Best company culture

The crowd wandering through Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie may look like any other bunch of gallery-goers keeping out of the snow on a Saturday afternoon. Seasoned culture vultures, however, would recognise that the lanky, shaven-headed man in an Adidas jacket is choreographer Wayne McGregor; that the Irishman in an overcoat is novelist Colm Tóibín; and that the energetic, white-haired woman in glasses is Joan Jonas, who this spring will show five decades’ worth of groundbreaking work in her first Tate Modern retrospective in London. Also in town are the likes of architect David Adjaye, cultural theorist Homi K Bhabha, theatre director Selina Cartmell, as well as the artist and opera director William Kentridge. Why are they all here? Well, most of them are currently looking at work by Thao-Nguyen Phan, a 30-year-old Vietnamese artist few, if any, will have previously heard of. Phan’s exhibition is the first of a weekend of events organised by Rolex, as part … [Read more...] about Is this woman the next Philip Glass? And why is she wearing a loudspeaker?

Has Melbourne ever shone brighter? In one of the warmest nights of the year some half a million people made their way into the much expanded wonderland of Melbourne’s third incarnation of White Night. White Night is inspired by the Paris Nuit Blanche that has birthed an internationally networked series of events around the world. But Melbourne has added its own stamp by closing off most of the city to cars and public transport and utilising its laneways and Victorian facades as extended canvases for the art to flourish. From dusk till dawn on Saturay night, Melbourne’s CBD was transformed into an incandescent landscape of video projections, music, film and installation art – a creative playground open for anyone game enough to persevere through the crowds. After record-breaking crowds in 2014, this year’s event was extended to include the Melbourne Museum and Exhibition Building, while Melbourne’s major cultural institutions the State Library, the … [Read more...] about White Night Melbourne: down Alice’s rabbit hole and into the Yarra light

In January, a £288m concert hall was announced for London, but 35% of UK venues have closed in the past decade. Is it getting harder for artists who are starting out to find small places to tour? Natasha Khan (Bat for Lashes): I started out in Brighton in 2006, and at that time there were still a lot of cool little indie record shops and small underground venues. Almost all those record shops are now gone and the venues … I feel like now they have to have a cinema or put on other kinds of events. There are fewer of those shows that promoters would put on with your friends, where you’d make posters yourself. Maybe that whole DIY thing has been undermined by the instantaneous social media thing. Joe Talbot (Idles): We played for nine years before we got any recognition, doing those kind of warm-Carlsberg-and-50-quid shows as much as possible. We were pissing into the wind at the start, because guitar music was bloated and cocaine-fuelled and there were lots of rubbish … [Read more...] about ‘We’re existing on hope’: Bat for Lashes, Will Young, Idles and others on music in 2019

The musician Lewis Capaldi has announced that he is to provide provisions for fans at risk of anxiety and panic attacks on his upcoming UK arena tour. Capaldi, whose single Someone You Loved has been No 1 for seven weeks, is adding a compulsory 50p charge to his ticket prices to cover the costs of a scheme he has named LiveLive. Fans will be able to access support from a qualified team at each venue before and during Capaldi’s arena shows, which take place in 2020. There will also be designated help points for anyone struggling emotionally, an “escape room” for anyone who needs time out, and a gig buddy system for fans travelling alone. Capaldi has also established an email address where fans can contact a qualified support officer to discuss their concerns in advance of one of his concerts, and arrange to be accompanied into the venue if they require. He said in a statement that he is often contacted by fans who wish to see him live, but feel they can’t because … [Read more...] about Lewis Capaldi arena tour pledges help for fans with anxiety

“You think you’re the only person who wants to get a face-to-face interview with me? Get in line. I’m the best person you never met and one day, if you ever meet me, you’ll probably want to have my baby.” That’s Mark Kozelek, via email, which is the way he chooses to conduct his interviews (“So I don’t get quoted with words like ‘dunno’,” he told Uncut last year, explaining his refusal to meet interviewers in person). He was – via his PR – replying to my questions about Universal Themes, his new album under the name Sun Kil Moon. Three weeks ago, I had tried to arrange a face-to-face meeting for this piece. As expected, the answer was a polite no: “He’s too scattered and distracted on tour to conduct an in-person interview and he will have to pass, but he said to tell you thank you for asking.” Instead, I emailed my questions and approached his peers for supporting interviews, only later … [Read more...] about I interviewed Mark Kozelek. He called me a ‘bitch’ on stage