On Thursday, August 23, after just 3½ months, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” received its one millionth visitor. The show is now the most popular in the history of the Met’s Costume Institute and the third most-visited the entire museum has ever presented. (And it still has six weeks left to run.)
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Wildfire Smoke Has Cost Oregon Shakespeare Festival $2 Million
“Bill Rauch, the festival’s artistic director, said in an interview that the financial losses are a result of over 20 performances of the three outdoor main-stage shows having been either canceled or moved to a smaller indoor theater, which has diminished ticket revenue. Reduced attendance has also contributed. In recent years, the festival has reported around $20 million in ticket sales.”
Two Of London’s Top Orchestras Get New Summer Opera Gig
The Philharmonia Orchestra and the period-instrument English Concert have inked five-year partnership agreements, beginning in 2020, with Garsington Opera in Buckinghamshire. The Philharmonia will perform for two to three productions, with the English Concert playing for one or two; they will replace the current pickup group in the pit.
Here’s A Canvas Artists Should Use More Often: Tennis Courts
As part of a US Open-50th-anniversary celebration, the USTA commissioned artists to paint courts in Brooklyn, Chicago, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, and Miami. It was a challenge for the artists to get used to the medium, but the results are impressive. (They should probably have avoided white, though.)
What Hollywood Could Learn From Success Of “Crazy Rich Asians”
Studios today gravitate more toward sequels and established franchises because they tend to be safer box-office bets. But audiences aren’t nearly as narrow-minded as the Hollywood development process might suggest. Time and again, films that appeal to a broader demographic range, or that belong to under-sung genres, sell many more tickets than predicted. Which is to say that multiple times every year, a film like Girls Trip, or Black Panther, or Crazy Rich Asians is dubbed a “surprise” success. But moving forward, industry experts—whether studios or box-office analysts—will have fewer reasons to be caught off guard.
Feeling Oppressed By Information Overload? There Are Historical Parallels
In the coming years, it may be that conversational, artificially intelligent assistants will become part of the answer, deciding whether or not to alert us to messages, helping us retrieve information and recommending items of interest. But figuring out book reviews, indexes and the rest took several centuries, so we shouldn’t expect an immediate solution. In the meantime we must endure information overload: the feeling that arises in the space of time between a sudden increase in the flow of information and the development of the tools to enable us to cope with it.
This Is A Critical Time For LA’s Museum Of Contemporary Art As New Director Steps In
There’s been a lack of clarity in terms of the museum’s vision for 20 years now—it’s time for a plan that moves the institution forward. There’s also a critical mass of institutions of high ambitions now that makes for a very challenging and competitive landscape—Lacma is more engaged with contemporary art than ever before, and the Hammer [Museum] is at its most energetic and creative.
Have We Locked Ourselves Into Funding Only The Same Old Arts And Institutions?
“In Australia,” she told me, “we continue to have the debate about whether putting the majority of our cultural subsidy into the same 30 or so companies for more than 30 years, to produce works for the same audiences, in same venues, often with the same artists, is a good idea. It raises the same level of disbelief as our recent ‘referendum’ on marriage equality or whether the country should boot out Her Maj as our head of state and become a republic.
Glassblowers Stuck By A Severe Shortage Of Glass
The shortage seems to be the culmination of stricter environmental laws, which led to a cutback in suppliers, compounded most recently by heavy demands on an overseas supplier.
Christie’s To Auction First Art By Artificial Intelligence
A canvas print of art collective Obvious’ (and GAN’s) creation will be included in Christie’s late October auction of Prints and Multiples, the New York-based auction house reports. It remains to be seen how bidders will react to the AI work, but Obvious remains optimistic, citing an estimated sale price of €7,000 to €10,000, or roughly $8,000 to $11,500.