Tag: 11.10.20

What Is The Great Art That Will Come Out Of This Pandemic?

“What, I wonder, is the fate of so many of these projects and events, some of them topical and inordinately perishable? With arts groups across the country deprived of ticket revenue and focused myopically on survival, where goes the impetus for the sorts of ambitious dramas, operas and other productions that put a stamp on an era?” – Washington Post

With Hollywood Idled By The Virus, East Asia’s Film Industries Are Stepping Up

China has now overtaken the U.S. as the world’s largest movie market. South Koreans watch more films per capita than any other nation (and they made Parasite). Vietnam has more than 100 million people, a growing industry, and (with COVID-19 largely contained) open theaters. Japan, of course, has had a vibrant cinema for decades and is a world leader in animation. Says one well-placed observer, “I don’t think [these] countries … even need to think about America now. They’re like the Bollywood film industry in India, in that they want to reach their own first. Any other success elsewhere is just gravy to them.” – BBC

Long-Awaited Statue Honoring ‘Mother Of Feminism’ Unveiled In London, And Feminists Are Livid

Sculptor Maggi Hambling argues that her statue is for Mary Wollstonecraft — who published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792 — not of Mary Wollstonecraft. The latter it is certainly not: it is a small, silvered figure of a generic naked woman arising out of an abstract mass incorporating vague images of breasts. As writer Caitlin Moran put it, “Imagine if there was a statue of a hot young naked guy ‘in tribute’ to eg Churchill. It would look mad. This, also, looks mad.” – The Guardian

Another Art Restoration In Spain Goes Very, Very Wrong

“In the footsteps of the unintentionally iconic Monkey Christ, the Tintin St George, the near-fluorescent Virgin and Child – not to mention the less than sinlessly executed Immaculate Conception – comes … well, it’ s hard to say. The latest Spanish restoration effort to provoke anguished headlines and much social media snarking is, or rather, was, a carved figure adorning an ornate, early 20th-century building in the north-western city of Palencia.” – The Guardian

Critic Tries To Review Streamed Concert While Life Keeps Happening

Zachary Woolfe: “I wanted to try, for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic largely closed down live performing arts worldwide, to review a concert taken in the way I have most music since March: while running in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, ducking into the bodega for milk, walking [the dog], living life.” Did it work? “Well, sort of.” – The New York Times