Skip to content
The BBC Sound Effects Archive now offers over 33,000 sounds for free download and released under a non-commercial use license. Note, especially for AEK, the “sound mixer” toggle to layer, edit and re-order clips from the archive to create your own sounds.
Iria Leino: 1968–1970, a solo exhibition at Harper’s Chelsea 512 gallery through 19 October. More about Leino’s remarkable life and work here.
For your summer holiday film list — Ayo Edebiri browses the Criterion Collection’s film closet. More Criterion closet picks here.
Zürich Opera’s new staging of Der Ring des Nibelungen was live streamed throughout May and is now available, on-demand and free of charge, until 15 June. Even if you are not a Wagner fan, Andreas Homoki’s production and Christian Schmidt’s neoclassical, rotating sets are worth a look.
From Business Insider’s series Still Standing, a look at La Maison du Pastel, a 300-year-old French company that makes pastels for artists by hand. A complete set of their pastels, packaged in three custom-made French oak chests, is available via their web shop for just under thirty thousand euros.
Remembering Alice Munro: “In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places.” More here.
The Mataaho Collective wins the Golden Lion at the 60th Venice Biennale for their monumental installation, Takapau. “I hope that young people…see our work and see that there are no boundaries to how they can connect to their Māoritanga or being a Māori practitioner. That you can be inspired by the work of our ancestors and follow a continuum of art-making that is of value, and really is a way to talk about who you are.” More here.
On maps that matter: the BBC revisits Fra Mauro’s mappa mundi at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, which presents a European view of the world thirty-three years before Columbus sets foot on Guanahaní. An interactive version of the map is here.
The moment Klaus Mäkelä was named music director designate of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: “Many maestros would take the opportunity to wax a little eloquent before getting down to business; Mäkelä spoke for less than 20 seconds before raising his baton to start the rehearsal.”
Cosmic continuity: today, Richard Serra died at the age of 85 at his home in Orient, New York, while a retrospective of Constantin Brâncuși’s work opened at the Centre Pompidou, Paris.