The debate over the appropriateness of the redesign comes down to priorities. What’s more important: the integrity of an important work of architecture, or how well it functions as part of the contemporary city? Behind that question lurk others. How important is AT&T, really? (One scholar described it as “banal” and “a mediocre building” in 2015.) And how well can we assess a building’s role in architectural history at a remove of only 30-odd years?
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Princeton’s Westminster Choir College Lays Off All Its Staff
The layoff notices anticipate the sale of the entire college next spring to an undisclosed buyer, or the school’s potential closure. The potential buyer is described publicly only as an Asian corporation that runs for-profit K-12 schools. The buyer has no accreditation in higher education.
Students Rally To Remove Thomas Hart Benton Murals. University Defends The Work
“Like most great art, Benton’s murals require context and history,” said Lauren Robel, the school’s executive vice president and provost, in a statement, calling the works a national treasure. “Many well-meaning people, without having the opportunity to do that work, wrongly condemn the mural as racist simply because it depicts a racist organization and a hateful symbol.”
David Vaughan, Modern Dance Historian And Merce Cunningham’s Archivist, Dead At 93
“[He] served the Cunningham company and school in various capacities for a half-century. … He began collecting dance ephemera in the late 1950s and was considered the first in-house archivist of an American dance company, a post he held officially from 1976 until the Cunningham troupe disbanded in 2012 after Cunningham died, in 2009.”
Deaf Dancer’s Hearing Implant Edited Out Of Ad
“South African Simone Botha Welgemoed, 27, has been deaf since birth and was 22-months-old when she was fitted with a Cochlear implant in 1992. But when she saw the Virgin Active advertisement on social media, she realised the implant had been edited out.”
What The Art Forum Sexual Harassment Scandal Says About The Visual Art World
As with the many other sexual misconduct accusations working their way through the news — whether about Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, film director James Toback, or former New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier — the Artforum allegations have laid bare the art world’s power structures and the inequities women face within them.
Brown Girls Do Ballet Movement Was Started By Dallas Mom Who Knew Nothing About Dance
“A few years ago, photographer Takiyah Wallace was searching for a dance studio in Dallas for her 3-year-old daughter, who had expressed an interest in ballet, when she noticed something. ‘One of the first things that jumped out to me in visiting local studios here was that there were not any faces that looked like her,’ she says.”
Wisconsin-Based Book World Is Closing Its 45 Stores In Seven States
“The national shift towards e-commerce has triggered the loss of mall anchor stores and a downward spiral in customer counts at Book World stores, reducing sales to a level that will no longer sustain business operations. Book World has stores in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, North Dakota and Missouri.”
Watch How A Historic 16th-Century Church Crumbled In The Mexican Earthquake
The Ex-Convent of San Guillermo Abad in Totolapan, founded in 1534, suffered severe damage in the 7.1 magnitude quake on Sept. 19 – and security cameras recorded that damage from multiple angles. (includes video and audio)
How To Fix Toronto’s Public Art
Because of its relationship to development — and the rigid nature of that policy — public art mainly grows in the shadows of new building projects. That means large swathes of the city’s inner suburbs have been neglected. The report recommends pooling art funds contributed by developers and by the city’s own capital projects to target underserved areas.