“The best way to understand the underlying drive of art collecting is as a means to create and strengthen social bonds, and as a way for collectors to communicate information about themselves and the world within these new networks.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
What A Donald Trump Presidency Could Mean To The Arts?
“Much of the most exciting work in the arts today is by groups that connect creativity to such issues as immigration, homelessness, cultural diversity and other social justice causes, and that could make them a target. The arts have also enjoyed a long detente with political leaders in recent years, but it is a fragile one. The National Endowment for the Arts has seen its budget go up and down over the past eight years, but it hasn’t been formally reauthorized by Congress since 1993. A president who forced that issue could radically restructure the agency.”
That Time Rudolf Nureyev And Margot Fonteyn Were Arrested In A “Hippie Raid”
“Marijuana cigarettes were found at the scene,” noted the paper, although the two ballet dancers had to be released as there was no evidence that they had been smoking them. A high-spirited Nureyev had, however, performed a jeté into the back of a police van.
Sexist “Trolls” Protest Science Fiction Writing Awards
“Few in the speculative fiction community were surprised that the 2016 Hugo Award for Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy ballot was beleaguered for the second year in a row by a slate of trolls calling themselves the Sad Puppies, with their right-wing pals the Rabid Puppies in tow (seriously, these names).”
Court Rules Norton Simon Museum Can Keep Nazi-Looted Cranachs
“Like so many restitution cases, this one pries open a painful chapter in Western history. But this particular case has an additional layer that reveals how far the tentacles of the past can reach into the present.”
So Brexit Won’t Affect British Arts Projects With European Funding, Eh?
“Organisations that were told before the referendum that a Brexit vote would have no impact on their funding applications are now experiencing delays.”
Trump, The Hedge Fund Guy, And The Steinway Piano Connection
“As of today, it seems that Trump is doing everything he possibly can in order not to get elected, so perhaps I’m overreacting. But I do think my fellow pianists should at least be aware of this jarring dissonance at the top end of Steinway’s (pay) scale.”
Ang Lee Wants To Show His New Film Projected At Higher Speeds. But Can Theatres Handle It?
The New York Film Festival said on Monday that it would host the world premiere of Mr. Lee’s film on Oct. 14 in a theater — a relatively small one, with just 300 seats — rigged with projectors capable of playing the film in 3-D, 4K ultra-high-definition and at the extremely fast speed of 120 frames a second. No film has ever been shown publicly that way before, according to the festival and Sony Pictures, which will release “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” nationally on Nov. 11.
What Distinguishes A Sentence As A Masterpiece
“If we think of a library as a city and a book as an individual house in that city, each sentence becomes one tiny component of that house. Some are mostly functional – the load-bearing wall, the grout between the bathroom tiles – while others are the details we remember and take away, perhaps recalling their texture and colour when we assemble our own verbal dwelling-place.”
Karen Finley, Still Going Over The Top
“Her work was, and is, raw to the point of scariness, accessing such dark materials as her father’s suicide, incest, and the violation of children. But what Finley’s pieces are not, of course, is erotic.”