“Even as he evolved into their doctor, interpreter, educator and chief negotiator with outside buyers and suppliers, he often found himself in a paradoxical position: A Westerner committed to safeguarding the ancestral cultural traditions of a clan that was growing accustomed to – and even preferred – modern comforts.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Jeff Koons’s Latest Metaphysical Meditation Is – A Handbag?? Yes, A Whole Line Of Louis Vuittons, In Fact
Koons says, “They touch on the metaphysical: the right here right now and its connection to the past and the future. They’re about shine, the basics of philosophy, passion, what it means to be a human, what it means to be an animal, the idea of transcendence.” Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? Lady Bracknell is not amused.
Pennsylvania Ballet Dances On As Lights Go Out In Orchestra Pit
The company was performing its “Romance” program last Thursday (April 6) when the lights on the musicians’ stands flickered and then, in the woodwind and brass sections, went out completely. Yet the musicians played on and the dancers danced on. Peter Dobrin has the details.
Arkansas Lawmaker Tried To Ban Howard Zinn’s Books From Classrooms – And It Backfired
In response to a proposed law banning any books by, or even “concerning,” the late author of A People’s History of the United States, two nonprofits offered to send the book and related classroom materials to any Arkansas middle or high school teach or librarian who asked. Hundreds of them did.
Stolen Normal Rockwell Painting, Now Worth $1 Million, Returned After 40 Years
The 1919 oil-on-canvas work, known variously as Boy Asleep with Hoe, Taking a Break, and Lazybones, was stolen from the front hall of a Cherry Hill, NJ family home in 1976.
Little-Known Crucifix By Michelangelo, Now Restored, Returns Home To Florentine Church
“A painted wooden crucifix by Michelangelo Buonarrotti has returned to its original home, the Basilica of Santa Maria del Santo Spirito in Florence, after a fresh restoration and a year on the road. Carved by the artist when he was 18 or so, it’s one of his earliest extant works.”
‘Akhnaten’ And Mark Wigglesworth Win Opera Prizes At Olivier Awards
Phelim McDermott’s English National Opera production – starring a naked nude Anthony Roth Costanzo – of the Philip Glass opera about the iconoclastic pharaoh won for best new opera production, while conductor Mark Wigglesworth – who stormed away from the ENO’s music directorship in March of last year to protest funding cuts – was honored for outstanding achievement in opera for his conducting of Don Giovanni and Lulu at the company.
Crystal Pite, Matthew Bourne, English National Ballet Take Olivier Awards For Dance
“Crystal Pite and actor/playwright Jonathon Young won Best New Dance Production for Betroffenheit, their harrowing exploration of loss and grief [at Sadler’s Wells]. … Tamara Rojo has made some gutsy choices since becoming artistic director in 2012, and ENB’s Best Achievement in Dance Olivier ‘for expanding the variety of their repertoire with Giselle and She Said at Sadler’s Wells’ is just one more spot of validation. … Not only did he garner the Best Theatre Choreographer award for his production of The Red Shoes, Bourne also got to accept the award for Best Entertainment and Family, again for The Red Shoes.”
Last-Ever Round Of Annenberg Arts Fellowships Announced
“The Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund for the Performing and Visual Arts … has distributed $6 million to 70 [early-career] artists over 10 years … The program was intended from its inception to end this year – the technical term is a ‘wasting endowment,’ created to be spent and then concluded – so the 2017 recipients will be its last.”
New Yorker Theatre Critic Hilton Als Wins Pulitzer Prize For Criticism
“For decades, Als has been a highly visible public intellectual. … In addition to writing his regular columns for The New Yorker, Als is an author, photographer, curator, and overall cultural force.”