03.01.18 – Page 3 – ArtsJournal Wayback

Why Sridevi, The Late Bollywood Superstar, Was Even More Extraordinary Than Most Of The Obits Said

It’s not just that she was adept in musicals, difficult dramatic roles, and comedy alike, or that she made movies in five languages. It’s not even that she was the first actress in Bollywood to demand, and get, billing and pay equal to those of male stars. She hugely expanded the types of heroine (and anti-heroine) that Bollywood actresses could play, and that their audiences would accept.

Is The Octopus Really The Resourceful, Impish Genius Of The Invertebrate World?

Videos and anecdotes of octopuses escaping from predators (and research labs), manipulating tools (and researchers), and so on have made the clever cephalopods the internet’s favorite animals after cat and dogs. In a notable bit of debunking (or party-pooping) – subtitled “It’s not a crafty, soulful genius. It’s dinner.” – Daniel Engber argues that we shouldn’t overestimate these mollusks.

‘Become Desert’ – John Luther Adams Writes About His Latest Score (And The Change Of Life That Led To It)

“Throughout my years in Alaska, I dreamed of a new music drawn from the light, the air, the landscapes, and the weather of the North. Now as I’ve begun to learn the landforms, the light, the weather, the plants, and the birds of the desert, I’ve begun to dream of music that resonates with these extraordinary landscapes. … Like the tundra, most deserts are places in which there are few people. It’s true that this is part of the reason I’m drawn to these landscapes. But for me, the essence of the desert is not absence. It is presence.”

How A Professor Tracked Down A Seller Of Looted Ancient Papyri

Roberta Mazza of the University of Manchester writes about her search for the origins of a Coptic fragment of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians that appeared on eBay in 2008 and ended up – like too many other pieces of dubious provenance – in the collection that forms the basis of the Museum of the Bible in D.C.

Spotify Files To Go Public On New York Stock Exchange

“[The] decision to go public has been expected and in the works for months … As of December 31, Spotify has 159 million monthly active users and 71 million subscribers, as in those who pay to use the service. In its F-1 filing, Spotify notes that it expects these numbers are ‘nearly double the scale of our closest competitor, Apple Music.'”

Weinstein Company Rescued From Bankruptcy By Female-Led Investor Group

Just days after the company, unable to find a buyer, announced it would file for bankruptcy, a group led by Barack Obama’s chief of the Small Business Administration agreed to take it over. Said that leader, Maria Contreras-Sweet, “I will be chairwoman of a majority-female board of directors. Women will be significant investors in the new company and control its voting stock.”

Lost Monet Discovered In Storage Space At Louvre

Water Lilies: Reflection of Willows was one of a set of 25 Monet paintings in a huge collection of Western art acquired by the Japanese collector Kōjirō Matsukata. In the leadup to World War II, he had the works stored for safekeeping in France and England. When they were finally returned to Japan in 1959 (after Matsukata’s death), this work wasn’t among them. Now it has turned up, though it’s badly damaged.

The Mona Lisa May Be Making A Tour Of France

“Da Vinci’s masterpiece, which has spent nearly all of the past 500 years in Paris, could soon be smiling at audiences across France as part of a rare tour, the country’s culture minister said Thursday. Françoise Nyssen told Europe 1 radio she was ‘seriously considering’ the move as part of travelling exhibition of the country’s most prestigious artworks.”

Attendance May Be Falling At U.S. Art Museums, But What About History Museums?

Noting that “many commentators often conflate ‘museum’ with ‘art museum’,” Bob Beatty points out that there are far more history museums than art museums in this country. Oddly, attendance figures broken out for history museums are surprisingly scarce, but Beatty runs the numbers he can.

Tag: 03.01.18