Hartigan painted in this way). There were some people, like [critic] Harold Rosenberg, who was a big supporter of the idea of the painting being made out of heroic gestures. And with her work there are no gestures.”
Playwright Edward Albee, 88
“All art should be useful,” he said. “If it’s merely decorative, it’s a waste of time. You know, if you’re going to spend a couple of hours of your life, listening to string quartets or being at plays or going to a museum and looking at paintings, something should happen to you. You should be changed.”
Seven Things Brain Scientists Have Figured Out About Creativity And The Brain
As it turns out, there’s a major neuroscientific basis for the link between openness to new experience and creative thinking. Exploration is tied to the neurotransmitter dopamine, which also plays a role in motivation and learning (among other things) and “facilitates psychological plasticity, a tendency to explore and engage flexibly with new things,” the authors write.
Arts Council England Will Start Requiring Quantitative Measurement Of Programs It Funds
ACE is pressing ahead with a roll-out of the scheme despite the feedback. Organisations across all artforms will be “required to use a specified system to complete an agreed number of evaluations each year and support each other by providing peer reviews”. This will be mandatory for NPOs receiving more than £250k a year in regular funding, while those funded below this level will be encouraged and supported to use it.
The Ballerina Who Blazed Onstage – Literally
It was at the Paris Opera in 1862, still the age of gas lighting, which is not a good combination with tutu skirts.
Where Diversity In Hollywood Movies Is (NYT Critics Discuss)
“Obviously much has changed, but too many new movies just play the tokenism game, using minorities as accessories or emblems of the white character’s presumptive good intentions — like the Prius parked in the driveway.”
A Panel Of Doctors Argues Over What Exactly Ailed Vincent Van Gogh
“The diagnosis came out of a meeting of experts sponsored by the Van Gogh Museum [in Amsterdam], in connection with its current exhibition, ‘On the Verge of Insanity.’ It included 35 international psychiatrists, other doctors and art historians weighing in on evidence about van Gogh’s medical case. The debate was lively and sometimes ‘fierce.'”
BC’s Provincial Museum Launches Global Program For Repatriating First Nations’ Artifacts
“The Canadian province of British Columbia has dedicated C$2m in funding to establish a First Nations department and repatriation programme at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria to help First Nations in the province recover their cultural heritage – including religious items and ancestral remains – scattered in museums across the world.”
El Sistema Is Widely Touted As Salvation Through Music. But Where’s The Evidence?
“It is tempting to conclude that Sistema’s greatest success has been in global branding, from Afghanistan to New Zealand, as a one-size-fits-all method of teaching music.”
Is Turning Old TV Shows Into Stage Plays Really A Workable Idea?
“In theatre, there’s typically somewhere between 90 minutes to two and a half hours to establish characters, take them through a plot and wrap up their story. … A successful television series operates under a different model: most episodes are only between 30 and 60 minutes, but the lives and stories of the characters can go on for years, sometimes adding up to hundreds of hours.” Howard Sherman looks at some upcoming attempts to bridge this gap.