“A police spokesman said works by Picasso, Matisse, Georges Braque, Amedeo Modigliani and Fernand Léger were reported missing early this morning from the Paris Museum of Modern Art. … A single masked intruder was caught on a CCTV camera taking the paintings away, according to the prosecutor’s office.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Arakawa, Whose Work Battled Aging, Death, Dies At 73
Conceptual artist and designer Arakawa and his wife, Madeline Gins, “explored their philosophy, which they called Reversible Destiny, in poems, books, paintings and, when they found clients, buildings. … All of it was meant, the couple explained, to lead its users into a perpetually ‘tentative’ relationship with their surroundings, and thereby keep them young.”
When The Pritzker Prize Is Handed Out On Ellis Island
“[F]or the huddled masses yearning to partake in architecture’s biggest night of the year, head lice exams gave way to X-ray scanners, as design titans, masters of the universe and assorted well-coiffed others awkwardly deposited their Constructivist jewelry and Ferragamo belts in plastic bins on conveyors.”
Safeguarding The Acoustics At Buenos Aires’ Colon Theater
“While as many as 1,200 builders and craftsmen worked simultaneously on reconditioning the Carrara marble staircase, gold-leaf detailing and statue-studded façade of the 102-year-old building, the most complicated part of the $100 million renovation was to preserve the acoustics….”
Gerard Mortier Got Handsome City Opera Severance
“Mortier earned a salary of $65,000 and ‘severance’ of $335,000. City Opera hired Mortier in February 2007 when he was still helming the Paris Opera. He was expected to take up his position in New York in September 2009,” but he “resigned in November 2008, saying City Opera’s budget cuts … prevented him from fulfilling his vision.”
After Law & Order: A New Show To Fill Actors’ Playbill Bios
“‘The Good Wife’ is set in Chicago, yet its creators and writing team, Michelle and Robert King, said they decided to film in New York because [star Julianna] Margulies wished to remain based there. But they added that Ms. Margulies and Mark Saks, the show’s casting director, were passionate advocates of the city’s distinguished ranks of theater actors.”
Ghosts, Ghostbusters Descend On New York Public Library
“The scene, a re-enactment of the movie [‘Ghostbusters,’] was a prank by the group Improv Everywhere. And the library was in on it. The performance was part of the library’s campaign to fight against a proposed $37 million budget cut.”
UK To Increase National Lottery Arts Funding
UK Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt “said arts and heritage would ultimately benefit by £50m a year each from changes to the share of cash allocated to them. … Mr Hunt also outlined plans to increase philanthropic giving to the arts through a shake-up of gift aid.”
A First For Wimbledon: Tournament Acquires Official Poet
Imagine this happening at Flushing Meadows. “Matt Harvey will write a poem every day during the two-week competition in south-west London next month. The Championships Poet 2010 will publish his verses – about anything from racquet stringers to strawberries and cream – online and in podcasts.”
Philadelphia’s Baroque City Hall Makes A Comeback
“‘Silent, weird, beautiful,’ Walt Whitman observed coming upon the still-uncompleted structure one night, ‘a majestic and lovely show there in the moonlight.'” Restoring the building has demanded “almost 20 years of work,” and the “results have been so extraordinary that Philadelphians forget how dreadful the place looked for so many decades.”