Richard Dare suggests the rituals suppress creativity and audience enjoyment. Others aren’t so sure… (a discussion)
Tag: 06.20.12
The Long, Slow Rise Of The Fork
Knives and spoons go back to antiquity, but the fork didn’t arrive in Byzantium (from Persia) until the 11th century, and made it to France only in 1533. It took even longer for the fork to shake its image as dainty and unmanly.
Big Art Fairs Proliferate (But Can The Market Sustain Them?)
“The explosion in the number of art fairs is the most significant change in the market since the turn of the century. The numbers tell the story: in 1970, there were just three main events (Cologne, Basel and the Brussels-based Art Actuel). But the number has mushroomed in the past decade: from 68 in 2005 to 189 in 2011.”
Penguin Makes Deal With New York Libraries For E-Books
“If successful at the New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library–two of the country’s largest library systems–Penguin said it could offer similar deals to libraries across the U.S., including school and university libraries. And the deal could prompt other major publishers that currently don’t sell e-books to libraries to soften their stances.”
Why Does Israel Still Ban Wagner?
“Israelis have mostly made their peace with Germany. They drive German cars, drink German beer, and even import goods from companies that utilized Jews as slave labor during World War II. But in the still complicated dynamic between the two countries, an unofficial ban on Wagner has somehow survived the rapprochement.”
England Awards £56M In Matching Grants For Endowments
“More than £50 million has been given to arts groups, including London’s Old Vic Theatre, to help them build up endowment funds to meet day-to-day running costs. Money from the Government’s Catalyst: Endowments fund will be shared between 34 groups including the Hallé Concerts Society in Manchester, the Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust in Bristol and the Birmingham Royal Ballet.”
China Forbids Ai Weiwei To Attend His Own Tax Hearing
“Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei called an appeal hearing against a tax fine unfair after police warned him to stay away and blocked journalists from approaching the cramped court room which only had five seats.”
Britain’s National Theatre Postpones New Count Of Monte Cristo Indefinitely
“Richard Bean’s first new play since One Man, Two Guvnors has been indefinitely postponed by the National Theatre ‘to give the project some more development time’. The Count of Monte Cristo, Bean’s family-friendly adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s swashbuckling novel, had been scheduled to run in the National’s largest theatre, the Olivier, over the crucial Christmas period.”
Revisiting The Soviet Union’s First Great Photographer (Just Let’s Not Talk About Communism, Okay?)
The Russian curators of a touring exhibition of Alexander Rodchenko’s photographs documenting the early years of Soviet society insisted that no mention of Communism be made in the show’s materials. “Yet Communism, both as a utopian ideal and as a despotism, intermediated Rodchenko’s career. Can you discuss the art of Michelangelo without mentioning Christianity?”
Merge: Noam Chomsky On The Cognitive Function That Made Language Evolve
“You got an operation that enables you to take mental objects [or concepts of some sort], already constructed, and make bigger mental objects out of them. That’s Merge. As soon as you have that, you have an infinite variety of hierarchically structured expressions [and thoughts] available to you … a second-order theory of mind, so you know that somebody is trying to make you think what somebody else wants you to think.”