Yale University Press has banned not only the “notoriously controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad” from its fall title, “The Cartoons That Shook the World,” but also “any other illustrations of the prophet that were to be included, specifically, a drawing for a children’s book; an Ottoman print; and a sketch by the 19th-century artist Gustave Doré of Muhammad being tormented in Hell, an episode from Dante’s ‘Inferno’ that has been depicted by Botticelli, Blake, Rodin and DalÃ.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Cleveland Museum Of Art Lays Off 14
“The Cleveland Museum of Art, pressed by a plunge in the value of its endowment, eliminated jobs held by 14 employees on Tuesday and decided to leave another eight positions vacant. The cutbacks will enable the museum to balance budgets in its current fiscal year and in the fiscal year beginning next July, said outgoing director Timothy Rub.”
LACMA’s Junked Programs Offer Lesson For Film Fans
“I caution the film community to step back and look at LACMA’s history of support for the arts in general in recent years. … Saving the film program at LACMA without significant institutional support won’t be enough. LACMA has to first care as much about once more bringing together a broad arts community as it does about getting its hands on Eli Broad’s bank account.”
CTG Wins $1 Million Grant To Develop Experimental Works
“Experimental theater in L.A. is getting a significant financial boost thanks to a $1-million grant to Center Theatre Group’s new play production program from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The three-year grant will be used to develop stage productions with L.A.-based artists that use new technologies and a non-textual approach to performance, said CTG in its announcement Wednesday.”
Environmentalism Is All The Rage, But Not At Box Office
“[T]hree years after ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ won over moviegoers and Oscar voters, many new works are suffering the same fate plaguing other intellectually engaging films: moviegoers would rather hug Transformers than trees. … [B]ecause ticket buyers prefer escapist fare these days, it’s not easy being green.”
Making Art, Or Not, Aboard A Floating Artists’ Colony
“For the last two months artists have been floating around New York City on the Waterpod, a 3,000-square-foot experiment in community living and artistry. … Its systems run on solar power; its crew grows its own greens, collects its own rainwater. These things cared for each day, the notion was that the crew could work on more creative pursuits.” Turns out that’s not so easy.
David Mamet To Write, Direct Anne Frank Film
“The film will be an amalgamation of the famed diary; the stage adaptation by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich; and Mamet’s own original take on the material that could reframe the story as a young girl’s rite of passage.”
Appeals Panel Reduces Dreamspace Artist’s Fine
“The creator of an inflatable artwork which blew away, killing two women, won an appeal today against the £10,000 fine imposed on him for breaching health and safety regulations. Artist Maurice Agis, 77, who was convicted at Newcastle crown court of breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act by failing to ensure the safety of members of the public, had the penalty reduced to £2,500 by three judges at the court of appeal in London.”
Theatre Shouldn’t Come With A Money-Back Guarantee
Taking the stage after the opening-night performance of a Collaboraction production, actor Eddie Torres told the audience that refunds were available for anyone who hadn’t enjoyed the play. The pledge was a condition of an “unusual new endeavor from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation” that’s a well-intended, very bad idea, Chris Jones writes. “[A] piece of art is not a light fixture. And I think that such a speech is beneath the dignity of a fine artist like Torres.”
Naked Onstage, Dancing At The Fringe
“For most people, dancing naked in front of a large audience is the kind of classic nightmare from which one wakes up shaken – but relieved to be safely in bed. Not so, it seems, for the 16 dauntless women, ranging in age from their early 20s to their 50s, who are kicking, leaping and windmilling over an Edinburgh stage.”