Tag: 11.14.17

What We Learned On a 13-Hour Immersive Theatre Performance On A Plane From London To JFK

“Our work is interactive so audiences are not passive observers but in the midst of the action, both as witnesses or participants. We had members of the press offering to write a tale for our heroine’s birthday and one passenger, who had forgotten to take his usual Valium dose, dealt with his in-flight nerves by becoming a character in the show. However, being thrust into a theatre show for 13 hours can be bit much, even for the most ardent theatre-goer.”

Recreating Marcel Duchamp’s Intricate Final Work, Using Only The Instruction Manual

For years, artist Serkan Özkaya has been fascinated by Duchamp’s Etant données, the darkened room you view through peepholes in the closed door. He wanted to know exactly how it works, but the curators at the its home, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, aren’t allowed to go in and inspect its mechanisms themselves, let alone allowing a stranger access. So Özkaya did it Ikea-style.

Louise Erdrich, Who Just Published Her 16th Novel, Is The ‘Great American Novelist’

Ann Patchett thinks she’ll win the Nobel Prize someday. She’s published 30 books – nonfiction, children’s novels, and more. Sherman Alexie says she writes entertaining hyperrealistic literary fiction. And she owns a bookstore. “In a strange way, Louise Erdrich is perhaps our least famous great American writer; she is not reclusive, but she is reticent, and her public appearances give the impression of a carefully controlled performance. But Erdrich has also shared many of her most intimate emotions and experiences, in some form, in her novels.”

Queen Victoria’s Fake Cranach Turns Out To Be Genuine

“For more than a century art historical experts have labelled a painting Queen Victoria bought as a Christmas present for Prince Albert a 19th-century fake. But a new generation of art historians has discovered they were wrong. Victoria and her advisers were correct when they bought the painting in 1840. It is a genuine work by the German master Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop.”

And This Concert Is How Propaganda Is Made

Anne Midgette: “An ultimate test of cultural diplomacy is the question of who controls the narrative. On Monday, the organizers restricted media access to this high-security event. After trying unsuccessfully to reach media representatives before the event, then waiting at the door, I was told that the fire marshal had ruled that no more people could enter the building. Later, the media representative explained that she had promised the fire marshal they would not exceed the RSVP list, and they took that seriously. When I did enter, thanks to the intervention of a cathedral staffer, there was plenty of room inside. Some members of the media, certainly, had been alerted: TASS, the state Russian news agency, ran an article shortly before the event.”

How The Art World Structure Enables Abuse

“The art world’s most important business goes on in private and is hardly subject to public scrutiny. The art world is a largely unregulated industry in which the rich and powerful that dominate see themselves as being above the law. It’s a business that requires endless socializing, where deals are sealed over drinks, in expensive restaurants, swanky clubs and high-end hotels. Artists who want commercial success are supposed to humor and indulge their collectors — and that can include sitting in their laps when asked.”