Cultural institutions are a kind of technology – a social technology. Just as physical technologies – agriculture, the wheel or computers – are tools for transforming matter, energy or information in pursuit of our goals, social technologies are tools for organising people in pursuit of our goals. While we are fascinated and sometimes frightened by the pace of evolution of physical technologies, we experience the evolution of social technologies differently. – Aeon
Blog
Sculptor Beverly Pepper, 97
“After beginning her artistic life as a painter, Ms. Pepper was known from the 1960s on as a sculptor of towering forms of iron, steel, earth and stone, often displayed outdoors. … [Yet her] work was suffused with a quicksilver lightness that belied its gargantuan scale.” – The New York Times
Travel Is A Mind-Expanding Cultural Experience. But What If It’s Killing Us?
Over-tourism is damaging popular cities and cultural attractions. Instagram is sending mobs to previously bucolic places. Then there’s the carbon cost of all that air travel, which is killing the planet. The best thing you can do for the planet? Maybe stay home! – Post Alley
How A Little Philadelphia Pick-Up Company Became A Contemporary Ballet Powerhouse
Back in 2005, as they were nearing retirement from Pennsylvania Ballet, Christine Cox and Matthew Neenan decided to put together a little group to dance at the Philly Fringe. They hoped that maybe, one day, they’d perform at Jacob’s Pillow and Vail. Now BalletX has ten dancers on 40-week contracts, commissions major choreographers, does up to eight world premieres a season, and tours around the U.S. (yes, including Vail and the Pillow) and to Europe. – Pointe Magazine
First Major Arts Venue To Make All Its Performances ‘Relaxed’
Starting this month, London’s Battersea Arts Centre is making all its events “relaxed performances” — at which audience members may enter, leave, move around, and sometimes make noise, and first developed for neurodivergent patrons. – The Times (UK)
Edward Munch’s ‘The Scream’ Is Fading. Scientists Are Figuring Out Why
“Since 2012, scientists based in New York and experts at the Munch Museum in Oslo have been working on this canvas — which was stolen in 2004 and recovered two years later — to tell a story of color. But the research also provides insight into Munch and how he worked, laying out a map for conservators to prevent further change, and helping viewers and art historians understand how one of the world’s most widely recognized paintings might have originally looked.” – The New York Times
He Fired A Dancer After She Had A Baby. Now He’s Fired
Yorgos Loukos, director of the Lyon Opera Ballet for 33 years, was sacked by unanimous vote of the company’s board of directors. The reason was discrimination: in 2014, he had fired then-34-year-old dancer Karline Marion two days after she came back from maternity leave and shortly before she was to have gotten tenure. – Expatica (AFP)
Angela Hewitt’s $200,000 Piano Destroyed By Movers
She had just finished recording some Beethoven, and movers were taking her piano from the Berlin studio; they dropped it while trying to lift it onto a hand truck, and the instrument’s iron frame crashed and its lid split in two. The Fazioli F278, custom-made for Hewitt, was the only one of its model with four pedals; Paolo Fazioli himself examined it and called it “unsalvageable.” – The Guardian
Joseph Shabalala, Founder Of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Dead At 78
The male choral group had been active in South Africa for two decades when Paul Simon featured them on his 1986 album Graceland — after which they shot to international fame, won five Grammy Awards, and brought Zulu music to a global audience. – BBC
Entire Hong Kong Arts Festival Is Cancelled Due To Coronavirus Epidemic
“Due to officially open on February 13 with a concert by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the month-long festival was to have featured more than 120 performances of dance, music, theatre and opera. Last year’s festival drew a combined audience of nearly 90,000 people.” – South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)