The combination of extemporaneous performance and preëxisting art form enacts a trust across time and space. In the heyday of silent pictures, filmmakers expected that their movies would be scored by a live musician, and thus silent films have always been a sort of incomplete form, waiting patiently for the act of creation to happen anew each time the film is shown. – The New Yorker
Tag: 10.31.19
Are You Creative Or Do You Just Make Lots Of Mistakes?
A new study reports that it “turns out that your penchant for variability, such as when you toss a new ingredient into a recipe or follow a creative hunch into the unknown, is often driven by brain errors that are imperceptible to you. Your curiosity is a mistake.” – Fast Company
East German Art Makes A Relevant Return
Themes of surveillance, sexuality, gender inequality, and evading censors are certainly, sadly relevant in 2019. East German artists knew all about all of that, and “their subversive and often humorous paintings, performances, prints, collages and texts have lost none of their provocative power.” – The Economist
The Art World’s Most Lucrative Prize Goes To Colombian Artist Doris Salcedo
The Nomura Award is in its inaugural year, and it gives $1 million to a living artist. Salcedo won “for her body of work produced over the last 25 years, which has focused on the human cost of the conflict between successive governments and rebel groups in Colombia” and has included melting weapons from 7,000 former fighters into tiles for an exhibition space in Bogotá. – The New York Times
Good History, Philosophy, Should Inspire Wonder
Philosophy, Aristotle tells us in his Metaphysics, begins with wonder. History does too. It starts with obvious perplexities but also with our realisation of the strangeness of the everyday, making our head swim. – Aeon
When Indigenous Land Is Acknowledged Before A Performance, For Whom Is It Really Being Done?
It’s happening more and more, as part of the curtain speech or separately: a speaker formally acknowledges that, for example, “we are on Lenape land” (in the case of New York City). Lauren Wingenroth considers reasons for and ways of doing this without it becoming an empty or token gesture. – Dance Magazine
Demand For Safe Storage For Art Soars In California As Fires Close In
“Clients are asking for storage for paintings, art, design, antiques and collectibles but we’ve also been moving large scale bronze as well as marble garden sculpture into storage.” – The Art Newspaper
Bernard Slade, Responsible For Great Cheesy ’70s Sitcoms, Dead At 89
He created, and often wrote scripts for, The Flying Nun, The Partridge Family, Love on a Rooftop, The Girl With Something Extra, and Bridget Loves Bernie. (He also wrote 17 episodes of Bewitched.) He also wrote one of the most successful Broadway romantic comedies ever, Same Time, Next Year (1975). – The New York Times
As Streaming Fragments The Audience, Say Goodbye To The Golden Age Of TV
The Golden Age of TV, the halcyon period that dates from the premiere of The Sopranos in January 1999, has been drawing to a close for a while now, but as the streamers lay out their plans for the 21st century’s third decade, it’s increasingly clear that it’s well and truly over. – Slate
As Netflix Expands Into More Countries, It Has To Deal With Those Countries’ Mores — And Censors
“[The company’s] 2018 annual report lists both ‘censorship’ and ‘the need to adapt our content and users interfaces for specific cultural and language differences’ as business risks. But as its subscriber growth in the United States stalls, the firm needs to keep growing significantly overseas in order to keep investors happy and stave off the competition from services like Apple TV Plus and HBO Max.” Reporter Alex Marshall looks at how these issues are playing out so far in India and Turkey. – The New York Times