Art News from Around the World

Visual Arts Wed, 02 Dec 2020 18:02 Muslims Have Been Visually Depicting The Prophet Muhammad For Centuries Certainly, images of the Prophet of Islam have been far, far less common than those of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and other Christian figures, and Muslim culture, especially in the Arab world, has tended to disapprove of pictures of any human or animal. Yet miniatures and manuscript illuminations featuring Muhammad did start appearing in […]Source: Visual Arts Wed, 02 Dec 2020 13:05 Remorseful American Tourist Returns Ancient Marble Fragment She Stole From Rome “The National Roman Museum recently received the piece of stone, which was inscribed in black marker, ‘To Sam, love Jess, Rome 2017.’ ‘I feel terrible for not only stealing this item from its rightful place, but writing on it,’ said the note accompanying the item. ‘It was a big mistake on my part and only […]Source: Visual Arts Tue, 01 Dec 2020 22:58 An Emerging “Museum of The Future”? A long period of relative peace, prosperity, and globalisation after the Cold War had lulled the museum field into complacency not only about its financial viability, but also about its relevance and credibility. The Covid-19 crisis—which coincided with a painful reckoning with the intertwined legacies of colonialism and racial injustice—has accelerated a push to adapt […]Source: People Wed, 02 Dec 2020 23:01 Finding Love (And Community) In Gaming For many of us, virtual worlds are fertile ground for growing new friendships and romance. In online role-playing platforms, gamers may feel more confident in their social interactions than in real life because they can be seen exactly as they want to be seen, says Anthony Bean, a clinical psychologist in Fort Worth, Texas, and […]Source: Media Wed, 02 Dec 2020 22:31 How Hollywood Studios Are Reinventing (Again) For The Streaming Age “Amid the backdrop of the pandemic and the ongoing, years-long digestion of several mega-mergers, from Disney-Fox to ViacomCBS to AT&T’s WarnerMedia, pretty much every legacy entertainment house in town is in the process of maneuvering a massive ship-turning effort to better point their armadas in the direction of streaming.” – VarietySource: Words Wed, 02 Dec 2020 22:01 Secret To A Great Book? Mood Horror is a mood, one of the most under-appreciated, under-discussed literary devices available to writers. And because horror is a mood, it’s subjective and transcends the limits of specific tropes or themes within a book—horror can be part and parcel of fantasy novels, mysteries or thrillers, literary fiction, and historical fiction. – Book RiotSource: Theatre Wed, 02 Dec 2020 21:31 How UK Theatres Are Changing During COVID Theatres that normally function as places of gathering, storytelling and entertainment have found themselves playing a very different role in the age of coronavirus. – The StageSource: Issues Wed, 02 Dec 2020 21:01 The Arts’ COVID Losses By The Latest Numbers How have things changed since the pandemic? A recent Brookings Institution report shows America’s arts and creative industries lost $150 billion in sales and 2.7 million jobs through July. The “fine and performing arts” alone (commercial and nonprofit) incurred losses of $42.5 billion and a whopping 50% of its workforce (-1.4 million jobs). – Americans […]Source: Ideas Wed, 02 Dec 2020 20:29 Study: Hunger And Loneliness Activate Same Part Of The Brain “[This study] provides empirical support for the idea that loneliness acts as a signal—just like hunger—that signals to an individual that something is lacking and that it needs to take action to repair that.” – SmithsonianSource: Theatre Wed, 02 Dec 2020 19:57 How COVID Turned One Of The Year’s Hottest Plays Into A Site-Specific Work After the pandemic blew up the plans of every American stage company for this year, Blanka Zizka, director of the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, got the idea to create a COVID bubble for cast and crew at a house in the Poconos, where they’d do a site-specific production for later viewing online. And one of […]Source: Music Wed, 02 Dec 2020 19:31 Spotify’s Most Streamed Tracks Of 2020 Bad Bunny was the biggest artist globally, amassing 8.3bn streams. The Puerto Rican star’s second album YHLQMDLG notched up 3.3 billion streams, followed by The Weeknd’s After Hours and Post Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding. – BBCSource: Music Wed, 02 Dec 2020 19:03 The Rediscovery (At Last) Of Ethel Smyth “In 1934, all of musical England gathered to celebrate the 75th birthday of one the country’s most famous composers – Dame Ethel Smyth. During a festival spanning several months, audiences crowded into the Queen’s Hall, London, to hear her symphonic cantata The Prison, or settled in at home to listen to the BBC broadcasts of […]Source: Ideas Wed, 02 Dec 2020 18:29 How Your Brain’s Built In Biases Let You Believe Untrue Things There are several well-known mechanisms in human psychology that enable people to continue to hold tight to beliefs even in the face of contradictory information. – The ConversationSource: Dance Wed, 02 Dec 2020 17:31 Time To Talk About Dancer Body-Shaming? Dancers are rarely ever given comprehensive or healthy guidance on how to get into the shape that’s being asked of them—even when the resources are available. – The Observer (UK)Source: People Wed, 02 Dec 2020 17:04 Dolly Parton Funded A COVID Vaccine. It’s Not The First Time She’s Come To Our Rescue. Jessa Crispin: “In the past month, Dolly Parton has saved us both from the pandemic and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, if you’ve been paying attention. Dolly Parton has been saving us her entire career.” – The GuardianSource: Words Wed, 02 Dec 2020 16:32 BookExpo And BookCon Are No More “The pandemic arrived at a time in the life cycle of BookExpo and BookCon where we were already examining the restructure of our events to best meet our community’s needs.” – Publishers WeeklySource: Words Wed, 02 Dec 2020 16:01 Merriam-Webster And Dictionary.com Have The Same Word Of The Year For 2020, And It’s No Surprise Both sites base their choice on search statistics, and the clear leader was, of course, pandemic. (Coronavirus was close behind.) – MicSource: Media Wed, 02 Dec 2020 15:35 Net Neutrality’s Biggest Enemy Is Leaving The FCC Early “U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said he’ll leave the agency Jan. 20, eliminating the possibility of a holdover Republican majority at the agency that could have temporarily stymied changes sought by the incoming Biden administration. Since being elevated to the chairmanship by President Donald Trump in 2017, Pai, a Republican, has led the […]Source: Issues Wed, 02 Dec 2020 15:03 Biden’s Cabinet Needs A ‘Dr. Fauci For The Arts’ Peter Marks: “Now, more than ever, we need a secretary of arts and culture. As President-elect Joe Biden rolls out his circle of close advisers, the notion is gaining momentum among leaders and advocates of nonprofit groups and for-profit companies: that someone should be named to coordinate arts funding, unite assorted agencies and underline the […]Source: Dance Wed, 02 Dec 2020 14:32 Mixed-Race Ballerina Tells Of Discrimination And Harassment At Berlin State Ballet Chloé Lopes Gomes, a Frenchwoman whose father came from Cape Verde, joined the corps of Staatsballett Berlin in 2017 after studying at the Bolshoi and dancing in companies in Nice and Lausanne. She says that she suffered harsh and repeated racial harassment from the ballet mistress in charge of the corps; when she reported the […]Source: