How To Thwart Art Fakes? DNA

Two years ago, the Global Center for Innovation at the State University of New York at Albany, “known for its work in bioengineering, encryption and nanotechnology, set about developing a way to infuse paintings, sculptures and other artworks with complex molecules of DNA created in the lab.”

Inside Nobel Winner Svetlana Alexievich’s Work

“Her method is the close interrogation of the past through the collection of individual voices; patient in overcoming cliché, attentive to the unexpected, and restrained in the exposition, her writing reaches those far beyond her own experiences and preoccupations, far beyond her generation, and far beyond the lands of the former Soviet Union.”

They’re Putting A Swimming Hole On Berlin’s Museum Island?

“A proposal under consideration here called the Flussbad (‘river pool’) would clean up a filthy canal, part of the River Spree, that flows around the tourist-mobbed Museum Island. The plan would add new wetlands and some place the public can literally dive into. Despite detractors who picture Berlin’s cultural center being upstaged by the equivalent of one long, riotous water-filled bouncy castle, the idea, which has been around for a while, is gaining momentum.”

The Gold-Leaf Modernist Mural Inside A Mountain

To see it, “you’ll need to make a 2½-hour train journey from Glasgow to the Highlands, drive 1km into the heart of a mountain and climb a flight of slippery steps on to a viewing platform before you can catch a glimpse: a 48ft x 12ft mural made of wood, plastic and gold leaf, sparkling away at the centre of a vast cave like some fairytale treasure. … Even the artist behind the work has never made the trek to see it in situ.”

Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.12.15

Becoming An Art Convert In Spain – And Why
Earlier this year, I made an art pilgrimage to Valladolid, the home of Spain’s National Museum of Sculpture. So much Spanish Renaissance and Baroque sculpture resides and stays in Spain, sometimes because it can’t leave and sometimes because there is no demand to borrow it, … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-10-12

Dreaming a Never-Stopping Dance
The Seán Curran Company brings East and West together at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater.  … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2015-10-12

Monday Recommedation: Karrin Allyson
Songs Richard Rodgers wrote with lyricist Lorenz Hart from 1925 to the early 1940s have been among the standards most often played and sung by jazz artists. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides [ssba_hide]

Marilynne Robinson And President Barack Obama, Just Having A (Long, Recorded) Conversation About Everything

Robinson: “I think that we have created this incredibly inappropriate sort of in-group mentality when we really are from every end of the earth, just dealing with each other in good faith. And that’s just a terrible darkening of the national outlook.”
Obama: “We’ve talked about this, though. I’m always trying to push a little more optimism.”

When You’re A Woman, Directing Work Dries Up After One Flop

Mimi Leder: “I excel in television. I’ve directed nine pilots and six of them went to air, so my television career was flourishing, but I couldn’t get arrested in features. Saying this sounds like sour grapes, but it isn’t: It’s very different for women filmmakers than it is for male filmmakers. And the film business itself changed dramatically. They just wanted to make tent poles.”