“No architects have been more deeply or visibly embroiled … than the Swiss team of Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron” in the struggle “to figure out the right balance between architectural expression and the need to showcase art.” Their design for the Miami Art Museum “breaks [outmoded] forms apart and then pieces them back together to create something wholly new.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Survey: Recession Has Made A Grim Climate For Artists
An online survey of more than 5,300 artists “found that the recession has been exceptionally tough for many artists. Eighteen percent of those who responded said their income had dropped 50 percent or more in the last year.”
Jerusalem, Enron Are Among Evening Standard Winners
“The head and shoulders winner at this year’s awards was the Royal Court theatre – it dominated the shortlists with 11 nominations and won four with awards for two of the most-talked about plays of the year, Jerusalem and Enron. … Unusually, there were no wins for west end commercial theatre or the National Theatre.”
When An Actor Performs, What Does Her Brain Look Like?
Fiona Shaw lent her brain to science, reciting T.S. Eliot inside an MRI scanner, to help researchers find out. (video)
A Tech Writer Explains Why Not To Buy An E-Reader
For one thing, “buying any e-book reader now is a gamble. Every model has access to a different catalog of books, some of which are restricted by copy-protection schemes. This leads to a classic early-adopter format dilemma….”
Without Oxytocin, Would We Be Mired In Barbarism?
“Scientists have long known that the hormone plays essential physiological roles during birth and lactation, and animal studies have shown that oxytocin can influence behavior too…. Now a raft of new research in humans suggests that oxytocin underlies the twin emotional pillars of civilized life, our capacity to feel empathy and trust.”
Out Of The Blue, A New Pigment
At Oregon State University, chemists “created a new, durable and brilliantly blue pigment by accident. The researchers were trying to make compounds with novel electronic properties, mixing manganese oxide, which is black, with other chemicals and heating them to high temperatures.”
Artists’-Rights Vendor’s High Line Arrest Is His 42nd
Robert A. Lederman “was arrested 41 times during the Giuliani administration, in part because he liked to bait the mayor. … In 2001, both state and federal courts ruled that New York City could not require permits for artists in parks,” a point Lederman made before he was arrested Saturday on the High Line for vending without a permit.
Kiki Smith, Deborah Gans To Redesign Synagogue Window
The Lower East Side’s Eldridge Street Synagogue, a National Historic Landmark built in 1887, “reopened in 2007 after a 20-year restoration, but there were no available records of the original window.” So, with the blessing of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the duo “will reimagine the window.”
Miami Beach-Bound, Art World Asks: What Belt-Tightening?
“Even as the rest of the country drowns in unemployment and lessened circumstances, the period of noble abstinence for this hedonistic set is apparently over. … For better or for worse, much of the art world is feeling flush again” — just in time for Art Basel Miami Beach.