Author: Matthew Westphal

Thinking Through The Repatriation Of African Art

Apollo editor Thomas Marks: “Restitution often feels like a disquieting concept for many Western museum-goers (myself included), for whom the values one invests in museums are unlikely to correlate with the political or intellectual projects that led to the formation of their collections.” (In other words, don’t punish museums now for what collectors did back then.) Even so, “90% of the material cultural legacy of sub-Saharan Africa remains preserved and housed outside of the African continent.” — Apollo

A Little Chinese Arthouse Film Sets New Box Office Records — Because Its Marketers Tricked The (Now-Angry) Public

Filmmaker Bi Gan’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, described by a correspondent as a “dreamy pseudo-noir,” grossed nearly $38 million on its first day, nearly unheard of for an art flick in China. How? That first day was Dec. 31, and the producers marketed the film (no relation to the Eugene O’Neill play) as the perfect romantic date flick for New Year’s Eve. The overnight reaction on social media was not pretty. — Variety

The Oscar Niemeyer Modernist Landmark That ‘Could Collapse At Any Time’

There are 15 buildings designed by the Brazilian architect in the 1960s for what was meant to be a permanent international expo in the Lebanese port city of Tripoli. The civil war that started in the ’70s forced planners to abandon the project, and it’s been more or less abandoned ever since. But now that Tripoli is finally reviving, there’s a campaign to revive and rebuild Niemeyer’s complex. — The Guardian

Using Dungeons And Dragons To Teach High Schoolers English Lit

“Instead of assigning the same old essays about Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales, [Sarah Roman] wove classroom assignments into an epic adventure for her students to play their way through. By the end of the semester, Roman said her students remembered more about the lessons and had developed relationships with the texts that they wouldn’t have gotten from a standard assignment. — WNYC (New York City)

Jack Zunz, 94, Engineer Who Made Sydney Opera House Happen

When preparing for construction of architect Jørn Utzon’s design, the Opera House’s original lead engineer could not get his structural calculations for the now-famous roof to work out, and he quit; Zunz took over and used then-new computer modeling techniques to solve the engineering puzzle. And when, during the cost-overrun-plagued construction, Utzon got tired of fighting with politicians and walked away from the project, Zunz saw it through to the end. — The Guardian