“One of the constants of human history is that the creation of great art is dominated by the young–the median age of peak accomplishment is forty–and the milieu in which great art is created is surely facilitated by energy, freshness of outlook, optimism, and a sense of open-ended possibilities. We must assume that all of these will be in shorter supply than in the past now that our society is increasingly populated by the old.”
Month: May 2012
Alabama Arts Executive Pleads Guilty To Embezzlement Charges
“Laura Harris Phillips embezzled $98,000 from the Carnegie [Visual Arts] Center. She also took $41,000 from the Alabama Museum Association, where she served as treasurer.”
Tribeca Film Festival Sets Up Outpost In Florence
“Tribeca Enterprises, the parent company of Robert DeNiro’s Gotham-based festival, has partnered with IMG Artists to bring film premieres to the Tuscan Sun Festival, which runs June 11 to 18 in the historic Italian municipality.”
Marina Abramovic Plans Her New Center
“‘I say to them, I would like to make a levitation room, I would like to have a digital temple,’ Ms. Abramovic said of her conversations with the architects. ‘There will be a room for drinking water and drinking water in slow motion.'”
A Passion Play At The Louisiana State Prison
The Life of Jesus Christ, a 3½-hour production with a cast of 70, “featured men from Angola and women from the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women, who traveled an hour and 40 minutes by bus each morning from St. Gabriel to this 18,000-acre prison farm on the Mississippi River. Much of the cast was in rehearsal on and off for two years.”
Embattled Charleston Ballet Theater Forms New Board To Begin Turnaround
The strife-torn company, which in February saw seven board members resign at once (leaving the board without a quorum), has assembled a new slate of directors and hired an interim director of artistic operations to begin a four-year plan aimed at stabilizing the company – financially and otherwise.
Joffrey Boss Won’t Let Choreographers Ill-Treat His Dancers
Artistic director Ashley Wheater: “Sometimes, I’ve had to sit a talented visitor down, and explain that I’ve worked hard to make a positive environment at the Joffrey, that my dancers and my company aren’t here to be beat up.”
Plans For London Black History Archive Set Back As Construction Firm Fails
“Ambitious plans to create the first permanent home for a unique archive, covering centuries of black history in Britain, have been hit by the collapse of the building firm working on the Heritage Lottery Fund-backed £6.5m project.”
Stradivarius Cello Falls Off Table, Breaks Its Neck
A source at the Royal Palace in Madrid says that “experts had set the cello on its side padded with foam so they could photograph it but it tipped forward and knocked against a table, breaking its neck from the body.”
Indians Annoyed That The Avengers Shows Calcutta Slums
“‘When will Hollywood stop cashing in on the poverty here?’ says Rishabh Bal, a bank employee. ‘There is no reason to be happy about the Indian connection. It has become a trend in the west to show Indian slums and a Westerner trying to help the poor here,’ says Nitin Bhatia, a software professional.”