“An American Family, a PBS series created by filmmaker Craig Gilbert, chronicled the Loud family of Santa Barbara, Calif. — Bill, Pat and their five children — for seven tumultuous months. … In the course of the series, the family home almost burned down in a wildfire, the children, ranging in age from 13 to 20, tested their freedom, and Bill and Pat struggled with a marriage that unraveled to the breaking point — all in full view and judgment of the world.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
As MoMA Expands (Again), Fed-Up Staffers Consider Striking (Again)
“Legions of museum staff at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) are racing to meet deadlines as the New York City institution undergoes a $450 million renovation and expansion, its second major overhaul in two decades. But due to stalled union negotiations over issues such as raises for longtime employees, healthcare costs, and job security for entry-level curators, more than 250 of them have been working without a contract since May 20th and are inching closer to going on strike for the first time since 2000, when the museum was about to close for its previous expansion project and significantly reduce its workforce with little guarantee that past employees would be hired back.”
Pay For Music Directors At US Orchestras Soars To New Highs
“The average compensation for the music directors of 64 American ensembles … [has] topped $600,000 for the first time.” For the 2015-16 season, nine music directors were paid more than $1 million; Jaap van Zweden in Dallas and Riccardo Muti in Chicago made more than $3 million each.
ACT UP Protests Whitney’s David Wojnarowicz Show (It’s 1990 Again)
“On Friday evening, the New York chapter of AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, more commonly known by its acronym, ACT UP, staged a protest-cum-performance at the Whitney Museum, alleging that the Manhattan institution’s current career retrospective of the late artist and writer David Wojnarowicz fails to connect his legacy of rageful AIDS activism to the ongoing battle against the epidemic.”
Disney, Fox Shareholders Approve $71.3 Billion Acquisition Deal
“Walt Disney and 21st Century Fox shareholders on Friday voted in favor of a $71.3 billion deal, in which Disney will acquire large parts of Fox, including the 20th Century Fox film and TV studios, Fox’s entertainment cable networks and its international assets.”
Louvre’s Delacroix Exhibit Was Most Visited In Museum’s History
“A record half a million people went to the Louvre’s Eugène Delacroix blockbuster, which is headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the fall. The survey brings together 180 works that span the French painter’s career. With nearly 540,000 visitors, it is the busiest show in the history of the Paris museum.”
Remains Of 1,800-Year-Old Library Discovered In Cologne
The walls of the structure, which dates to the second century, included niches for storing several thousand scrolls. Access to the ruins will be preserved when the construction project that unearthed them is complete.
Local Gov’t Funding For Arts In UK Has Fallen 11% In Past Five Years
“The £8.8m budget cuts for 2018/19 extend the ongoing decline in [local] councils’ cultural spending, which has fallen by roughly £48m over the past five years. … Several large councils have cut their culture budgets entirely. This does not necessarily mean they have turned their backs on the arts. Some have transferred responsibility for culture to an independent entity, while others are balancing their budgets with raised income. A few that once allocated money for the arts now plan to turn a profit from cultural activities.”
Alex Ossadnik Named Artistic Director Of Ballet Wichita
“Ossadnik was a principal dancer with the German National Theater from 1987 to 1991, after which he danced in France with the Ballet Theatre de Bordeaux from 1991 to 1995. Since moving to the United States in 1995, he has worked with various companies across the country and maintains a relationship with the Balanchine Trust.” For the last decade, he was ballet master at Ballet Idaho.
YBAs of the 19th Century
Remember the Young British Artists of the ’80s and ’90s – Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, and so on? Their 19th-century counterparts were the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, led by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. For the first time, a major museum show has matched the Pre-Raphaelites’ work with that of the Old Masters who inspired them.