Just two years ago, Univision acquired what became the Gizmodo Media Network from the wreckage of Gawker Media. Now the Spanish-language broadcast network has “initiated a formal process to explore the sale” of the group, which includes, among other sites, The Onion, The A.V. Club, Deadspin, Gizmodo, Clickhole, Jezebel, and The Root.
Author: Matthew Westphal
It’s Been Two Days Since The Thai Boys Were Rescued From The Cave, And Already Two Movie Versions Have Been Announced
Within a day of the emergence of the last of the boys and their adult coach from the flooded cave near Chiang Rai, faith-based studio Pure Flix Entertainment (the God’s Not Dead franchise) announced plans for a film adaptation of the story under its mainstream imprint Pinnacle Peaks (Little Women). The next day, beginning with a furious tweet saying “I refuse to let Hollywood #whitewashout the Thai Cave rescue story!,” director John Chu (Now You See Me 2, Crazy Rich Asians) and Ivanhoe Pictures revealed they had secured rights to the story from the Thai navy and government.
Hungry Rat Causes Blackout That Stops Two Dance Performances In Their Tracks
Rodent damage to a high-voltage electric line caused a power failure at the Adelaide Festival Centre in South Australia Wednesday, forcing evacuation of the audience by flashlight. The disrupted performances were The Australian Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty and Australian Dance Theatre’s production of Garry Stewart’s The Beginning of Nature (where the audience at first thought the blackout was part of the production).
Michael Kaiser Named San Antonio Symphony’s Interim Executive Director
“Kaiser advised the city/county task force formed earlier this year as it worked to come up with solutions to the symphony’s recurring financial issues. … Kaiser is a well-regarded consultant whose career includes stints leading the Kennedy Center and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Foundation. He founded the Kennedy Center Arts Management Institute, now known as the DeVos Institute of Arts Management, in 2001 to serve as a training ground for arts administrators.”
Glasgow Art School’s Mackintosh Building Will Be Rebuilt, Not Replaced, Says Director
“In his first interview since the fire, [Tom] Inns said: ‘We’re going to rebuild the Mackintosh building. There’s been a huge amount of speculation about what should happen with the site and quite rightly so, but from our point of view and that of the city of Glasgow, it is critically important that the building comes back as the Mackintosh building.'”
Frank Gehry To Design Restaurant For Philadelphia Museum Of Art
“Stir, operated by Starr Catering Group, will be the only Gehry-designed restaurant offering fine dining to the public anywhere on the East Coast. It is scheduled to open Oct. 9 and will be the first sign of Gehry’s touch at the Art Museum. The Core Project, for which work started last year, is scheduled to be completed in 2020.”
Mariss Jansons Extends With Bavarian Radio Symphony To 2024
By the time this most recent contract extension (three years) is fulfilled, Jansons will have been chief conductor of this orchestra (widely considered Germany’s only real peer of the Berlin Philharmonic) for 21 years. Considered crucial to Jansons’s agreement to extend was a government commitment to build a new concert hall for the orchestra, which performs at the acoustically poor Philharmonie am Gasteig. (in German)
Deneuve, Muti, Portzamparc Win Japan’s Praemium Imperiale
The 2018 laureates of the Japan Art Assoication’s 15 million yen ($133,000) prize, created as a sort of Nobel for the arts, are actress Catherine Deneuve, conductor Riccardo Muti, architect Christian de Portzamparc, painter Pierre Alechinsky, and sculptor Fujiko Nakaya, known for using fog as a medium.
Saudi Arabia Opens Its First Performing Arts Center
The 900-seat theatre/concert hall at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (referred to with the Arabic name Ithraa) in Dhahran opened in June with two concerts by Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra to celebrate the holiday Eid al-Fitr. Ithraa, designed by the architecture firm Snøhetta and funded by the oil company Saudi Aramco, says it will present a year-round program of performances from around the world as well as music and drama by Saudi and other Arab artists.
Taking Art Out Of The Studios And Into The Streets And Communities Of Ghana
In an Accra neighborhood, a monthly parade of men in drag carrying big yellow plastic jugs, which the organizer uses to make public art in a style he calls “Afrogallonism.” An artist covering himself in blue or gold paint and slow-walking through the streets of Jamestown. Immersive installations in an old train shed and car showroom in Kumasi. Covering Accra billboards in secondhand clothing and the National Theatre in jute sacks. Billie A. McTernan writes about these and other projects to bring the arts directly to regular people in the West African country.