ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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We Each Process Color Differently. Here’s How

Colour has a life beyond any individual perception. It exists as both the quality of a thing as well as an approach to that thing, or “a dance between subjects and objects, mind and matter.” - Prospect

Outsider Fashionista Passes Torch To 20-Year-Old, Takes Life, And A New Museum Is Born

Professionally, Steven Klein created logos and slogans for hotels and restaurants. But he belonged to no agency. Instead, as an independent consultant, he was a walking encyclopedia — and booster — of pop culture from the 1970s. The New York Times

Weapon Of Mass Distraction: Why Facebook’s “Metaverse” Is An Illusion

In actuality, Facebook is basically spending $10 billion on a prayer that, in the short run, it might change the conversation. It gives them an opportunity to talk about the metaverse instead of insurrection and teen depression. - New York Magazine

Cryptopunks: How A Market For NFT’s Was Born

If spending this kind of money on something as flimsy as a JPEG seems absurd, recall that collectors have bought empty space, a closed gallery, and a duct-taped banana. The fine art world hasn’t been held back by such concerns. - Wired

Quebec Court Upholds Fines On Theatres That Portray Smoking Onstage (Even With Prop Cigarettes)

The theatres challenged the fines, claiming it violated their freedom of expression. They argued Quebec’s ban on indoor smoking goes too far, because it forbids actors from smoking even prop cigarettes onstage. - Toronto Star

NFT’s Explained

NFTs have fundamentally changed the market for digital assets. Historically there was no way to separate the “owner” of a digital artwork from someone who just saved a copy to their desktop. - Harvard Business Review

How Beeple Is Changing The Relationship Between Artist And Collector

The dynamic nature of Beeple’s art speaks to an emerging paradigm in both art and crypto, where the artist and the buyer are in prolonged conversation—and the transaction is just the start of the deal. - Quartz

Xi Jinping Is Rewriting China’s History – A New Cultural Revolution

Xi’s use of history projects the message that the struggles of the first century of Communist Party rule have been buried by the need to cohere around Xi’s pursuit of strength, dignity, and obedience—what he calls “the great rejuvenation” of China. - The New Yorker

How Peter Gelb Is Handling The Most Difficult Job In Opera, Now Even More Difficult

A longread on how the Metropolitan Opera's general manager is handling the company's reopening and its long-term problems, what people inside and outside of the Met think of him, and what he thinks of what they think of him. (He's fairer than you might expect.) - New York Magazine

As Broadway Reopens, Who Is Broadway For?

Representation absolutely matters. But ever since Broadway announced that so many Black plays would reopen its season, there has been a feeling of dread that if these plays don’t do well, there may not be opportunities for future artists. That pressure is unfair. - American Theatre

Chinese Composers Are Making Western Classical Music Their Own

In fact, there have been composers in China writing for European instruments for over a century. Since the end of the Cultural Revolution, though, the country has produced several generations of accomplished composers — and developed an audience eager to hear new scores. - Prospect

Yuval Noah Harari: How Stories Drive Humanity

Previously philosophy was a kind of luxury: You can indulge in it or not. Now you really need to answer crucial philosophical questions about what humanity is or the nature of the good in order to decide what to do with, for example, new biotechnologies. - The New York Times

Most US Theatres Lost Money And Audience On Their Digital Projects During Lockdown (But That May Be OK)

A survey of top execs at 64 companies in 25 states found that, following an initial flurry of interest in the spring of 2020, the vast majority of theaters had disappointing viewership and revenue from their online presentations. Many think it was worthwhile nevertheless. - American Theatre

Globalization Has Been Widely Misunderstood. It’s Important To Be Clear About It

We are at a critical juncture: a relatively long period of stability in mainstream thinking about economic globalisation has given way to a situation of dramatic flux. - Aeon

Broadway Attendance Down. But What Does It Mean?

The anecdotal evidence, gleaned from social media and private conversations with industry leaders, suggests a variety of challenges — lingering fears of the coronavirus, the disinclination by some patrons to wear masks and resistance to high ticket prices. - Washington Post

The Bionic Gloves That Let João Carlos Martins Play Piano Again

His international career was hobbled over and over again by a breathtaking series of mishaps, comebacks, and more mishaps that ultimately left him unable to play at all. Then an industrial designer saw Martins on TV and had an idea … - GQ

Alice Childress Should Have Been The First Black Female Playwright On Broadway, After 66 Years, Her Play Is Finally There.

Her Trouble in Mind treats a touchy subject, even now: it's about an interracial cast rehearsing an anti-lynching play written and directed by whites. In 1955, the Off-Broadway producers made her tack on a happy ending; in 2021, it's playing as she intended. - The New York Times

The Art World’s Most Wanted Criminal (No, Not Inigo Philbrick)

"Not so long ago, Christian Rosa was a buzzy young artist on the rise. Now he's facing a series of charges related to alleged forgeries and on the run from the FBI. How did it come to this?" - Vanity Fair

Desperate Staffers Start A Wave Of Unionization At US Museums

“(The movement is) confront(ing) conditions that workers — from archivists and curators to those selling T-shirts — say are untenable: minimal wage increases, draining resources, lack of transparency from top administrators, and mass layoffs and furloughs resulting from the coronavirus pandemic." - The Washington Post

How Korea Became A Major Cultural Exporter

Once streaming services like Netflix tore down geographical barriers, the creators say, the country transformed from a consumer of Western culture into an entertainment juggernaut and major cultural exporter in its own right. - The New York Times
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