“In a world of hot takes, criticism is cold, slow and distant … and, once everyone can voice an opinion, their value is diminished. … Readers want to consume art, not consider it. They’ll take recommendations, sure – but reviews? Save your prose for Medium.” What the Web and social media have nurtured instead, writes Rowland Manthorpe, is fandom. “Fandoms do provide criticism, albeit of a different sort. For one thing, it’s more likely to be well-informed. … [Fans] also have a more creative relationship with the creator, so criticism takes the form of remixes, or fan fiction, or animation, or cosplay. The critic has been replaced by the co-creator.”
Tag: 05.11.18
Modigliani Is One Of The Most Forged Artists Ever, And The Problem Is Getting Worse
Modigliani scholar Marc Restillini (who has gotten death threats for exposing forgeries): “My worries aren’t about the number of fakes, which is going down, but about the type of forger that we’re dealing with. We have people who are more sophisticated than those of 15 or 20 years ago. … I think that the scientific community [investigating art fakes] doesn’t realize this. Its response is naïve. Instead of taking necessary steps to fight forgeries, it’s taking steps that will encourage them.”
Eight Years After Its Finale, ‘Lost’ Is Developing A Cult Following
“It’s bubbling up all over the place. New blogs and podcasts and Reddit discussions concerning themselves with various aspects of Lost have started to appear without warning. Gamers, too, seem to have suddenly rediscovered the series. This week alone, for instance, a Fortnite user found a hatch in the woods, prompting speculation of a Lost crossover, and a Far Cry 5 user recreated the Lost island in its entirety using the game’s map editor. Meanwhile, in entertainment, you can feel Lost‘s influence everywhere.”
An Intensive Care Unit For Art Damaged By World War II
The Bode Museum in Berlin is using a Siemens Art Foundation grant to repair Old Master works that were damaged in a 1945 fire and then looted by the Red Army. Says the Siemens foundation’s general secretary, “Restoration is more important than acquisitions. If we were to buy works of this quality on the art market, then we would have to pay several times more than the amount we are investing in restoration – if they were even available.”
The Old Vic Theatre At 200
“Plain sailing for 200 years at the forefront of British theatre was never an option. Any theatre as venerable and vibrant as London’s Old Vic is bound to have had its ups and downs, but the Waterloo-based venue has had more than its fair share – from bankruptcy to bailiffs and bombing during the Second World War. What is regrettable is that arguably its worst ever crisis should have cast a major shadow over this, its bicentenary year.”
‘The String Quartet’s Guide To Sex And Anxiety’ (Yes, This Is A Real Performance Piece)
“Had it been down to him, [director Calixto Bieito would] have called the show The Anatomy of Melancholy, after the encyclopedic study by 17th-century scholar Robert Burton, whom he calls the British Montaigne. With a nod to the box office, however, he’s gone for a title that sums up a show in which the Heath Quartet will play angsty Ligeti, while four actors draw on texts ranging from WH Auden’s The Age of Anxiety to Byung-Chul Han’s The Burnout Society.”
Protecting Rare Books And Manuscripts From Climate Change
“While the threats that climate change poses to material history are well-known and frequently studied, researchers have tended to focus on immovable assets … Archives, because they are technically mobile, have received less attention … Sadly, relocating buildings full of old and fragile documents may be too expensive and complicated to undertake.”
Columbia University MFA Students, Grads Share Horror Stories
While there was praise for the faculty (and sympathy for their heavy workloads), there was blistering criticism of administration and, especially, of the decrepit physical plant. Said one grad of her damaged studio, “Facilities entered the space after it flooded, and cut into the walls with my ceramic sculptures still on the shelves. I returned to my studio to find a pile of my broken artwork on the ground, with no forewarning. I spent more money than I have to have my most valuable possessions destroyed.”
Artists Are Having A Bigger Role In Thinking About Technology
Technology is no longer a novelty—it’s a given. And artists, who might have in the past approached technological advancement with a hint of idealistic curiosity, now question the impact it’s had on the way humans interact with one another. This tension is ripe territory for artists, who are often more interested in creating provocations around technology than they are in building practical applications.
Un-Restoring A Movie Classic To Bring It Back To Its Original Glory
Director Christopher Nolan saw 2001: A Space Odyssey when he was 7 years old – and now he’s worked “to recreate the experience audiences had in 1968, allowing moviegoers today to see the epic exactly as Kubrick intended. His goal meant there would be no digital manipulation in the new version but the occasional visible scratch would be allowed to slip through.”