Artist Christoph Büchel managed to get possession of the actual fishing boat in which hundreds of migrants drowned while trying to get from Libya to Italy in 2015 — and he entered it as is, with no identifying text, in this year’s Biennale as an artwork titled Barca nostra (Our Boat). Reactions to the piece have been strong, ranging from somber admiration to appalled denunciation. – The Art Newspaper
Author: Matthew Westphal
Andrei Kramarevsky, One Of America’s Most Influential Ballet Teachers, Dead At 90
He had had a long and successful career as a character dancer at the Bolshoi (he danced for Stalin) when he up and left in 1975; the next year, he turned up at Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in New York. Balanchine watched him teach a class and told him, “My dear, I’ve been waiting for you for 40 years.” – The New York Times
Yet Another Problem With Peter Zumthor’s Design For New LACMA Building: You Can’t Hang Paintings On Bare Concrete Walls
As if there weren’t enough issues with the damn thing already. As Christopher Knight writes, you could hang paintings on wires coming down from a high rail. (Bad idea in an earthquake zone.) Or you could drill holes in the wall, which is loud, expensive, and weakens the concrete. And LACMA want to rotate the collection constantly, so there would be a lot of rehanging. What were these people thinking? – Los Angeles Times
Turns Out Susan Sontag’s Actual First Book Was The One Her Husband Put His Name On And Made His Career With
A new biography by Benjamin Moser argues, citing previously unreleased correspondence as well as textual analysis, that Philip Rieff’s Freud: The Mind of the Moralist, which launched his academic career, was actually written (or rewritten) by Sontag, who had married Rieff when she was 17 — and that she relinquished rights to the book as part of her divorce settlement in order to avoid a custody fight over her son. – The Guardian
Rochester Philharmonic Music Director To Step Down
“Ward Stare, who in 2014 at age 32 became the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra’s youngest-ever music director following one of its most turbulent periods, will leave the job at the end of the summer in 2021.” – Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Boston Ballet Principal Retires To Direct Rhode Island’s Largest Ballet Company
“Kathleen Breen Combes, a star of Boston Ballet who has earned acclaim everywhere from Boston to New York and London, is retiring from the company after 16 years to become the new executive director of Festival Ballet Providence. [Her] final performance … is scheduled for June 9.” – The Boston Globe
Brazil’s New Gov’t Redirects Culture Funding Away From Rio And São Paulo — Sharing The Wealth? Or Punishing Bolsonaro’s Enemies?
The maximum amount granted for a project has been slashed from $15 million to $250,000, which is a blow to the largest arts projects in the two metropolises, and the government says explicitly that it wants to spread funding to underrecognized artists and underserved regions of Brazil. (Some 90% of federal arts funding has been going to São Paul and Rio.) On the other hand, the arts communities of those two cities campaigned furiously against the election of President Bolsonaro, and many wonder if this is payback. – The Rio Times
It’s Illegal To Be Gay In Tunisia, But These Brave Souls Put On A Queer Film Festival There
“Mawjoudin Queer Film Festival, in its second year, differs significantly from other film festivals: some participants wear badges that read ‘No Photos’; attendees were invited through a private Facebook page and were told not to geo-tag locations on social media; venues were revealed only in the final days before the festival.” – The New York Times
Collective Is Translating 100 Classic Indian Novels Into English For The First Time
The Indian Novels Collective was founded two years ago by four Mumbai professionals who realized that their growing children were reading Indian books written only in English — and missing out on a huge, high-quality body of work written in India’s dozen-plus regional literary languages. The INC expects to start publishing in 2020 under the Speaking Tiger imprint, and publishers in the rest of the English-speaking world are showing some interest. – Book Riot
Royal Ballet Begins Major Education Project In Far-Off Yorkshire Town
Working under the umbrella of the Royal Opera House and in partnership with local government, over the next three years the company will be giving workshops at every school in the town of Doncaster, expanding its Chance to Dance program for disadvantaged children to every local dance school, and performing for the first time ever in Doncaster. – The Stage