“If already not performing, … 50% of U.K. clients are planning a return to the stage in January 2021. Only 25% expect to be performing pantos in December 2020. In contrast, 63% of U.S. clients expect to return to performances in 2020. Dance and multi-disciplinary organizations are the most optimistic; dance’s optimism is likely fueled by the requirement of Nutcracker revenues to bring stability to the balance of the 2020-21 season.” – TRG Arts
Author: Matthew Westphal
Photo Taken By Thieves Of Stolen Van Gogh Made Public
The artist’s Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (1884) was taken by a robber from the Singer Laren Museum near Amsterdam on March 30. Now a “proof of life” photo, showing the painting between a May 30 newspaper and a biography of a (different) convicted Van Gogh thief, has been obtained by well-connected investigator Arthur Brand and turned over to authorities. – The New York Times
Art Dealer/Fugitive Angela Gulbenkian Arrested For Theft Of Andy Warhol Print And Yayoi Kusama Pumpkin
“Angela Gulbenkian, who married into one of Europe’s most prominent art families and allegedly leveraged their name to conduct fraudulent art deals, has been arrested in Portugal. The jet-setting art heiress is facing two charges of theft in the UK, including one in connection with the £1.1 million ($1.4 million) sale of a Yayoi Kusama pumpkin sculpture in 2017.” – Artnet
Orchestre De Paris Names Music Director
Klaus Mäkelä, a 24-year-old Finnish cellist and conductor who is already at the helm of the Oslo Philharmonic, starts in his Paris position in the fall of 2022. He succeeds Daniel Harding, who left the orchestra for “artistic reasons” last summer after only three years and started working as a commercial airline pilot. – Gramophone
PHILADANCO At 50
“Movers & Makers sits down with Founder & Artistic Director Joan Myers Brown for an engaging discussion on how she dealt with overwhelming bias to attain success in the world of dance as a ‘Black Ballerina’ in the era of segregation. We also talk with Brenda Dixon Gottschild, author of a biography on Brown.” (video) – WHYY (Philadelphia)
To This We’ve Come: A Reality Show Where Men Compete To Impregnate A Woman
Jessa Crispin: “Despite being pretty in a Getty-stock-image kind of way, and despite being a successful holistic health and beauty expert, Kristy has not yet found her fantasy husband. So she has turned to reality television programming to help her out. That’s the premise of the new show Labor of Love, in which 15 men compete to be the ‘one’ honored with impregnating the show’s heroine. As I watched her journey toward motherhood unfold, I thought, finally. Finally, someone has found a way to make a buck off the fracturing of the American family.” – The Guardian
What Other Governments Are Spending To Save Their Nations’ Arts Sectors From COVID Collapse
From prosperous Germany (a €1 billion rescue package) to destitute Madagascar (distributing bags of rice to out-of-work artists), here’s what ten countries are doing to mitigate the damage that the pandemic and shutdown have done to cultural institutions and arts workers. – The Guardian
How I Co-Wrote An Opera About A Black Policeman’s Son Shot By Another Policeman
Tazewell Thompson, creator, with composer Jeanine Tesori, of Blue, which the Music Critics Association of North America has named best new opera of the year: “I wrote it from an obsessive need and sense of responsibility to tell an intimate story behind the numbing numbers of boys and men who are killed. But here we are now: art imitating life, life imitating art. Unfortunately, the themes in Blue have no expiration date. … Our eyes will never be free of tears.” – The New York Times
Has Somebody Really Figured Out How To Decipher The Voynich Manuscript This Time?
“Any attempts to decipher the manuscript’s unique text, made up of a mixture of handwritten Latin letters, Arabic numbers, and unknown characters, have so far failed. … Now, after three years of analysis, the German Egyptologist Rainer Hannig … believes he has cracked the code to translating the work, and found the manuscript’s language to be based on Hebrew.” – The Art Newspaper
Relieved Yet Wary, Customers Start Returning To London’s Bookshops
This week book retailers in England have reopened to the public (with limits on how many people may be on the premises at a time) for the first time since the pandemic-induced shutdown began three months ago. Alex Marshall visited half a dozen bookstores around the capital to check on the mood. – The New York Times