What’s worth saying with certainty is that there needs to be more opportunities for musicals to be developed and showcased outside the auspices of commercial or not-for-profit producers, with development that benefits the work and the artists first and foremost, rather than a financial imperative or looming production deadline. – The Stage
Author: Douglas McLennan
Why Dialects Improve On A Language’s “Correct” Use
Languages do exist, but they are not necessarily the things we take them for. On the one hand, we each have an understanding of at least our mother tongue that allows us to produce sentences in it according to certain rules. I say “I kicked the ball” not “the ball kicked I.” That knowledge of rules in our brains is one part of the reality of a language. The other part is its existence as an autonomous system, a means of communication whose form is negotiated between speakers. It is not fixed, but changes as it is used in millions of separate interactions. – Paris Review
High Line Curator Named As Next Curator Of Venice Biennale
Cecilia Alemani, born in Milan in 1977, has directed the High Line’s art program since 2011, where she has commissioned large-scale works by artists such as Kerry James Marshall, Carol Bove, El Anatsui and Sarah Sze. – The New York Times
How The Myth Of “Artistic Genius” Has Held Us Back
The Artistic Genius is male because men are most fit to be Artistic Geniuses. The goalposts of greatness are hyper-specific, socially manipulated, and ultimately less interested in the aesthetics of the work produced. And they are seldom scrutinized. – Paris Review
David Lang Didn’t Like How Beethoven’s “Fidelio” Turned Out. So He Rewrote It
“Before you get mad at me for saying that anything Beethoven wrote has problems, you should know that Beethoven himself was unhappy with the opera. He drastically rewrote it several times over the course of many years, each time tasking a new librettist to fix what the last had written. When the opera originally premiered in 1805 it even had a different name – Leonore, or the Triumph of Conjugal Love. Beethoven ended up writing four Leonore overtures; every time he rewrote the opera he wrote a new one.” – The Guardian
UK Puts New Regulations On Art Trade, Combating Money Laundering
Britain, with London as its hub, is the second-biggest art trading nation after the United States, with 21 percent of global auction and dealer sales in 2018, according to the report. But will the new regulatory framework put British-based dealers and auction houses at a competitive disadvantage? – The New York Times
The Peculiar Case Of The Artists Who Lived Like They Were Living 100 Years Earlier
They dressed in Edwardian clothes, drove a 1913 Model-T Ford and eschewed modern conveniences. As lovers, they shared an apartment on Avenue C that lacked a telephone, television or electric lights. – The New York Times
Beethoven’s Greatest Music Comes From His Greatness As A Human
This year we are celebrating the anniversary not just of history’s greatest composer, but also one of its greatest human beings. – The Spectator
Why The Pieces Of Books Are Where The Pieces Of Books Are
“I certainly did not know, for example, that the earliest recognised dust jacket belongs to a literary annual entitled Friendship’s Offering of 1829. Nor that e.e. cummings’s self-published No Thanks (1935) contains a dedication to the 14 different publishers who had rejected the manuscript: ‘NO THANKS TO Farrar & Rinehart, Simon & Schuster, Coward-McCann’, etc. Nor indeed that acknowledgements tend to be printed at the front of academic books, unlike works of fiction where the acknowledgements go at the end — this primary placement offering ‘a means to publish the author’s CV and boast of influential friends’.” – The Spectator
How Did The Banal Banksy Make It Big In The Art World?
“Banksy is a talented graphic designer with a flair for self-promotion, no more or less. He is not an artist. His work lacks the breadth and ambiguity to carry multiple interpretations vital to serious art. Banksy makes one-liners that are mildly amusing, sometimes clever, but never more than one-liners. There is a place for comedy and satire, but mistaking that for art or insightful social critique is foolishness.” – The Critic