ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

featured

99 Finds: The Most Exciting Art And Artifact Discoveries Of 2021

Sorted into categories such as "Missing masterpieces", "Ancient art", "Prehistoric peoples", African-American and indigenous North American history, and "Royal treasures", here are nearly a hundred pieces of (mostly) good news. - Smithsonian Magazine

Perspective: Seeing The Real Chuck Close

Seeing Chuck’s image reduced to the accusations against him in recent years has inspired me to tell my story, not as a defense or rebuttal — I believe and honor the women who came forward — but to add perspective to how we see Chuck Close, even if that portrait is more Cubist than photorealist. - The New York Times

Meditating On The Art Of Giving Up

The way the idea of giving up figures in our lives, as a perpetual lure and an insistent fear. The giving up that involves leaving ourselves out of what we had wanted, or thought we had wanted. The giving up that is linked to a sense of impossibility, or of possibilities running out. - London Review of Books

Amid The Omicron Wave, Understudies Have Become The Heroes Of Broadway

As cast members test positive for the new coronavirus variant and have to isolate, these under-recognized performers — many of whom must master two or three roles which they have little chance to rehearse — make the difference between the show going on and getting cancelled. - The New York Times

Some Of The Creative People We Lost This Year

Artists, musicians, technologists, actors, innovators and more. - The New York Times

In The Middle Of The Night, Hong Kong Authorities Remove Tiananmen Memorial

The 26-foot-tall artwork, known as the “Pillar of Shame,” had stood at the University of Hong Kong for nearly a quarter-century and honored the hundreds, if not thousands, of students and others killed on June 4, 1989, when the Chinese military crushed pro-democracy protests. - Washington Post

American Contemporary Theatre Closes Its Acclaimed MFA Program

The program consistently ranked as one of the top five graduate acting schools in the country, after more than five decades educating such distinguished alumni as Denzel Washington, Anna Deavere Smith, Annette Bening, Elizabeth Banks and Anika Noni Rose. - San Francisco Chronicle

Is The Golden Age Of Travel Over?

The old way it was practised, at vast scale, and across increasingly porous borders, has begun to look like it might be a terminal casualty. At the time of writing, there are only memories, and the work of reorienting ourselves to a more inert and less hospitable world. - Aeon

Joan Didion, 87

Didion came to prominence with a series of incisive, searching feature articles in Life magazine and The Saturday Evening Post that explored the fraying edges of postwar American life. - The New York Times

Millennials And Gen Zers Are Flocking To The Metropolitan Opera

A set of young New Yorkers seems to have decided that the Met is cool. Sure, many of them appear more interested in the dress-up-drink-Champagne-and-be-fabulous aspect than in the art, but that's been true for centuries — and others are finding they like opera. - The New York Times

Hollywood Has Been Hooked On China’s Money. That May Be Over

The reversal of fortunes in China has begun to accelerate in the past year. In 2021, just 25 U.S. movies were released theatrically in the country, many of which were minor indie titles instead of studio tentpoles. By contrast, some 45 Hollywood movies were shown on Chinese screens in 2019. - The Hollywood Reporter

Growing Trend: Young Architects Want To Unionize

It's a trend at professions offering noneconomic benefits, a sense of mission at a nonprofit or the cachet of working in book publishing or television production. They rely on young employees toiling for meager wages and a chance to make it in a prestigious field. - The New York Times

The Guggenheim Preached Austerity During COVID, Then Gave Its Director A Forty Percent Raise

The Guggenheim’s 990 IRS Filings, a form the US Federal government uses to gather information about tax-exempt organisations, shows Armstrong’s total compensation increased from $1,073,991 in 2019 to $1,504,081 in 2020. - The Art Newspaper

Culture Shift: Gen Z Kids Are Abandoning Real-World Sports For E-Games

It’s clear that the rise of e-sports has come at the expense of traditional youth sports, with implications for their future and for the way children grow up. Lack of young players in the pipeline could be a problem for professional sports. - The New York Times

America Out Of Ideas? No – But Our Market For Ideas Is Broken

Two weeks ago, I wrote that the U.S. needed a revitalized culture of experimentation. Now I think that what we really need is more experimentation in markets, because our markets are failing to promote new ideas that drive progress and growth. - The Atlantic

Health Care, Hospitals And Design Choices

The basic trajectory of hospital design has, so far, been toward buildings that are ever bigger, more complex and more sealed off from the world. The trajectory of dignity is less linear, and more improvisatory, with a lot of circling back to old ideas. - Washington Post

Anthony Tommasini’s Farewell Essay As New York Times Chief Classical Critic

While he can't help mentioning some things that he believes mustn't remain as they are now, the title of this piece is "What Shouldn't Change About Classical Music", and it's something of a gratitude list. - The New York Times

Lessons From Hollywood’s Digital Transition

While digital transformation was creating abundance in the scarce resources that had previously defined market power, it was also creating a new scarce resource, and therefore a new source of competitive advantage: customer attention. - Harvard Business Review

The 16 Defining Art Events of 2021

In-person gatherings return, NFTs (or the people involved) go nuts, $20 billion-with-a-b worth of art donated in South Korea, major new museums in Paris and Hong Kong, a big departure in L.A. and a big mistake in Indianapolis, and, occasionally, justice is starting to be served. - ARTnews

Canon Fodder: Classical Music’s Difficult Reckoning with Race

"More than anything, the artistic questions facing classical music today go well beyond the simple dualism of keeping or tossing the canon; they revolve most of all around access and the hurdles facing marginalized musicians." - Boston Review
function my_excerpt_length($length){ return 200; } add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length');