Tag: 10.08.18

When Does Homage Become Theft?

The root of “plagiarism” lies in the Latin plagium, defined in Roman law as the crime of kidnapping, specifically enslaving free citizens or seizing and extorting labor from someone else’s slaves. Plagium in turn is believed to derive from the Latin plaga, which can signify either a snare or the stripe on skin called up by a whip, the presumed punishment of plagiarii. Only in the first century A.D. was the term deployed, by the poet Martial, to highlight a false claim of authorship.

How Columbus Day Made Anti-Columbus Day Protests Possible

Yoni Appelbaum: “Columbus Day, a solemn occasion marked by parades, pageantry, and buckets of fake blood splashed on statues of its namesake. Activists have turned the commemoration of Columbus’ landfall in the New World into an annual protest against ‘the celebration of genocide.’ What the protesters may not know, however, is that the holiday they are protesting once played a crucial role in forging a society capable of listening to their concerns. This is the curious tale of how Columbus Day fell victim to its own remarkable success.”

Sotheby’s Banksy Dramatics – The Real Theatrics

If they were shelling out for love of the image alone, I would suggest picking up a replacement at Target, where a print version is currently on sale for $36.79, down from forty-six dollars. But, if they’re buying for investment, they might as well follow through. The picture’s destruction, like that of Tinguely’s machine, was halted before the job was complete, and there is already speculation that the work in damaged form will become even more valuable than it was before.

The Banksy Aesthetic (And How The Sotheby’s Stunt Fits)

Essentially, Banksy likes to produce works that critique their own commodification. But he also seems to be increasingly critiquing the public’s attitudes toward art, and its complicity within the system of that commodification. The Dismaland project implicated the “tourists” for their enjoyment of the experience as much as it implicated Disney itself. With the Central Park experiment, the entire experience — the pop-up art stand and the art sold within it, as well as the night-and-day opposing responses from the public both before and after the reveal that Banksy was the perpetrator — became a piece of art. With these exhibitions, Banksy is also increasingly using his work to explore and critique the idea of virality, and how it influences the perceived value of a work in the minds of both the public and the artistic establishment.

A New Current Of Feminist Dystopian Fiction To Channel Anger

Most of these new dystopian stories take place in the future, but channel the anger and anxieties of the present, when women and men alike are grappling with shifting gender roles and the messy, continuing aftermath of the MeToo movement. They are landing at a charged and polarizing moment, when a record number of women are getting involved in politics and running for office, and more women are speaking out against sexual assault and harassment.

When A Show Changes The Theatre It Plays In

“How often is it the case that a show made and performed in a theatre genuinely has an impact on the building and the way it operates?” Lyn Gardner remembers one very notable case, when the Battersea Arts Centre hosted Punchdrunk’s The Masque of the Red Death a decade ago. “If this happened more often, would the culture of the building change? … It’s a question that is particularly pertinent when considering work made by, and with, the community.”