Inga Saffron tells the long, sad story, and the happy ending, of the Rittenhouse Hotel, the tower with the pleated façade on Rittenhouse Square.
Tag: 01.20.17
Taking Art Critics To See Yasmina Reza’s ‘Art’
Stephen Moss: “It is a clever, calculating piece of theatre, but does it really have anything to say about modern art? We set up our own three-hander to find out – Guardian art critics Adrian Searle and Skye Sherwin, and me in the middle, playing the part of the hapless Yvan, eager to get answers to big questions.”
The Last Time We Fought For The NEA’s Very Existence: A Look Back At The ’90s Culture Wars
“[Here] are excerpts from the ARTnews archives that detail the [1989-91] struggle over NEA funding, including the controversy surrounding a Corcoran Gallery of Art Mapplethorpe show, Democratic representative Mary Rose Oakar’s response, and Republican senator Jesse Helms’s vow to avenge what he saw as a loss.
E-Book Sales Are Falling
“Nielsen found that e-book unit sales from reporting publishers were down 16% in 2016 from 2015. Units fell the most in the juvenile fiction segment, where e-book sales dropped 28% in the year and accounted for 10% of total category unit sales in 2016, down from 14%. (E-books have never been a big factor in juvenile nonfiction and accounted for 1% of units sold in 2016.)”
Instagram Is Infiltrating The Art Market
Auction houses and contemporary galleries alike are using the photo-sharing tool to connect with interested buyers. Half of buyers in one survey said Instagram was their favorite social media platform; among the younger buyers, it was two-thirds.
Artist Wants To Borrow Back Piece For Retrospective – And Finds That MoMA Has Thrown It Out
“MoMA has a sterling reputation as a protector of art, art books and hundreds of thousands of documents relating to its collection.” Well, it had one. Poor Pat Lasch …
Roman Amphitheatre In Palmyra Trashed By ISIS
The militia “destroyed part of the theater [including the façade] and severely damaged a tetrapylon, a square structure of four plinths, each with four columns.”
Is IKEA Destroying The Antiques Trade?
Well, the antiques business is at its lowest point since the 1930s, and IKEA is cruising along. One design critic lists six alternatives, including an open-sourced furniture design shop.
The Composer’s Job During The Trump Administration
And not just the job of composers, but of every creative person: “There’s a lot of talk about opposing extremism and intolerance in the world and it’s fine to oppose violence and destruction through developing a counter-narrative or developing a cogent military strategy (those are vital things), but the ultimate response of resistance to violence and destruction is creation.”
We Can Learn How To Fight For Arts Funding From New York In The 1970s
One idea – among many – is to talk about money: “Indeed, the late ’70s saw the emergence of the idea that theatre might not be a drain on the city’s coffers, but actually help fill them—a school of thought that still holds today, with theatre as an economic engine on a par with tech (something has to replace manufacturing, right?).”