Art News from Around the World

Visual Arts Fri, 21 Jul 2017 22:02 Have Selfies Gotten In The Way Of Real Experiences? "A symptom of modern living, but a no less inevitable one, require we live in a state of constant negotiation: between the pull of the world and one’s own conditioned desires. The writer Jenna Wortham, in 2013, described selfies as part of “a timeless delight in our ability to document our lives and leave behind a trace […]Source: Visual Arts Fri, 21 Jul 2017 15:31 The Smithsonian Has Discovered The Magic Of Kickstarter, Raising $1 Million And Finding New Audiences “We’re not only trying to fund the projects, we are reaching audiences that we might not reach through other channels,” said Scott Tennent, the Smithsonian’s director of advancement communications, noting that three-fourths of the Kickstarter backers are new to the Smithsonian. “We can raise awareness that the Smithsonian relies on public support. That’s something people […]Source: Visual Arts Fri, 21 Jul 2017 13:33 Stolen Francis Bacon Paintings Recovered In Spain Three of the five works taken from the Madrid home of one of the artist's friends were found by Spanish police following a tipoff from a team asked to authenticate one of the paintings. Several suspects were arrested last year.Source: Visual Arts Fri, 21 Jul 2017 13:17 Federal Judge Okays Copyright Lawsuit Against Richard Prince - And Ruling Sounds Ominous For Defendant "Photographer Donald Graham ... alleges that Prince unlawfully used his photograph Rastafarian Smoking a Joint (1996) when he enlarged an Instagram post of it for his New Portraits show at New York's Gagosian Gallery in 2014." The judge noted in his ruling that "Prince has not materially altered the composition, presentation, scale, color palette and […]Source: Music Fri, 21 Jul 2017 21:31 Portrait Of The Cellist As An Artist Of A Different Sort As a corollary of his mission to rethink the performer’s role, Parker Woods refuses to let his identity as a cellist be restricted by conventional perceptions of what a classical string player does. Which is why, even at this still-early stage of his career, he’s already been leaving his imprint on a fascinating variety of […]Source: People Fri, 21 Jul 2017 21:02 French Singer Dies In Mid-Performance Onstage Barbara Weldens was singing at a church in the village of Goudron in southwestern France as part of the Festival Léo Ferré when she collapsed mid-song. There are conflicting reports regarding her cause of death with some reporting that she suffered a cardiac arrest and the BBC saying that she may have been electrocuted. Police are investigating, […]Source: Ideas Fri, 21 Jul 2017 20:35 When Empathy Was "Aesthetic Empathy" The feeling we call “empathy” has shifted dramatically over the last century from a description of an aesthetic response, to a moral and political aspiration, to a clinical skill, and today, to the firing of neurons. Returning to empathy’s roots—to once again think about the potential for “in-feeling” with a work of art, a mountain, […]Source: Words Fri, 21 Jul 2017 20:02 The Precariousness Of Publishing In Today's Market (And Why Small Presses Might Be The Future) "That Big Publishing remains conservative and homogeneous — and viewed with increasing ambivalence and disdain by the larger population — should not be surprising or contentious; axiomatic in antitrust law is the idea that a reduction in market participants, whether a result of competition, attrition, or consolidation, correlates with a reduction in consumer choice. We’ve seen this across any […]Source: Issues Fri, 21 Jul 2017 19:32 Seattle Goes To Voters To Raise Sales Tax To Fund The Arts "Prop. 1 is the culmination of a decade-plus struggle to pass a state law allowing counties to tax themselves for arts and culture education, and asks voters to approve a sales tax of 0.1 percent — a penny for every $10 — to support arts, culture and science access and education. In the campaign’s projections, […]Source: Music Fri, 21 Jul 2017 19:02 Why Is It So Hard For New Women Musicians To Hit It Big? "These artists all have a mainstream presence – performing at major festivals, appearing on Spotify and Radio 1 playlists, nurturing healthy social media accounts – but their popularity feels more microcosmic than an all-conquering