Art News from Around the World

Visual Arts Tue, 02 Mar 2021 14:05 Unknown Titian Painting Identified In English Village Church “The Last Supper was gifted to St Michael and All Angels Church in Ledbury, Herefordshire, in 1909. Art historian Ronald Moore believes he has now discovered Titian’s signature on the canvas during restoration work.” – BBCSource: Visual Arts Tue, 02 Mar 2021 13:33 ‘Lamborghini’ Of Ancient Roman Chariots Unearthed At Pompeii “The chariot is preserved in remarkable detail, officials say, with four iron wheels, metal armrests and backrests, and a seat perched atop that could sit one or two people. Notably, the chariot is adorned with metal medallions depicting satyrs, nymphs and cupids, suggesting the possibility that it may have been used in marriage ceremonies.” – […]Source: Visual Arts Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:44 The ‘Versailles Of Wales’ Is Falling Into Ruin Can anyone force the Kimmel House’s offshore corporation owners to save it? – The Observer (UK)Source: Visual Arts Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:02 Ireland, Britain Reach Agreement In Century-Long Dispute Over Art Collection The background to the 10-year (at least) truce: “In 1915 the Irish art collector Sir Hugh Lane was among nearly 1,200 people who died when the Lusitania, an ocean liner, was torpedoed by a German U-boat off the southern coast of Ireland. His will revealed that he had bequeathed his breathtaking collection of impressionist paintings to the National […]Source: Visual Arts Mon, 01 Mar 2021 17:32 The ‘Guernica’ Replica Tapestry Hanging In The UN Has Been Repossessed By Its Rockefeller Owner A spokesman for the UN Secretary General said, “I feel sad and a sense of loss looking at that empty wall. … The tapestry was not only a moving reminder of the horrors of war but, because of where it stood, it was also a witness to so much history that unfolded outside of the […]Source: Visual Arts Mon, 01 Mar 2021 14:00 A 127-Year-Old Spanish Sports Venue Would Like To Become A Heritage Site Of course, the venue itself likely has no feelings on the matter. But Madrid’s Frontón Beti-Jai, built when the Basque game pelota was all the rage in the city, was recently restored, and is now sitting idle. – The Observer (UK)Source: Visual Arts Mon, 01 Mar 2021 13:30 How To Smell A Dutch Still Life, Virtually Perhaps this was an idea that could have gotten, shall we say, misplaced during various shutdowns? But no. What does Dutch art of the 17th century smell like? An exhibit “will shortly be available as a virtual tour with a four-scent fragrance box. It doesn’t just descant on the theme, although there is plenty of […]Source: Theatre Tue, 02 Mar 2021 14:32 Stratford Festival Will Open This Summer, But With A Short Season Held In Tents In a regular year, it’s North America’s largest summer theatre festival, but with the pandemic only barely starting to subside, Stratford is planning to present just a dozen or so performances, each featuring no more than eight cast members and running about 90 minutes, on two stages under large canopies outside their theatres in central […]Source: Issues Tue, 02 Mar 2021 13:01 UK To Spend Another Half Biillion For Arts Sector’s COVID Recovery The government is topping up the £1.57 billion ($1.9 billion) Culture Recovery Fund announced last July with an extra £300 million ($416 million), with an additional £90 million ($125 million) for English national museums and heritage sites and £18.8 million ($26 million) for local community-based projects. Alongside that funding designated for England, arts groups in […]Source: Ideas Mon, 01 Mar 2021 22:59 The Pronouns Problem For now, pronoun declarations are both novel and blatant — which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on whether you’re socially progressive or socially conservative. As in almost every other segment of American life, society is fractured. – Los Angeles Review of BooksSource: Ideas Mon, 01 Mar 2021 22:31 American Cynicism Has Reached Our Breaking Point Cynicism, at scale, makes democracy’s most basic demand—seeing one another as we are—impossible. And America, at the moment, is saturated with it. – The AtlanticSource: Music Mon, 01 Mar 2021 21:58 James Darrah On The Future Of Opera “I think the future of that looks like we embrace the cinematic, and digital media side of opera to an even greater degree. And when we come back to live performances, those have to be a compelling reason to attend something live.” – LBPostSource: Music Mon, 01 Mar 2021 21:01 The Man Who Figured Out How To Make Millions On Song Rights In less than three years, Merck Mercuriadis has become the most disruptive force in the music business. Put simply, Hipgnosis, his company, raises money from investors and spends it on acquiring the intellectual property rights to popular songs by people like Mark Ronson, Timbaland, Barry Manilow and Blondie. – The GuardianSource: Music Mon, 01 Mar 2021 20:29 Vienna Philharmonic Sends Letter In Support Of Met Opera Orchestra “The world is watching. 30% of the members of the MET Orchestra can no longer sustain a living in New York City due to being faced with no salary from the Metropolitan Opera since April 1, 2020. This number will likely climb higher as the crisis continues.” – GramilanoSource: Blogs Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:55 Pandemic Polemics: Metropolitan Museum’s Off-Key NPR Message vs. Cleveland’s Harmonious Storage Show The Met’s premature revelation that it might take advantage of the AAMD’s relaxed deaccession standards, selling art to pay for “care of the collection,” was an object lesson in how not to roll out a controversial, temporary policy change. A palate-cleansing corrective to that unappetizing situation can be found in Stories from Storage, a current […]Source: Media Mon, 01 Mar 2021 18:14 Amazon Films Are Getting More Respect The game-changers were the pandemic, and also awards-nominated movies One Night in Miami and Sound of Metal, not to mention Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. Those films, “coupled with the cultural impact Borat has enjoyed across the globe, have significantly altered the perception of Amazon Studios’ film division in Hollywood and among Amazon’s more than 150 million […]Source: Ideas Mon, 01 Mar 2021 16:44 Studies: EMail Is Making You Miserable! A study, published in 2019, looked at long-term trends in the health of a group of nearly five thousand Swedish workers. They found that repeated exposure to “high information and communication technology demands” (translation: a need to be constantly connected) were associated with “suboptimal” health outcomes. – The New YorkerSource: Media Mon, 01 Mar 2021 16:00 What The Writers Guild Learned From Its Fight With The Agencies For one thing, it’s OK to fight. Writers are also seeing back pay come in – and letting the union win it for them instead of fighting alone. And then there’s at least one intangible: “I have seen … an improvement in terms of how a writer looks at themselves and their value next to […]Source: Words Mon, 01 Mar 2021 15:30 Off With All Our Heads – The Online World Loves To Misquote Lewis Carroll But why? Alison Flood investigates why Britain’s Royal Mint and an actual Carroll commemorative collection have been getting quotes wrong … and then printing them on coinage. Cue the facepalm emoji: Turns out it’s all the fault of Goodreads. – The Guardian (UK)Source: Theatre Mon, 01 Mar 2021 15:00 Australian Theatre Is Lighting The Way For The West End And Broadway Actors get temperature-taking robots; there’s Hamiltizer for your hands if you’re rehearsing Hamilton; and then there are the actors who can’t hug – so Olaf and Elsa flash each other peace signs instead. Audience members have their own rules, and they won’t be at the stage door begging for selfies now either – but sales […]Source: