“Nation-states, when they form, imagine a past. That, at least in part, accounts for why modern historical writing arose with the nation-state. For more than a century, the nation-state was the central object of historical inquiry. But in the 1970s, studying the nation fell out of favor in the American historical profession.” – Foreign Affairs
Tag: 02.05.19
Report: Some Ways We Should Support The Arts
Business models for virtually every industry are changing – and many industries are seeing their foundations rocked. So how to find new ways to support the arts? In the UK the Cultural Cities Enquiry makes a series of suggestions, including a tax on tourism. – The Stage (UK)
DC’s Hot New Performance Art Installation: ‘Ivanka Vacuuming’
The piece by conceptual artist Jennifer Rubell is simple enough to describe: an Ivanka-look-alike performer, immaculately dressed in pink, repeatedly vacuums a pink carpet as visitors toss crumbs onto the rug for her machine to suck up. (And it’s all streamed live.) Yet, points out Philip Kennicott, Ivanka Vacuuming is really not so simple at all. — The Washington Post
Met Museum, MIT, And Microsoft Unveil Joint AI Project
At the museum on Monday, “[the three partners] present[ed] five digital prototypes that harness artificial intelligence to make use of images of objects in the Met’s collection. … Visitors could sample applications like Storyteller, which uses voice recognition AI to conjure Met images illustrating whatever words a user utters aloud … [or] My Life, My Met, which uses AI to analyze a user’s Instagram’s posts and replaces the images with the closest matches to works in the Met’s collection.” — The Art Newspaper
Reimagining Shakespeare’s ‘Dark Lady’ For Ballet
First, who was the Dark Lady? Most likely, it was a black brothel owner in London known as Lucy Negro — whom actress and poet Caroline Randall Williams took as the inspiration for her 2015 book Lucy Negro, Redux. That book in turn inspired choreographer Paul Vasterling’s new work, Attitude: Lucy Negro Redux, which he created for dancer Kayla Rowser and Nashville Ballet, with music by MacArthur fellow Rhiannon Giddens and text from the book performed by Williams herself. — Dance Magazine
For 100 Years Of Women’s Suffrage, New York Philharmonic Commissions Music (Lots Of It) By Women
“To mark the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which barred states from denying voting rights based on gender, the Philharmonic has commissioned new works by 19 female composers, eight of which will be performed next season. Besides celebrating what Deborah Borda, the orchestra’s president and chief executive officer, called a ‘tectonic shift in American culture,’ the project sends a statement to the classical music field at a moment when female composers still struggle to be heard.” — The New York Times
Philadelphia History Museum, The Former Atwater Kent, May Be Acquired By Drexel University
“According to Drexel, museum, and city officials, the university would oversee pruning the vast number of objects — there are more than 100,000 items in the collection — to a ‘manageable’ size, digitizing the whole kit and kaboodle, and making it all available online, suitable for searching by institutions in need of loans or those seeking to mount new exhibitions.” The museum’s historic building will be closed and possibly sold. — The Philadelphia Inquirer
Theodore Rabb, Innovative Historian Of Renaissance And Champion Of Western Civilization, Dead At 81
“During an era in which scholars developed increasingly specialized interests, Dr. Rabb adopted a sweeping academic approach, ranging from economic history to politics to painting, emphasizing the broad scope and lasting influence of ideas that flowered during the Renaissance. … [He] taught that the values of Western culture are an inescapable, invaluable fountainhead of modern life.” — The Washington Post
Opening Of GES-2, Moscow’s Big New Contemporary Art Museum, Postponed To 2020
“[Oligarch Leonid] Mikhelson is spending around $300m to transform a former power plant near the Kremlin into a 20,000 sq. m museum designed by Renzo Piano. … GES-2 will be part of a Museum Mile in Moscow that links it to Dasha Zhukova’s Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.” — The Art Newspaper
The Posters For Science Talks That Look Like They’re Advertising Cool Bands
Bob Goldstein’s posters are visually varied, ranging from psychedelic print negatives, to sharp infographic visualizations, to turn-of-the-century scientific etchings, to understated watercolors. They really are like gig posters for scientists, because the design is born from fandom of the research itself. – Fast Company