A stuffed toy – “sitting cross-legged, with a vacant stare on its face” – put up for sale on eBay by a young London artist has been adopted by Russian Photoshop wizards, “popp[ing] up in famous Russian paintings, riding the metro or taking instructions from a soccer coach. … Often, the images use the fox’s bizarre appearance to poke fun at figures of authority, a modern version of Soviet-era humor aimed at the powerful.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
No Retroactive Pritzker For Denise Scott Brown
Wrote the jury chairman, “A later jury cannot re-open, or second guess the work of an earlier jury, and none has ever done so … Let us assure you, however, that Ms. Scott Brown remains eligible for the Pritzker Award [in future].”
Meet The Top General In Egypt’s Culture Wars
“To his opponents,” culture minister Alaa Abdel Aziz “is an artistic nobody, a know-nothing pawn of the [Muslim] Brotherhood, bent on an Islamic morality campaign that threatens a cosmopolitan cultural scene.” But he “styles himself an outsider fighting to break the hold of a privileged elite over spending on the arts … and see that cultural spending reflects how democratic revolution has changed Egyptian society.”
Visiting The West Bank’s Only Ballet School
“Shyreen Ziadeh runs a dance studio in Ramallah, in the Palestinian Territories. It’s not what she dreamed of doing, but it’s all she can imagine doing these days. She introduces ballet to youngsters, and gives them a refuge from everyday life.”
Arts And Culture Is America’s Fastest-Growing Philanthropic Cause
“In terms of donations, arts and culture was Americans’ fastest-growing charitable cause in 2012, rising an estimated 7.8% to $14.44 billion, according to a leading annual research report on charitable giving.”
A Buddhist Monk Confronts Suicide In Japan
“Larissa MacFarquhar … talks with Sasha Weiss about the culture of suicide in Japan and how Ittetsu Nemoto’s belief in suffering as a path to self-knowledge has prepared him to help the suicidal.”
Netflix And DreamWorks Make Deal For Original Programming
“DreamWorks Animation, trying to lessen its dependence on the volatile movie business by aggressively expanding into TV programming, has decided to forgo cable television in favor of Netflix. In a multiyear deal announced early Monday, DreamWorks Animation will supply a flood of new episodic TV programs to the Internet streaming service.”
Canadian Opera Company Attendance Is Down – To 90%
“In 2011/12, the COC had 91 per cent attendance over 67 performances and the 2010/11 season saw attendance of 94 per cent over 66 performances.” The season just ended “achieved 90 per cent attendance throughout the season, which featured seven productions and 61 performances.”
Peter Grimes Performed On The Very Beach Where It Is Set
“So in the year of Britten’s centenary, the centrepiece of the Aldeburgh festival is its first ever production of Grimes, directed by Tim Albery on a set designed by Leslie Travers of dilapidated fishing boats and timbers built right at the water’s edge on the town’s shingle beach. The North Sea provides the backdrop to the performance.”
The Great Gay Novelist Of World War II (And His Inelegant Demise)
John Horne Burns was brilliant, handsome, egotistical, competitive, vainglorious, vicious, closeted, and very fond of alcohol. His now-forgotten 1947 book The Gallery was rapturously received as the first great novel of the War – a zenith from which Burns fell fall fast and hard.