Author: ArtsJournal2

As More Commercial Movies Flood Cannes, Deals Follow

There is, however, downward pressure on the market – which may eventually hit actors, directors, and everyone else working on films in the pocketbook. And – let’s face it – Disney is a challenge. “U.S. distribution is still a big issue. There are fewer studios now that Disney has purchased Fox, and most of the major companies are more interested in remaking past hits or backing sequels to long-running franchises than they are with buying an unknown property in the script stage out of Cannes.” – Variety

There’s A Moon Rush On, And Science Fiction Is Partly To Blame

Or, if not to blame, then to illuminate how we understand our moon. “If technologies once found only in SF do sometimes become real they do not, in so doing, always cease to be science fictional. SF is not, after all, simply a literature about the future; it is a literature about the shock of new capacities and new perspectives, about transcendence, estrangement and resistance in the face of the inhuman. Its ideas shape and constrain the ways in which technological possibilities are seen, understood and experienced long after those possibilities are first tentatively realised.” – The Guardian (UK)

LA MOCA Gets A $10 Million Gift To Make Entrance Free

A board member made the announcement of her gift at a quasi-40th birthday party for the museum on Saturday night. That fits with new director Klaus Biesenbach’s vision. “‘We are not aiming at having more visitors or larger attendance, but we’re aiming at being more accessible, at having open doors,’ Biesenbach said in an interview. ‘As a civic institution, we should be like a library, where you can just walk in.'” – Los Angeles Times

As U.S. States Strive To Make Abortion Illegal, Romance Novelists Pledge To Write About It

Why? Because of some not so great romance novel tropes. Novelist Liz Lincoln: “We need to start putting abortion in our books. … As an alternative to marrying virtual strangers after a surprise pregnancy. As a part of character backstory. As a thing lots of people experience. … It needs to be as regular in books as characters with dead parents or green eyes. As a normal part of life, not as a moral lesson where women are then punished for their choice.” – The Guardian (UK)

The Suburbification Of The Urban Landscape

Are cities urban anymore? Or are the suburbs moving in? New buildings across the country are offering parking, private entrances, “parks,” and other perks of suburban life – downtown. Yes, “these new buildings are designed for a very narrow slice of the population — those who can afford to spend multiple millions of dollars on a home — but it’s a slice of the population whose purchasing decisions affect all city dwellers.” – The New York Times

Protestors March From The Whitney Biennial To Board Member’s Townhouse

On the night of the Whitney Biennial opening,” a crowd of over 150 activists gathered at the Whitney Museum for their largest action yet: a culmination of Nine Weeks of Art and Action, a protest series spearheaded by Decolonize This Place (DTP) to oppose Whitney vice chair Warren Kanders. In a surprise move, the protesters marched from the Whitney Museum to Kanders’s townhouse in Greenwich Village to end the night.” – Hyperallergic

Under A Hardline Government In India, Theatre Is Facing More Censorship, And Violence

Hardline Hindu activists, empowered by the 2014 election of Narenda Modi as prime minister, have been doing things like this to plays they deem unpatriotic: “Hours before the show was due to start, the crew said they were forced to escape the venue as a mob had gathered. They said they ran down back alleys and had to take side roads to avoid being attacked on a main road. ‘It wasn’t that people didn’t like our play, expressed their dismay and left. No. We were being hunted across the city,’ said Ashwath Bhatt, an actor in the play.” – Reuters