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Kyle Abrahams on why he is a political choreographer: “There are times when I do just want to make a dancey dance. … But for me, I always get to a certain point when I feel it’s a waste of time and energy. Being black and gay there’s so much that I’ve faced in my life that I can’t be oblivious to what’s happening in the world. I can’t put all that aside and say: ‘Let’s just choreograph this pretty picture.'”

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Oakland artist Girl Mobb got sick of graffiti being a boys club. So she to do something about it--with an all-girls graffiti camp.

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A plan by the design firm Snøhetta to remake Philip Johnson’s AT&T Building has sparked anger in the architecture world.  Ultimately the debate over the appropriateness of the redesign comes down to priorities. What’s more important: the integrity of an important work of architecture, or how well it functions as part of the contemporary city? Behind that question lurk others. How important is AT&T, really? (One scholar described it as “banal” and “a mediocre building” in 2015.) And how well can we assess a building’s role in architectural history at a remove of only 30-odd years? 

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The Washington Post’s great video dissecting the hardest moves of six members of the Washington Ballet.

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Are the B-52′s the most subversive band in American rock history? “The...genius of the B-52s isn’t quite acknowledged as much as it could be – even though the band invented new wave-wacky and was mindful about keeping ahead of the stylistic curve. … You can chalk up a lack of respect to the group’s kitschy veneer (and, more specifically, its penchant for making kitsch cool) unfairly superseding the music itself. That’s perhaps most galling: After all, the B-52s’ early LPs are gloriously weird without sounding forced or self-conscious.”

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New York’s Neue Gallery hosts a show devoted to an incredible fin-de-siècle Austrian artist with a short, scandalous and prolific career.  Richard Gerstl was a contemporary of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele but refused association with their work.  Killing himself at age 25, his entire oeuvre consists of 60 paintings. 

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MAD founder Ma Yansong has designed a range of sci-fi-inspired furniture, designed to be used when humans colonize Mars. 

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Ettore Sottsass, one of the main malcontents against the lack of emotion in modernism is getting some long overdue love in three shows exploring his designs and aesthetic.

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A dutch creative agency creates “happy” intersections in collaboration with planners.  It’s tactical urbanism that plays with iconography and text while maintaining safety.

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The Smithsonian’s Freer Sackler Galleries have made available 40,000 digital images of their collection of Asian and Middle Eastern Art.  

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Everybody is a new L.A.-based space designed to challenge the real and perceived barriers traditional gyms carry.  It outwardly promotes radical gender, racial, body type, and, generally, intersectional inclusivity.

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Casa Vicens, the first house Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí built, is set to become a museum this fall. 

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What would 18th-century Paris have sounded like?  French musicologist Mylène Pardoen, who’s been described as an “archaeologist of sound,” has created a sonic interpretation that layers things like pumps bringing water up from the Seine, blacksmiths stoking fires and working, cobblestones being trod on and even the odd rooster.

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“Martin Duplantier has conceived a series of pavilions, bridges, and observatories for a walking trail in China’s famed Wulingyuan scenic area. The ongoing project, which was awarded first place in a recent competition, intends to create a physical relationship with the natural landscape. Each intervention uses mirrored stainless steel for its structure, and black stone, that becomes reflective when wet, for the flooring.”

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Cristofori Piano: Sonata number 6 by Lodovico Giustini - YouTube

Dongsok Shin performs the Giga of Sonata number 6 in B flat major by Lodovico Giustini (1685-1743) on the earliest known surviving piano, made by the instrum...

Have a listen to the world’s oldest surviving piano. It’s a 1720 instrument by the inventor of the piano himself, Bartolomeo Cristofori, and Dongshok Shin plays one of the earliest pieces written for it. As long as you don’t expect the timbre of a Steinway grand (or the equal-temperament tuning Steinways typically use), the Cristofori sounds pretty good. 

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Catalan artist Victor Enrich Catalan “has envisioned a scheme he calls ‘Phalus 2020′, which depicts the original white house stacked 13 times on top of itself. The imposing structure mimics the president elect’s residental and hotel schemes, with an oversized golden trump logo crowning the tower.”

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What does the Trump win mean for the arts?  Trump’s tastes run to beauty shows and gold-plated belt buckles. His disinterest in the other arts does not bode well.