“After narrowly averting bankruptcy, documenta’s troubles continue. Last week, the far-right [Alternativ für Deutschland] faction of Kassel’s city council brought a lawsuit against the quinquennial for alleged misappropriation of funds and other offenses.”
Tag: 10.24.17
How Some Movies Ended Up – By Accident – In The Public Domain
“When horror movie icon George A. Romero died earlier this year, it should have started a copyright expiration timeline for his most famous and influential work, the 1968 classic and Halloween icon Night of the Living Dead. But something really scary happened to the film before it became a hit: Due to a last-second title change and a distributor error, the former Night of the Flesh Eaters fell into the public domain upon its release. What caused these types of problems – and how has copyright adapted since?”
Michigan Has Lost Its Mainstream Critics. Artists Are Feeling It
“We’ve heard about theater critics being laid off, we’ve heard about newspapers cutting back on the space they’re willing to devote to arts coverage. It seems like that’s something we hear from theaters across the board in Michigan.”
The Sexy-Gross History, Involving The French Revolution, Of The Color Puce
Well, pre-Revolution, really: “Puce is a color that’s been around for as long as we’ve been spilling blood and watching it dry, but it didn’t get a name until the summer of 1775 when French dressmaker Rose Bertin made Marie-Antoinette a gown in a color that blurred the lines between brown and maroon with only a hint of pinkish-gray.”
The Final Days Of Oliver Sacks
On that long August afternoon a little more than two years ago, Oliver completed his notes for the book he knew he would not see. He titled it “The River of Consciousness” — the title of one of the 10 essays — and dedicated it to his longtime friend and editor at The New York Review of Books, Bob Silvers. He wrote a letter to Mr. Silvers to share this news, and within days, he received a tender letter back. (Mr. Silvers died this year.) With that, I think he felt he had done everything he could.
Newly-Revealed Letters Provide Inside View Of Harper Lee
“Thirty-eight letters, written between 2005 and 2010 by the To Kill a Mockingbird author to her friend Felice Itzkoff, are up for auction this week. Addressed affectionately to ‘Clipper’, Lee’s nickname for Itzkoff, the letters span Lee’s memories of her father, her apparent atheism and her friendship with Hollywood figures. … [There’s also] a suggestion made by American president Lyndon B Johnson to the actor Gregory Peck that the US would one day have a black, female president.”
Suzan-Lori Parks Wrote A Play Every Single One Of Trump’s First 100 Days
“I didn’t know what else to do. So I do what I always do, I wrote something. … I didn’t know what it was gonna be like until I had to type them up and corrected them and read them through. And it was very – I can’t explain it, but it was like reading a tragedy, and the cathartic effect that that has, and the healing effect that offers.” A Q&A with American Theatre‘s Diep Tran.
Do You Have A ‘Creative’ Job? That’s Actually Up To You (Partly)
“The common perception is that a lucky few hundred arts graduates get to truly flex their creative muscles, while the rest are condemned to creativity atrophy in 9-to-5 desk jobs. But it’s not that simple. Whether you see your profession as creative depends not solely on the job description or workplace environment, but rather on how you define creativity, and how you view yourself. That preliminary finding comes from a study published in American Behavioral Scientist earlier this month, titled ‘I Don’t Take My Tuba to Work at Microsoft: Arts Graduates and the Portability of Creative Identity.'”
Will Regulating Artificial Intelligence Stifle Innovation?
“Artificial intelligence systems have the potential to change how humans do just about everything. Scientists, engineers, programmers and entrepreneurs need time to develop the technologies – and deliver their benefits. Their work should be free from concern that some AIs might be banned, and from the delays and costs associated with new AI-specific regulations.”
Critical Responsibility: Our Critics Need To Ditch The Irresponsible Language
“Let’s not skip around this, there’s a dismayingly adolescent quality to the criticism of some mainstream media outlets that intensifies whenever the work under discussion involves sex or nudity. It might be 2017 but a flash of thigh still sets some critics sniggering, while two actors of different ethnic backgrounds playing siblings apparently still has the capacity to unsettle and baffle.”