No, it’s not the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg – we already told you about that one, and this one didn’t run 920% over budget. This one is also next to one of the world’s most handsome train stations. Where is it? (includes video interviews with the chief exec, the acoustician, and a musician)
The New York Times Tells You What It’s Like To Be A Bee
Using the second person, an interactive feature by Joanna Klein walks the reader through the hive, the hunt for pollen, the tastes and smells (powerful) and sights (not so much) and movements of apian existence.
Are DC’s Big Theaters Hoarding Their Audience Pools Instead Of Sharing Them?
The good news from a decade-long study of the area’s seven major pro companies is that audiences there aren’t tapped out, they’re growing (even subscriptions increased!). But there was one startling finding: “A whopping 85 percent of audiences patronize a single troupe.”
The Women Of Pedro Almodóvar’s ‘Cinema Of Women’
Penélope Cruz, Rossy de Palma. Marisa Paredes, Emma Suárez, and others on how the flamboyant director creates his female-centered worlds.
Hardly A Conflict At All – Beethoven Score Expert Who Cried Fake Smelled A Bargain
“Now it has emerged that one of the two experts who refused to authenticate the score later tried to persuade the owner of the piece to part with it for just €900 (£757), less than one per cent of the value put on it by the auction house.”
When ‘Bibliomania’ Was (Considered) A Real Illness
“Symptoms included a frenzy for culling and hunting down first editions, rare copies, books of certain sizes or printed on specific paper.”
All About The Flash: Why Museum Buildings Are Upscaling
“The old world of museums as quiet, cavernous halls displaying collections of objects for those willing to make the trek is having to adapt. While perhaps branding was once sniffed at in cultural institutions as the dark arts of commercial witchery, today it is a key part of the show. In an age of flashy soundbites and stories told dramatically, most commonly on a digital platform, museums recognise the need to stretch well beyond their physical boundaries.”
Old Drummers – Deaf, Crippled And Creaky
As rock’s iconic drummers get to middle age and older, they’re suffering hearing loss and muscle and joint pain associated with a lifetime of hitting the skins.
Martin Amis: Within A Generation Literary Culture As We Know It Now Will Be Gone
Zadie Smith said to me years ago, “Everything we think of as literary culture will be gone in a generation and a half.” She said, “It will last your time, but it won’t last mine.” I don’t think it will ever disappear, but it will shrink. It will go back to what it was when I started out, which is a minority interest sphere, which some people happen to be very interested in.
In The Age Of Trigger Warnings And Microaggressions, Are Campuses Still Safe Spaces For Studying – And Experimenting In – The Arts?
“Unlike Jerry Seinfeld and his jokes, college art instructors cannot just take their lesson plans to some local concert hall. In an environment set up to encourage experimentation and free expression, is parody or a critical stance allowable and, if so, which targets are O.K.?”
Ottawa’s National Arts Centre To Invest Millions In Productions Elsewhere In Canada
The NAC Foundation has spent the past eight years raising capital for the fund, which now stands at more than $23-million. NAC president and CEO Peter Herrndorf said the fund is not meant to be a self-sustaining endowment. “We’ll invest $3-million a year for six or seven years, and if at the end of that period it is seen to have had an impact, we can fundraise from there … If it’s not a success, we’ll say, ‘This was an interesting way to approach it, maybe we’ll look for a different way.’ ”The main idea, Herrndorf said, is to put enough cash into the hands of artists to make an exponential difference in artistic outcomes. “We want to get as much of that money into artists’ hands as possible, as quickly as possible.”
Warning: Changes In Tax Law, Government Funding, Could Be Existential Challenge For The Arts
“The sober fact is that the map depicting the location and service-area of the vast majority of cultural organizations looks a lot like the map of Clinton supporters. Museums, theaters, orchestras, dance companies, performing arts centers and music schools are concentrated in urban areas and the densest concentrations are in the most liberal cities: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Minneapolis, Boston, Seattle.”
The Arts Are Going To Need More Volunteers In The Time Of Trump
“If we want the arts to save our world, we’ll have to make it happen with much less government, which means much more private-sector time and money. Which brings us back to the issue of volunteerism in the arts. Whereas volunteers used to be a good way to reduce costs and improve engagement, volunteers are about to become the life-blood of the sector.”
Put Down ‘Miracle On 34th Street’ And Watch These Almodovar Movies At The Holidays
Now that all 19 of the director’s feature films are available for streaming on iTunes, here’s a survival guide to making it through the holidays with family, friends, and Almódovar.
What Does Fidel Castro’s Death Mean To A Generation Of Cuban Artists?
Fidel Castro was sidelined from power a decade before he died – and artists were still repressed and controlled. But his death “does mark a tremendous psychological milestone.”
Do These Photos Show A Glimpse Of Gauguin In Tahiti?
Maybe. “If these two photographs are actually of Paul Gauguin, then they tell us a great deal about his state of mind and his social entourage during the summer of that year.”
If Julian Barnes Can Admit He Was Wrong About E.M. Forster, We All Have Hope For Re-evaluating Books (And Writers)
Barnes thought Forster was stuffy and boring, and perhaps a little straitlaced. Then he read an anthology of English food writing. “Where was that fusty, musty, dusty writer I had imagined Forster to be? Nowhere at all.”
Katie Holmes On Being A Director – And How To Make That Happen For More Women
The interviewer asks Holmes if the producers of a Jackie Kennedy Onassis miniseries simply asked her to direct one episode. Holmes, who also just directed a feature film: “Well no, I told them I wanted to. I said, ‘You’ve got to give me one episode.’ We gotta speak up … and get what we want, because no one’s going to give it to us.”
A 360-Degree Video Of Anna Netrebko, Backstage At The Met
This is a New York Times experiment that you’ll need to play, and play with, in order to appreciate.
Here’s A Prize For Actor Alan Tudyk: He’s (Probably) The First Actor To Play A Chicken And A Robot At The Same Time
The actor, known for “Firefly,” discusses how he did research to play the rooster in “Moana” and the robot in the new Star Wars film. “It’s amazing to me that they’ve got four hours’ worth of me making chicken sounds. It’s very thorough. How do you choose from Take One to Take Six, which ‘pee-cawwwwww’ really sells it?”
Despite The 20-Year Sentence For A Ukranian Filmmaker, Putin Says He’ll Protect Artistic Freedom
Putin met with non-jailed filmmakers and claimed he was a supporter of artistic freedom. But: “Meddling in the arts by government officials and the Russian Orthodox Church is raising worries over a return of censorship not only to political news, but also to plays, movies and art exhibitions.”
Can ‘The Nutcracker’ Actually Be Working-Class, Christopher Wheeldon?
This is a huge reimagining of the Robert Joffrey “Nutcracker” for the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago: It’s set at the 1893 Columbian Exposition, and a lot of money – like, a lot of money – is riding on its success.
After ‘The Help,’ Octavia Spencer Says, 90 Percent Of The Roles She Was Offered Were Maids
Spencer and actor Dev Patel talk about representation at the movies, and why what they’re doing is important. Patel: Their films are “anthems of diversity, they’re anthems of love, and they’re anthems of perseverance.”
The Needle Arts, Having Their Moment – And Maybe Their Movement
If you’ve been making fun of “yarn bombing” or knitting as a cute little thing that women do, think again, buster. It’s street art. And now is its time.
What Happens If We Price Out Culture We Like
“Without public access, a culture becomes dead, an inert shell that serves as a shill for profit, while too rarefied and remote to thrive. The quaestores of modern times use health, religion, and access to sports and art just like those of the Middle Ages used salvation: to exploit people by pricing what they value too high.”