“The ‘mad, bad, and dangerous to know’ Lord Byron was thought of as the embodiment of the ethereal poet, but he actually had a ‘morbid propensity to fatten’. Like today’s celebrities, he worked hard to maintain his figure. At Cambridge University, his horror of being fat led to a shockingly strict diet” of biscuits and soda water.
Author: Matthew Westphal
David Hockney Takes A Public Dig At Damien Hirst
“A small note on the posters for David Hockney’s forthcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy contains a sly dig at another superstar artist about to launch a major exhibition. The note reads: ‘All the works here were made by the artist himself, personally’.”
Hockney’s Potshot At Hirst – Maybe He’s Got A Point
“He’s saying that students used to be taught how to draw perfectly at the expense of their individuality. Now scores of students graduate from art colleges believing that everything they do or touch or say can be labelled a work of art but they couldn’t draw a rabbit if you held a gun to their heads. There you have it: the difficulty of teaching art in a nutshell.”
Why Audiences Love Farce (It’s Not Just The Jokes)
“The very structure of farce, with its preposterous scenarios and incomprehensible plots, echoes our own lives with uncanny exactness. The old rule may be that farce punctures respectability, but in today’s world it seems to be mirroring it, as the real-life people in power endlessly slip on banana skins, from MPs’ expenses to the pratfalls of the eurozone.”
The Ibsen Forgery That Rocked Scandinavian Theatre
“Geir Ove Kvalheim, a Norwegian scriptwriter and actor, … claimed to have discovered fragments of a previously unknown Ibsen play, The Sun God, a find that would have changed Norwegian literary history.”
Boston Mayor Wants Huge Increase In (Non-)Taxes On Museums, Non-Profits
Mayor Thomas Menino has introduced changes in Boston’s PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of Taxes) scheme, with a plan requiring any non-profit with more than $15 million in property to pay 25% of what they would owe in commercial taxes as for-profit businesses. Many museums would see payments quadruple over the next five years.
Massive Layoffs At Royal Danish Theatre, Opera, Ballet
Faced with a loss of 100 million kroner (roughly €13.5 million) in funding over the next four years, the Royal Theatre is eliminating 100 positions, including five senior management and 35 artistic jobs. At least three productions will be cut from the 2012 schedule as well.
Pittsburgh Symphony’s New CEO, And The Challenges He Faces
“When symphony president Larry Tamburri resigned abruptly on Nov. 14, the symphony was already facing multimillion dollar deficits and attendance issues. Suddenly, it also needed a leader to handle those problems.” The PSO got that leader the very same day.
John Buchanan, San Francisco Fine Arts Museums Director, Dead At 58
“[The] ebullient and controversial director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco since 2006,” who was known, and sometimes criticized, for his “flamboyant approach to audience building and institutional growth” by means of blockbuster exhibitions, “died Friday at his San Francisco home of cancer.”
Israel Philharmonic Sues Document Thief
“The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra submitted a request to a Jerusalem court last week to join the suit filed by the National Library against a collector who allegedly stole hundreds of valuable documents from their archives and put them up for sale on eBay.”