“There is no truth in reports that The Guardian intends to stop printing newspapers. Our newspapers generate three-quarters of our revenue and will remain the foundations of our organisation for many years to come.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Director Says Uganda Gay Play ‘Was Supposed To Be Funny’
“David Cecil, 34, faces two years in jail over a production of The River and the Mountain, … about a gay businessman killed by his employees.” He says, “We were warned, but since the play is not politically motivated, nor does it in any way promote homosexuality or criticise the government, we were not remotely worried. … It is a comedy drama, not an advocacy piece.”
How To Save A Chicago Brutalist Landmark
“A familiar sort of preservation battle has been stewing for months here over the fate of the old Prentice Women’s Hospital, a concrete, cloverleaf structure from 1975 by Bertrand Goldberg, the Chicago architect.” The owner, Northwestern University, wants to demolish it, but the city’s newest starchitect, Jeanne Gang, has a rescue plan.
San Diego Orchestra’s Conductor Quits Two Days Before Season Opener
Jung-Ho Pak, who led the San Diego Chamber Orchestra through a rebranding as Orchestra Nova, apparently walked out when he couldn’t get “authority to fire musicians who he believed were not being demonstrative, expressive or dramatic enough.” This weekend’s concerts have been canceled.
Hilary Mantel Wins Second Man Booker Prize For Bring Up The Bodies
“The chairman of the Booker judges, Sir Peter Stothard, called Mantel ‘the greatest modern English prose writer’ working today, and said she had ‘rewritten the book on writing historical fiction’.”
Picasso, Monets, More Stolen From Rotterdam’s Kunsthal
“With impeccable timing and taste, thieves in the wee hours of Tuesday morning plundered an art museum in the Netherlands that was celebrating its 20th birthday and made away with seven borrowed paintings, including valuable works by Picasso, Monet, Gauguin, Matisse and Lucian Freud.”
Why Stealing Great Art Is A Bad Business Plan
Robert Wittman, founder of the FBI’s art crime team: “[Thieves] read in the newspaper about about the growing value of paintings and the new records that are set every year by Cézannes and Picassos, and then they think that they can get a payday by going out and doing a heist. What they don’t understand is that the value of art is dependent on three things: authenticity, provenance – the history of the art – and legal title.”
Indianapolis Symphony Musicians, Management Agree To Contract – At Least Through Groundhog Day
“The music returned to Hilbert Circle Theatre Tuesday after musicians and their employer reached agreement late Monday on two new contracts; one a ‘bridge’ agreement that will carry the organization through Feb 3, 2013, and one that starts the following day, providing that the Indianapolis Symphony Society reaches a lofty fundraising goal.”
Raoul De Keyser, Abstract Painter, Dead At 82
“[He] became one of the most respected painters of his time, but slowly. For much of his 50-year career he exhibited primarily in Belgium and the Netherlands, achieving international recognition” only in the 1990s.
Saudi Arabia’s Underground Cinema
“In a country with no public cinemas and where only a few films have been shown to the public in more than three decades, it is a radical step: a handful of film-makers in Saudi Arabia has launched a secret cinema group, showing their own films that explore social and political issues such as women’s rights, the lives of migrant workers, urbanisation and the belief in black magic.”