“The Neo-Renaissance structure [in Budapest] has been closed for the past 18 months due to extensive restoration and modernization works. Newly released images reveal the full extent of the project, which has a whopping budget of $30 million. The behind-the-scenes photographs show the vast reconstruction works taking place on the roof, where new tiles have been added, along with a substantial overhaul of the auditorium with a ‘smart’ concept.” – CNN
The Guardian Is Asking Readers To Report Looted Benin Bronzes Held In UK Museums
“The British Museum and other UK institutions with Benin bronzes in their collections are facing growing pressure to return them to Africa. Now, the Guardian newspaper has increased the heat by launching a public appeal to map the location of sculptures looted by the British in the late 19th century.” – artnet
The Outsized Role Instagram Is Playing In Dance
Dancers who are already stars in their field, like American Ballet Theatre principal dancers Isabella Boylston and James Whiteside, have had their photos liked, commented on, and reposted by A-listers like Jennifer Garner and Sarah Jessica Parker. And today, SJP’s simple “like” carries far more cultural cachet than if she were, say, to catch a matinee performance of Giselle. Why? Because that appearance on SJP’s personal feed means that some Sex and the City fan (or, if you’d rather, The Family Stone fan), who has never seen so much as a pirouette, is suddenly introduced to the art form, with a trusted endorsement to boot. – The Observer
How Art Basel Transformed Miami
The Art Basel Miami Beach fair features 269 exhibiting galleries. Nearly two dozen satellite fairs have also sprouted around Miami. Add in pop-up shows, celebrity-studded product rollouts, as well as Miami’s own galleries and museums all putting on their best faces, and you have the circus that local boosters have taken to calling “Miami Art Week.” – The New York Times
The People Behind The Puppets At The Revived Bob Baker Marionette Theater In LA
The puppeteers, volunteers, board and donors all got together to save the Marionette Theater after Baker died in 2014 – and after the theater was evicted from its space in 2018. Now, explains one of the puppeteers, when the show goes up in the revamped theatre, she’ll be “worried about the manipulations of the puppet in hand, but my fear goes away when I see the audience’s reaction. Everything becomes muscle memory. All you hear is your own breathing and comments from the audience, and you feel the warmth of the lights.” – LAist
Greta Thunberg’s Book Wins A British Bookseller Award
The book, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, is a collection of the Swedish teenager’s speeches. Waterstone’s said Thunberg, its author of the year, “had an ‘urgent message.'” – BBC
Elizabeth I Has Been Revealed As The Translator Of An Ancient Roman Text Into English
Of course she was; Tacitus’ Annals “described the high politics, treachery and debauchery of the Roman elite.” – Reuters
A Decade After ‘The L Word’ Ended, It Returns To Get More Things Right This Time
Lesbians, the producers of The L Word thought after the show ended its run in 2009, would become more omnipresent in mainstream U.S. culture. Maybe true, but no queer women’s ensemble show arose in its wake (unlike the many, many, many, many, many ensemble shows about straight folks that have been on TV in the past decade). So, what the heck, it’s back – but new, fresh, and much more in tune with what it calls “Generation Q.” – The New York Times
On The One Hand, Instagram Brings Ballet To The Masses
And on the other hand, dancers really have to keep their feeds up to become big stars. It’s a responsibility far away from the rehearsal studio. – The Observer (NY).
Has Anything Truly Changed For Women Since The Shockingly Subversive Novel ‘In The Cut’?
As In the Cut is reissued, “What is more shocking about the book in 2019 than 1995 … is not the violence, or the fact of a woman having sexual desire, but how little else has changed – from misogyny to the futility of reporting it.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Kehinde Wiley Statue In Times Square Has Given Security Officers A Lot Of Extra Emotional Labor
As the monument “Rumors of War” prepares to leave Times Square for its permanent home in Richmond, some security officers talk about their time as special “art ambassadors” slash security guards for the work. “The ambassador training was minimal. Some preparation centered on the artist and how the statue was created, but a lot focused on anticipating what questions visitors would ask.” – The New York Times
Why Do Music Fans Want ‘Constant Content’ From Singers Even After The Musicians Are Dead?
It’s generational, really: “The old consensus decreed that in order to build a respectable legacy, an estate should protect what the artist had already put out and be discerning with anything more. Fans were furious with Drake’s bungled attempts at putting together a posthumous Aaliyah album, and frustrations arise whenever a Prince release is announced. … But those artists come from an era where the album was the respected format and fans wanted little beyond the occasional alternate version of a hit they had known for 30 years. In the saturated streaming market, made up of audiences with shorter attention spans, the idea of a traditional legacy is being passed over for a more-is-more approach.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Boundary-Pushing Artwork Of 93-Year-Old Artist Zilla Sanchez
The Cuban artist has been making important work first in Cuba and then in Puerto Rico for decades. “But outside the Caribbean archipelago, she has been largely ignored. Until the mid-80s, major art institutions in Europe and the United States rarely granted exhibitions, let alone solo shows, to Latina artists, and Sánchez’s identity as a gay Cuban woman rendered her especially invisible.” Until now. – The New York Times
Aleshea Harris Is A Young Playwright Fiercely Confronting U.S. Audiences On Race, History, And Power
Playwright Aleshea Harris, who won the Obie Award in 2018 for Is God Is, “is part of a vanguard of young, African American playwrights boring into questions of race and history through humor, drama, absurdity and tragedy. Their works reveal how the legacy of slavery continues to twist through the American consciousness.” – Los Angeles Times
It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Climate Change Christmas At The Tate
And a very merry apocalypse to you too. Artist Anne Hardy got the Tate Britain commission this year, and she says she worked back from the Winter Solstice, “creating what could be a ransacked temple with tattered banners and tangled cables of lights. On the stairs are pools of ice and sculptural patches of river mud and broken columns. … Something has happened and whatever it is, it’s not good.” – The Guardian (UK)