“Velvet Underground, the 1960s avant-garde rock band, has settled a fight with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts over the rights to an iconic pop art image of a banana that graced the band’s best-known album.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
The World’s New Capital Of White Marble Monuments
You’ll all remember Turkmenistan’s President-for-Life Saparmurat Niyazov – aka Turkmenbashi – widely considered the world’s weirdest dictator until his death in 2006. Thanks to his edifice complex, his capital city now has a new spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Jailed Pussy Rioter Hospitalized Following Hunger Strike
“A jailed member of the infamous Russian protest group Pussy Riot who went on a hunger strike last week was hospitalized on Tuesday … Maria Alyokhina, 24, is serving a two-year prison sentence for her part in an anti-President Vladimir Putin protest song the group performed last year in Moscow’s main cathedral.”
Oregon Symphony Musicians Give Up Pay To Balance Season’s Budget
“The slow, relentless shrinking of the Oregon Symphony continues as the musicians agreed this week to forgo $315,000 in pay … Faced with a budget gap foreseen last October, symphony officials asked the musicians to waive their annual, end-of-season payment, the equivalent of two-and a half weeks of salary.”
Filmmaker Zhang Yimou Joins Major Chinese Online Media Portal
“By joining Le Vision Pictures, the filmmaking arm of the online film and TV portal LeTV, the 61-year-old director brings an end to his spell as an unattached artist after his acrimonious split last year with longtime producer Zhang Weiping.”
Culture Wars In Poland Over 2010 Air Disaster That Decimated Government
“On a foggy April morning in 2010, the Polish president’s plane crashed over Smolensk in eastern Russia, killing him and 95 other members of Poland’s political and military elite, traumatizing the nation and opening a bitter political divide over what caused the disaster. Now the fissures have spread to the cultural realm, as filmmakers, writers and artists fiercely debate how – or even whether – to portray this still-visceral history.”
Miami Ballet Troupe Serves As Halfway House For Defecting Cuban Dancers
“The Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami operates out of an old white mansion in Little Havana. Just like any company, the dancers are starting their day with ballet class. But what makes this company different is that it’s a holding station for dancers who defect from Cuba, a place where they can stay in shape and get help finding permanent jobs.”
Sergei Polunin, Ballet’s Prodigal Runaway, ‘Pretty Sure’ He’ll Show Up For Next London Gig
Last year he abruptly left his job as principal with the Royal Ballet; in April he abandoned a London adaptation of Midnight Express three days before opening. After apologizing for the latter incident (he blamed a “health issue … I couldn’t even explain”), Polunin says he does plan to appear in Coppélia at the Coliseum this summer.
What’s Going On With Sergei Polunin, Anyway?
“Friends and fans watched with trepidation as the wilder elements of the Polunin story emerged: a self-professed desire to quit ballet at the age of 26; … self-comparisons with Alexander the Great; lurid accusations that there was a ‘British mafia’ at Covent Garden … So what do we have in Mr Polunin: deep-thinking artistic genius or spoilt brat? The answer is: probably neither.”
Aleksei Balabanov, Top Post-Soviet Russian Filmmaker, Dead At 54
“[He] saw himself as the ‘anti-establishment rock’n’roller of Russian film’ with an aim to make ‘scandalous, harsh cinema’. Many of Balabanov’s films are metaphorical black comedies that gaze unflinchingly at the bleakness and violence of the last days of communism and post-Soviet society.”