When A Painting Falls Into A Black Hole

“At night when our brains are unplugged from our senses and error-correction is off, we dream furiously. And so it is with 21st-century physics. Undeterred by experimental data — it would take a particle accelerator as big as the galaxy to test some of the latest cosmological contrivances — theorists have found a new role as entertainers, scientific Scheherazades.”

Bollywood Flourishes With Stars And New Cash

“In Bollywood the motion picture industry remains resolutely star struck, even as special effects have helped to reduce Hollywood’s dependence on big-name actors. As Bollywood has shed its image as an industry notorious for its organized-crime links and unaccounted-for cash and become a streamlined, corporate entity, dozens of players with deep pockets have entered the fray.”

Pushing The Boundaries Of Choreography

“We’re seeing surfacing in American contemporary dance work in recent years the deliberate use of strategies that have long been common artistic practice in other art forms. Appropriation, sampling, referencing and dialoguing with other artists’ works, notions of authorship, dissolving of genres, the rethinking of dance’s relationship with movement, and with audiences, etc., are all in play. Also in play is an impatience with the cherished notion of originality.”

A Pitch For The Arts

It used to be, in the 1960s and ’70s, that the arts were considered good for national unity, for our sense of collective purpose and identity. We were seen then as a youngish, emerging country with an identity that needed forging. Then, in the 1980s and ’90s, the message changed. We began hearing that the creative arts were good for the economy. That argument continues today but with a bit of a twist: “Want a culture of innovation? Fund our artists.”

How The Tate Is Beating MoMA

“Arguably the Tate brand, which has gained huge international currency since the founding of Tate Modern at the turn of the millennium, has threatened to eclipse that of MoMA. The Tate has even been making audacious inroads into MoMA’s home turf of New York, courting American philanthropists and holding glamorous fundraising events.”