In the past few decades, academia has largely abandoned traditional connoisseurship because it was too often tied to “great man” narratives. Over the same period professional art criticism has been eclipsed by a journalistic preoccupation with glamour, scandal and money. While the art world was never entirely free from market forces, these are now essentially the sole determinant of value. People need narratives to make sense of culture and collectors require a mechanism to assess quality. By default, today’s dominant narratives are being written by dealers and auctioneers.
Author: Douglas McLennan
Want To Get People To Work Harder? Gamify! But…
Gamification’s trapping of total fun masks that we have very little control over the games we are made to play – and hides the fact that these games are not games at all. Gamified systems are tools, not toys. They can teach complex topics, engage us with otherwise difficult problems. Or they can function as subtle systems of social control.
Boston Globe: Our Business Is Looking Up, And We’ve Hired A New Art Critic
The Globe is announcing today that it has finally replaced Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee, who left for the Post nearly a year ago. The Globe’s new critic is Murray Whyte, currently at The Star of Toronto, whose arrival in Boston, I’m told, was delayed because of immigration issues.
Major Dance Companies (And A School) Launch A Racial Equity Project
The participating cohort organizations are 20 major ballet companies and one school: American Ballet Theatre, Atlanta Ballet, Ballet Austin, Ballet Memphis, Boston Ballet, Charlotte Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Miami City Ballet, Nashville Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, New York City Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Richmond Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, School of American Ballet, Texas Ballet Theater and The Joffrey Ballet.
Sotheby’s Banksy Dramatics – The Real Theatrics
If they were shelling out for love of the image alone, I would suggest picking up a replacement at Target, where a print version is currently on sale for $36.79, down from forty-six dollars. But, if they’re buying for investment, they might as well follow through. The picture’s destruction, like that of Tinguely’s machine, was halted before the job was complete, and there is already speculation that the work in damaged form will become even more valuable than it was before.
The Banksy Aesthetic (And How The Sotheby’s Stunt Fits)
Essentially, Banksy likes to produce works that critique their own commodification. But he also seems to be increasingly critiquing the public’s attitudes toward art, and its complicity within the system of that commodification. The Dismaland project implicated the “tourists” for their enjoyment of the experience as much as it implicated Disney itself. With the Central Park experiment, the entire experience — the pop-up art stand and the art sold within it, as well as the night-and-day opposing responses from the public both before and after the reveal that Banksy was the perpetrator — became a piece of art. With these exhibitions, Banksy is also increasingly using his work to explore and critique the idea of virality, and how it influences the perceived value of a work in the minds of both the public and the artistic establishment.
Netflix Plans Massive New Production Hub In New Mexico
The studio has acquired ABQ Studios in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as part of a plan to bring as much as $1 billion in production to the state over the next 10 years.
Boston Symphony Denies Flutist’s Claim Of Gender Pay Discrimination
In its court filing, dated Aug. 31, the BSO argued that Rowe and Ferrillo’s work are not comparable, stating that “the flute and the oboe are not comparable instruments, nor are they treated as such by most major orchestras in the United States.” It added that “each instrument has its own pay scale at leading orchestras around the country, including the BSO.”
A New Current Of Feminist Dystopian Fiction To Channel Anger
Most of these new dystopian stories take place in the future, but channel the anger and anxieties of the present, when women and men alike are grappling with shifting gender roles and the messy, continuing aftermath of the MeToo movement. They are landing at a charged and polarizing moment, when a record number of women are getting involved in politics and running for office, and more women are speaking out against sexual assault and harassment.
Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra Musicians Go On Strike
According to the orchestra’s statement, while the Lyric’s budget grew from $60 million in 2012 to $84 million in 2017, the weekly salary for musicians increased an average of less than 1 percent annually and, when adjusted for inflation, decreased by just over 5 percent since 2011. The orchestra is represented by the Chicago Federation of Musicians.