The Museum of Modern Art (March 17, 2023) – In our latest ArtSpeaks episode, Eana Kim, Vilcek Fellow in Paintings and Sculpture chose Henri Matisse’s “Dance (I)” because his work led her life in an unexpected direction.
“What really struck me was Matisse’s journey from mastering all the academic skills to unlearning everything to create his own art,” Kim says. “He really tried to dig into and explore the fundamental elements, like forms and colors. He was looking into something more essential to create something pure. I needed to follow that path.”
In the online edition of MoMA’s ArtSpeaks program, we invite staff members, artists, and special guests to share personal impressions of an artwork in the galleries. Here, curator Eana Kim examines Matisse’s iconic expression of pleasure and joy.
This Friday, March 17, is World Sleep Day, an annual event that aims to raise awareness of the importance of getting a good night’s sleep. This year’s campaign tagline is “Sleep is essential for health.” According to a study by the American College of Cardiology, up to 8 percent of deaths from any cause could be attributed to “poor sleep patterns”, while those with healthier sleep habits are less likely to die prematurely.
Data from Statista Consumer Insights shows that in the United States, 39 percent of respondents said they had suffered from a sleep disorder (problems falling asleep or staying asleep, insomnia, etc.) in the 12 months prior to the survey. Italians were among the worst sleepers in the survey at 48 percent reporting a sleep disorder, while India registered a higher share of good sleepers, with only 26 percent suffering from poor sleep.
FRANCE 24 (March 17, 2023) – Morocco is often hailed for its stability, its position as a regional leader in women’s rights and for having a rich cultural history. But it’s still a largely male-dominated society. So what does that mean for women in the arts?
Eve Jackson meets three female creatives in and around Morocco’s frenetic commercial hub Casablanca, who are making space for themselves in their craft by using their art to protect and celebrate their heritage, while at the same time creating constructive conversations about subjects sometimes considered sensitive in the kingdom.
March 17, 2023: the extraordinary story behind what Canadian police have called “the biggest art fraud in history”. More than 1,000 fake works purporting to be by the First Nations artist Norval Morrisseau are seized and eight people have been charged.
The Art Newspaper’s Editor, Americas, Ben Sutton, tells the extraordinary story, involving a rock star, a television documentary and alleged forgery rings, and what it tells us about the market for First Nations art in Canada. A report into artists’ pay in the UK has exposed the inordinately low sums paid to artists for their labour by arts organisations.
We talk to the art collective Industria, who wrote the report, and Julie Lomax, the CEO of a-n, The Artists’ Information Company, which has published the study. And this episode’s Work of the Week is An Old Woman (around 1513) by the Northern Renaissance artist Quinten Massys, a painting better known as The Ugly Duchess.
A new exhibition at the National Gallery focuses on this work in its collection, exploring its origins in a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, and the combination of satire, folklore, humanism and misogyny from which it emerged. Emma Capron, the curator of the show, tells us more.A PDF of Industria’s Structurally F–cked report can be found at a-n.co.uk. Industria’s website is we-industria.org.The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance, National Gallery, London, until 11 June.
Science Magazine – March 17, 2023 issue: An alpine newt (Ichthyosaura alpestris) walks to a breeding pond in the Alps, France. Many amphibians have a cryptic upper side but a normally concealed, conspicuous underside. These hidden signals have evolved for several reasons, including as a warning display to would-be predators.
The gut microbiota is critical for human health. Understanding how beneficial bacteria colonize the gut enables medical interventions that promote gut health. Krypotou et al. discovered a mechanism that enhances the fitness of a commensal bacterium in the gut.
Architectural Digest (March 16, 2023) – Architect Nicholas Potts returns for another history-revealing walking tour, this time exploring the ever-evolving look of SoHo in New York City. From stone-mimicking cast-iron details to repurposed mercantile buildings with soaring glass windows, Nick breaks down the surprising history and motivations that led to the distinctive style “South of Houston.”
Rising interest rates have left banks exposed. Time to fix the system—again
Only ten days ago you might have thought that the banks had been fixed after the nightmare of the financial crisis in 2007-09. Now it is clear that they still have the power to cause a heart-stopping scare. A ferocious run at Silicon Valley Bank on March 9th saw $42bn in deposits flee in a day. svb was just one of three American lenders to collapse in the space of a week.
English Garden Eccentrics: Three Hundred Years of Extraordinary Groves, Burrowings, Mountains and Menageries
By Todd Longstaffe-Gowan
In the English garden, eccentricity and variety went hand in hand.
What counts as eccentric in the garden, and what counts as a folly? As a child I used to be taken on Sunday walks to the Needle’s Eye in Wentworth, South Yorkshire, a kind of sharp pyramid of stone some forty-five feet tall and pierced by an arched passage.
by Franz Kafka, translated from the German by Ross Benjamin
Kafka’s diaries—made up of false starts, stray thoughts, self-doubts, internal dialogues, dreams, doodles, aphorisms, drafts of stories, character sketches, and scenes from family life—are often very funny.
Boomers Daily 