Matthew Westphal – Page 2035 – ArtsJournal Wayback

It’s Not Easy To Be A Piano Teacher In Islamabad

J. Jerome has to deal with a shortage of instruments, an even greater shortage of tuners (he’s the only one in town), a near-total lack of spare parts – and, as a member of Pakistan’s small Christian minority, the threat of extreme Islamist militants who disapprove of music in general and Western music in particular. Yet he struggles on. (includes audio)

Behind the Scenes With The Actors Defying Europe’s Last Dictatorship

Leonard Lopate talks with documentarian Madeleine Sackler about her most recent subject: Belarus Free Theatre, which has wowed the West with the same shows it creates and performs in secret back home, constantly under threat from Alexander Lukashenko’s neo-Soviet regime. (audio)

The Acropolis’s Maidens Are Back In The Flush Of Youth

“For three and a half years, conservators at the Acropolis Museum have been cleaning the [Caryatids], Ionic columns in female form believed to have been sculpted by Alkamenes, a student of ancient Greece’s greatest artist, Phidias. … Today they are star attractions in the museum; the originals outside were replaced with reproductions in 1979 to keep the real maidens safe.”

The Worst Art I Ever Made (And The Good That Came Of It)

“Jen Doll speaks to a bunch of different creative types about what they’ve all learned from being bad at what they now do well.”

Lawsuit Seeks To Block Corcoran Gallery Takeover

“The advocacy group Save the Corcoran filed a motion today in D.C. Superior Court to intervene in proceedings that would result in the dissolution of the Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design … with its assets and functions divided between George Washington University and the National Gallery of Art.”

Why The ‘Save The Corcoran’ Lawsuit Matters

Philip Kennicott: “A simple dismissal of their right to be heard will render any subsequent decision in the case illegitimate in the eyes of many Washingtonians, including much of the local arts community. Artists are essential to the cultural and economic vitality of the District, and they are arguing, in clear and compelling terms, that tearing up William Corcoran’s deed is bad for the sector they represent. And that’s bad for all of us.”

The World’s Newest Hot Opera And Ballet Venue Is In – Astana (Where?)

“The new, spectacular opera house, the third largest in the world, with state-of-the-art acoustic design, seating for 1250, three stages, and a vast backstage area as big as an aircraft hangar (to enable the creation of the most elaborate possible sets, no expense spared), is in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.”

The Yorkshire Boy Who Joined The Mariinsky Ballet

Xander Parish “mov[ed] from ballet class in a salmon-pink-painted former church school to the gilded grandeur of the old Imperial Theatre, named after an empress and home to the most famous stars in dance … 1,222 miles as the bird flies – and an entire world away.” (includes video)

You Thought García Márquez’s Novels Were Great? Check Out His Journalism

“[He] is known in the English-speaking world for his lyrical, densely descriptive novels, but as a journalist he was acerbically funny, charming, and slightly bizarre. The young García Márquez devoured what surrounded him. Everything was raw material for his newspaper columns – film adaptations of Faulkner, nudism, dancing bears, the letter X, a woman he saw in an ice cream parlor who may have been the ‘ugliest I’ve ever seen in my life, or, on the contrary, the most disconcertingly beautiful’.”

Author: Matthew Westphal