“When people ask if she seemed high or drunk, she didn’t. She seemed like someone who had actually gone off medication – anxious and rocking back and forth and a lot of activity and about to explode with emotional anxiety. … At one point in the first set she even said, ‘You all seem very nice, but I’ve been in rooms of nice people before and sometimes they turn on you.'”
Author: Matthew Westphal
BBC Staff Announce Second One-Day Strike
“Journalists and technical staff at the BBC have agreed to stage strike action on Thursday, March 28, walking out for 12 hours in a dispute over changes at the corporation. … The unions claim problems of workload and harassment have led to conditions they liken to a ‘modern-day BBC sweatshop’.”
Willa Cather’s Letters To Be Published After 66-Year Embargo
“For decades Willa Cather has been a peculiar enigma in 20th-century American literature: beloved by ordinary readers for vivid evocations of frontier life … but walled off from closer personal scrutiny by some of the tightest archival restrictions this side of J. D. Salinger.” That will change next month.
David Hockney’s Assistant Dies Suddenly
“A post mortem found ‘no obvious natural causes’ for the death of British artist David Hockney’s assistant” – 23-year-old Dominic Elliott – “who died after falling ill at the painter’s home … in Bridlington in northeast England early on Sunday.”
Russia’s Favorite Crime Writer, Boris Akunin, Turns Historian
“Grigory Chkhartishvili, the best-selling Russian writer known for his detective novels set in imperial Russia (written under the name Boris Akunin), and for his foray into opposition politics directed against Vladimir V. Putin announced that from now on he would devote himself to writing a multivolume history of Russia.”
Crystal Bridges Goes On Impressive Acquisition Spree
“Fortified by three major 20th-century acquisitions made last fall … the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is making sweeping changes in its post-war permanent collection galleries. … Reviewers have criticised the post-war galleries as the weakest part of the collection ever since the [Arkansas] museum, lavishly financed by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, opened in November 2011.”
Ai Weiwei’s Next Big Artwork: 1,000 Tents
“Aus der Aufklärung (Out of enlightenment) will consist of 1,000 tents, installed along the Emscher river” in Germany’s Ruhr Valley region. Each tent – hand-crafted, unique, and big enough for two to three people – will be available for rent by the night for what the Emscherkunst Triennial’s curator calls “a low, symbolic price”.
Sydney Opera House Cancels Spring Dance Festival
“Too expensive and not popular enough. That’s the harsh verdict on contemporary dance delivered by the Sydney Opera House, which has ended Spring Dance, Sydney’s International Dance Festival, after just three years.”
Bolshoi Theatre To Get Government Audit
“The Audit Chamber said the investigation into the use of public funds had been planned in advance and isn’t linked to the accusations of financial abuse raised by a dancer who was arrested earlier this month on charges of staging an acid attack on the [ballet’s] artistic director Sergei Filin.”
Australia’s Arts Minister Sacked; New Cultural Policy In Jeopardy?
On Thursday, Simon Crean, the veteran politician who introduced the comprehensive policy to general acclaim last week, led a sudden challenge to Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s leadership of the Australian Labor Party. When the coup failed, Gillard fired Crean from the ministry, and for now no one is certain of what will happen to the cultural plan Crean oversaw.