“Perched on a wheeled stool under a bright spotlight [at the National Gallery of Art], [Robert] Price leaned into a 200-year-old marble sculpture carved by Frenchman Jean-Pierre-Antoine Tassaert, his gloved right hand using a cotton swab to remove decades of grime from its base. … [He] twisted a fluff of cotton onto a wooden stick, dipped it in a special water solution and painstakingly worked it over a small area of marble. He repeated the process, again and again and again, for hours.” – The Washington Post
Tag: 12.14.19
Did This Guy And His Video Game Really Destroy The Industry In The 1980s?
“Once the most highly coveted game developer — a hit-maker with the Midas touch — [Howard Scott Warshaw] had been immortalized as the man who created E.T., the ‘worst’ video game in history. But Warshaw’s story, like that of Atari, is a parable about corporate greed and the dangers of prioritizing quantity over quality.” – The Hustle
Dalton Baldwin, One Of The World’s Great Art-Song Pianists, Dead At 87
“For most of his career, he was known as an accompanist, outdated nomenclature that cannot begin to describe his musical sensitivity to the needs of a singer. … His association with singers Elly Ameling, Jessye Norman, José van Dam, Teresa Berganza, Mady Mesplé, and above all, baritone Gérard Souzay, with whom he concertized for over three decades, literally defines the history of European art song performance in the second half of the twentieth century.” – WFMT (Chicago)
How Did The Superrich Take Over The Museum World?
Sure, some art has been dependent on wealthy patrons for centuries. But in the age of expansion and renovation, and deep income inequality, that reliance has returned with a vengeance. Take MoMA as a prime example: “Since the late 1990s, when MoMA’s current push to expand began, its trustees appear to have been chosen overwhelmingly for their wealth, and the board now reads like a roll call of the 0.01 percent.” – The New York Times
Before There Was Virtual Reality, There Were 3-D Slides
Long before virtual reality, and less digital (and perhaps less nausea-inducing), camera enthusiasts with money could create 3-D panoramas. “The technology was introduced commercially in 1947 by the David White Company of Milwaukee, maker of the Stereo Realist camera, which had two lenses, placed about eye-width apart, to replicate the way the human brain sees three-dimensional space. The camera used slide film, and a special hand-held viewer was required for maximum wow.” – The New York Times
The Lie At The Heart Of ‘Richard Jewell,’ And The Bizarre Attempt To Pretend It’s Not That Bad
The movie (which had the worst opening weekend of any Clint Eastwood-directed film) is Eastwood in chair-ranting mode, and then there’s the issue of the lie that a reporter from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution slept with a source to get info. Outrage abounds online, but”Billy Ray, the screenwriter of Richard Jewell, and Warner Bros., the studio distributing it, have defended the movie by taking a page from the current political moment. They’ve doubled down on their misrepresentation, attacking their accusers without addressing, in any detail, the falsehood that they’re accused of telling.” Oof. – Variety
Aboriginal Artists In Australia Ask Governments To End Their Communities’ ‘Enslavement And Exploitation’
The past year has been shocking and a reversion to old, terrible ways, say the artists, galleries, and other prominent people in the Australian art scene. For instance: “‘We have called police to extricate dialysis patients from painting sheds where they have been locked into premises, and dealt with the stress caused for people in debt to unethical dealers through loans given to them or their family members,’ the director of the Purple House dialysis clinic in Alice Springs, Sarah Brown, wrote.” – The Guardian (UK)
How To Write A Memoir With Candor And, Well, ‘Nakedness’
Not nudity (though that may, of course, be involved), but naked emotional truth. “Authenticity can’t exist without artistry. Truth in life doesn’t automatically morph into truth on the page. And living people don’t necessarily come to life in print. It takes creativity.” – The Guardian (UK)
Danish TV Is So Popular, Denmark Can’t Keep Up With The Demand
The boom in streaming has led to massive content demands – and nowhere is that more obvious than “in Denmark, where thanks to years of rising demand, there are many more critically-praised series and movies being made than ever before. But what there isn’t, in this country of just 5.6 million people, is enough skilled professionals to produce them all. Help-wanted ads are popping up all over industry Facebook groups. Certain shows have had to postpone production by six months, or indefinitely.” – The New York Times
It’s Come Time For The End Of U.S. Cultural Hegemony
After WWII, “the past century was undoubtedly an American century. … America was positioned as the global emblem of progress, liberty and modernity. This chimera was largely achieved through the might of American culture, with Hollywood films, television shows, and music that spread far and wide.” But now, at the turn of the second decade of the 21st century, “the pop culture being produced out of India, Turkey and South Korea – to say nothing of China, which is a separate story altogether – exposes the twentieth century Western cultural tsunami as receding and revealing the seashore.” – Time