march. Look at the charts. No female solo artists or groups have scored a UK No 1 this year, and beyond […]Source: Ideas Fri, 21 Jul 2017 18:31 If This Really Is The Death Of Retail, What Will Happen To All The Street-Front Stores In Our Cities? "What becomes of the ground-floor city when retail mutates into new forms? Some luxury brands might keep their boutiques as indulgences and loss leaders. But as national chains’ contracts give up on physical locations, commercial rents could fall, clearing the way for a resurgence of small stores: designer cookies and pet spas, but also used-book […]Source: People Fri, 21 Jul 2017 18:02 Study: Thinking You're Lazy Is Bad For Your Health "Among a large group of Americans who were tracked for up to two decades, the death rate was far higher among those who viewed themselves as less active than their peers. Intriguingly, this held true even "after adjusting for actual levels of physical activity." This suggests that, while spending too much time on the sofa […]Source: Words Fri, 21 Jul 2017 17:31 If Your Job Is To Sell Books, What Do You Do When A Customer Wants A Book You Think Is Bad For Them? "Despite the immeasurable good work independent bookstores and their staff do—from promoting children’s literacy to hosting readings and book clubs to being a vital part of local economies, and more—I’d hazard that the primary goal is always going to be customer satisfaction. So what can you do when a customer wants a book that you […]Source: Ideas Fri, 21 Jul 2017 17:22 Is It Possible There's A Scientific Test For Consciousness? "Week by week we hear claims from neuroscientists that would appear to confirm the prevailing “internalist” view of consciousness. If the brain creates a representation in our heads of the world around us through the firing of neurons, the argument goes, then we can identify neural activity that corresponds to particular aspects of consciousness.  How, […]Source: People Fri, 21 Jul 2017 16:31 Complaints Of Sexual Harassment Against Longtime Minnesota Theatre Executive Director "The complaints — some anonymous — surfaced only after an internal dispute about whether the theater's latest production should have an intermission boiled over, angering many of the community volunteers the theater relies on to function. As anger over the theater board's oversight gained steam, MPR News interviewed these six people and one more who […]Source: Theatre Fri, 21 Jul 2017 16:02 When New Yorkers Rioted Over How To Perform 'Hamlet' "When Major-General Charles Sandford recalled the scene at the Astor Place Theatre on May 10, 1849, it was with a sentiment one would not normally associate with a night at the theater. 'During a period of thirty-five years of military service,' wrote the general, 'I have never seen a mob so violent as the one […]Source: Theatre Fri, 21 Jul 2017 15:03 Why I Wanted My Asian-American Daughter To See Asian-American Actors Playing Shakespeare Nicole Chung writes about her meaningful mother-and-child trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Winter's Tale.Source: Music Fri, 21 Jul 2017 14:35 The B-52s: The Most Subversive Band In American Rock History? "The subversive genius of the B-52s isn't quite acknowledged as much as it could be - even though the band invented new wave-wacky and was mindful about keeping ahead of the stylistic curve. ... You can chalk up a lack of respect to the group's kitschy veneer (and, more specifically, its penchant for making kitsch […]Source: Issues Fri, 21 Jul 2017 14:04 Is The Age Of Trump Killing Comedy? No - It's Helping Comedy Return To What It Used To Be "You may have heard, in the past year, that irony and satire are dead, that in the age of Trump they have become indistinguishable from their opposites. ... Everyone recognizes that something essential to comedy is failing: the power to defeat lies. ... [But] comedy's association with honesty is far more recent than we might […]Source: People Fri, 21 Jul 2017 13:02 Rising Young Cabaret Singer Dies Onstage Barbara Weldens, a 35-year-old Frenchwoman who took first prize in last year's Jacques Brel Young Talent competition and who released her first album in February, was performing at a festival in southwestern France when she abruptly collapsed, apparently having been electrocuted.Source: