“The Victoria & Albert Museum is to start collecting contemporary paraphernalia, such as IKEA teddy bears and a pair of Katy Perry brand false eyelashes … [acquired] as part of a new tactic called ‘Rapid Response Collecting’.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Herb Jeffries, 100, Hollywood’s First Black Singing Cowboy
“With a towering physique and a square jaw,” not to mention musical chops honed with Duke Ellington’s band, “Mr. Jeffries was perfectly suited to capitalize on the singing-cowboy movie craze that Gene Autry and Roy Rogers popularized in the 1930s. Black performers … had appeared in silent westerns, but the Stetson-sporting, six-gun-toting Mr. Jeffries inaugurated the concept of a black singer riding in the saddle as the hero.”
So The Brits Don’t Want To Teach Steinbeck Or Harper Lee Anymore? They Should Teach These American Writers Instead
Literary historian John Sutherland offers a list of ten works, by authors from from Herman Melville to Toni Morrison to Emily Dickinson to Arthur Miller to James Fenimore Cooper. (Really?)
Do You Youngsters Even Know Who Stockhausen Was?
Tim Page reminds all you millennial types just why Karlheinz Stockhausen was important enough to make the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – and why it’s the composer’s own fault that a generation or two of music geeks has grown up more or less unaware of him.
Keep Spinoza Excommunicated!
For almost 90 years, fans of the philosopher have been agitating for his 1656 expulsion from the Portuguese-Jewish community of Amsterdam to be overturned. When that community’s leaders considered undoing that decree in 2012, they asked Spinoza scholar Steven Nadler for advice. He told them “there were no good historical or legal reasons for lifting the ban, and rather good reasons against lifting it.” Here, he explains why.
‘Kreutzer Strad’, Back On The Market, Could Fetch $10 Million
“A Stradivarius violin forgotten in a closet for decades and formerly owned by a reclusive U.S. heiress to a copper fortune could sell for as much as $10 million in a sealed bid auction next month, according to Christie’s.”
You Know What Else Is Up For Auction? Tracey Emin’s Bed
“Complete with vodka bottles, cigarette butts and pregnancy tests, the installation didn’t win the Turner prize during the year of its entry in 1999, … [but it did spark] a media frenzy and causing visitor numbers to the Tate Britain to hit record highs. Fifteen years on, it can be yours for an estimated price of between £800,000 and £1.2m.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.26.14
“The Idea Can Do Without Art”
AJBlog: PostClassic | Published 2014-05-26
L3C’s in the arts
AJBlog: For What it’s Worth | Published 2014-05-27
The Hidden News Behind The Saudi Museum Boom
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-05-27
Beyond the peter meter
AJBlog: Performance Monkey | Published 2014-05-26
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San Diego Opera CEO Would Not Have Gotten Big Payout If Company Shut Down, Says Contract
“[Ian] Campbell’s original 2006 employment agreement said he would receive his annual salary through 2017, even if the opera shut down. KPBS obtained a signed copy of an amendment to that employment agreement, dated June 26, 2010, stating that after 2013 the board could terminate Campbell’s contract with 30 days’ notice.”
Was It Unfair Of La Scala To Fire Alexander Pereira Before He Arrived?
“His plan was to bring four Salzburg productions to La Scala over the next three seasons, up to 2017, with further collaborations in the future … Pereira’s La Scala predecessor Stéphane Lissner did exactly the same: he put on four productions from Salzburg in his last four seasons. And by buying in shows from Salzburg, Pereira would have been saving La Scala money.”