Enrico Castellani, 87, Leading Artist In European Post-War Avant-Garde

“[He] participated in the swirl of movements and self-proclaimed groups, some armed with manifestoes, that flourished on both sides of the Atlantic in the late 1950s and ’60s. … Many of these artists emphasized everyday materials and processes; most rejected the expression of subjectivity and emotion that prevailed in the gestural abstract painting and figurative sculpture that immediately followed World War II.”

Top Posts From AJBlogs 12.12.17

More “Mundi” Conundrums: Exactly Who Paid the Leonardo’s Princely Price (and why)?
In my Friday post about those said to have “acquired” the $450.3-million Leonardo da Vinci, I suggested that the convoluted Salvator Mundi story was still developing and hard to predict. Sure enough, … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-12-12

Janine Jansen at Carnegie Hall without veneer – or microphones breathing down her neck
What price freedom? Carnegie Hall’s Perspectives series allows its selected artist-curators to have something close to carte blanche over multiple concerts in numerous different forums. This year, the glamorous Dutch violinist Janine Jansen is one of those artists, … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2017-12-11

Why The Rock Hall Of Fame Needs Fixing

Some 32 years after that first batch of inductees, with most, if not all, of the genre’s most influential practitioners voted in, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is facing its own midlife crisis. Just as rock originally was a hybrid of pop, blues, jazz, swing, country, R&B, gospel and folk, the music spawned a vast multitude of sub-categories in the half-century since its birth.

NY Philharmonic Raises A Quick $50 Million

“The rapidly raised $50 million was a coup for Deborah Borda, who has only been the orchestra’s president and chief executive officer for a few months but is already putting her stamp on the organization. Ms. Borda has pushed the Philharmonic to rethink the costly and disruptive plans to rebuild its Lincoln Center home, hired a new executive team, and turned her attention to the shaky finances of the orchestra, which has run deficits for most of the current century.”

Study: Jazz And Classical Musicians’ Brains Respond Differently To Sound

In a new, small-scale study, a Wesleyan University research team led by Psyche Loui and Emily Przysinda report the brains of jazz musicians are uniquely attuned to surprising sounds. Electronic monitoring revealed these players have “markedly different neural sensitivity to unexpected musical stimuli,” the researchers write. These musicians are trained not only to anticipate unpredictable turns, but also to engage with them in a positive, creative way. That dynamic reflex stimulates creative thinking.

How Artificial Intelligence Is Going To Change The Art World (And Not Just The Art)

As the complexity and capability of these algorithms grow, their users are beginning to cede more artistic control over their outputs to machines. In doing so, they may be ceding another type of control, too: ownership over the creative product. And the consequences could transform the way mainstream art is produced, how we consume it, and how we value the artists behind it.

Let The Berkshire Museum Sell The Paintings: Tyler Cowen

“The board of the Berkshire Museum made a decision to just shift focus [to history, natural science, and tech], not to tear up the institution and start all over again. … The sad truth is that the people running the Berkshire Museum just don’t care that much about American art any more, at least not from an institutional point of view. Given that reality, it’s actually better if they are not entrusted with important artworks.”