“Munich’s Haus der Kunst has cancelled an exhibition of the experimental video and performance artist Joan Jonas” – currently running at the Tate Modern in London – “that was to open in November, citing ‘a difficult financial situation stemming from management errors of the past.'”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Vladimir Voinovich, Satirical Author And Pre- And Post-Soviet Dissident, Dead At 85
“[In the 1970s, he] had been blacklisted after criticizing state censorship and defending dissidents such as novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and physicist Andrei Sakharov. … Through his subsequent exile in West Germany and the United States, his return to the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberalization policy of glasnost, and the rise of President Vladi¬mir Putin, Mr. Voinovich remained one of Russia’s most mordant critics of authoritarianism and bureaucratic corruption.”
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Fires Conductor Daniele Gatti
In a statement announcing the dismissal, the orchestra’s management said, “Since the publication of the article in The Washington Post, a number of female colleagues of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra reported experiences with Gatti, which are inappropriate considering his position as chief conductor … [The accusations have] irreparably damaged the relationship of trust between the orchestra and the chief conductor.”
Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery Tries To Ban Visitors From Discussing The Art
“[The] State Tretyakov Gallery has aimed its crosshairs at ‘illegal’ tours and said only certified guides with special badges are allowed to talk about the exhibits. As a result, security guards have been reprimanding ordinary groups of people discussing the art amongst themselves.”
Baku, Azerbaijan’s Capital, Aims To Become The Cultural Center Of The Caucasus
For much of the Soviet era, Baku actually was known for a busy arts scene, but it faded in the upheaval following the dissolution of the USSR. Now, flush with oil money and equipped with a flashy new cultural center designed by Zaha Hadid, Baku is rebuilding its arts scene. Stephan Rabimov gives us a survey.
Here’s Provocative Art That Really Provokes, And How Two Museums Are Handling It (Carefully)
At the University of Kansas’s Spencer Museum, one of the 16 flags in the project “Pledges of Allegiance” drew enough anger that the university president ordered it taken off the flagpole. The Blanton Museum at the University of Texas at Austin is displaying The City, Vincent Valdez’s life-size painting of a modern-day Ku Klux Klan meeting. Both museums expected controversy; Claire Hansen reports on how they prepared.
Mayr’s ‘Medea’ at Teatro Nuovo: Stars evolved and aligned for the opera and La Rowley
Giovanni Simone Mayr (1763-1845) is hardly the sexiest name in opera history, but he became exactly that between the hours of 4 and 8 p.m. on July 29 at Purchase College — make that 4:35 p.m. Mayr’s Medea in Corinto needed time to warm up.
Jewish Simcha: Acquisition of Early, Rare Hebrew Bible Celebrated by the Getty
In last month’s announcement of its recently purchased “Rothschild Pentateuch,” the Getty Museum hyped this monumental volume (1,180 folios, of which some 150 are decorated), as “the most spectacular medieval Hebrew manuscript to become available in more than a century.”
The lavishly, fancifully decorated pages easily live up to their billing as “spectacular.”
For Nico, Being An Icon Was A Problem
Michael LaPointe: “When she sang ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ in 1966, she wasn’t asking to become a permanent surface for our collective reflections. … Today she is best known for the songs she came to loathe. Of course, they’re also her catchiest, but I wonder if her artistic mission — a mission of destruction — is simply incompatible with any of the images we’ve made of her. We construct icons, but Nico was an iconoclast.”
Why Studying Literature Can Make Medical Students Into Better Doctors
“In particular, [a new paper] proposes that certain literary exercises, like rewriting short stories that involve ethical dilemmas, can expand doctors’ worldviews and make them more attuned to the dilemmas real patients face” than traditional medical ethics case studies do.