“[The Art Gallery of New South Wales’s] new wing, Sydney Modern, will step across the Cahill expressway and spill north down the Domain towards the harbour, under an ambitious plan to increase visits to the city’s pre-eminent gallery. But the latest plan, though more modest than the first version released in 2015, is still likely to spark a furious debate about the loss of open space in Sydney.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Toxic Culture? No, Everything’s Lovely Here, Say Queensland Symphony Chairman And Musicians
In response to a news report saying that staff turnover has been high and morale low at the Brisbane, Australia-based orchestra – with sources blaming music director Alondra de la Parra and CEO David Pratt – the QSO section principals released a statement supporting the two, and the board chairman said, “I know that morale is strong under David’s and Alondra’s leadership; we promote a culture of speaking up, of respect and achievement.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 11.16.17
Did Ken Griffin Buy the Leonardo (or provide $$$ for Art Institute of Chicago to acquire it)?
While we’re all still coming to terms with the fact that a damaged 26″ x 18″ oil-on-walnut painted panel has just sold for $450.3 million, here’s a potential scoop that is based on some data, … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-11-16
“Sotheby’s Drudgery”: My Storify on Contemporary Art Sale Short on Excitement
Last night’s Contemporary Art sale at Christie’s, headlined by a certain very non-contemporary religious painting, was a hard act for Sotheby’s to follow. It did interpose its own anomalous lot to jazz things up – a red Ferrari. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-11-16
The Art Of The Hidden Track, That Surprise On Your CD Or LP
We gained a lot when albums went fully digital, but we also lost a bunch of stuff along the way. Among the things we lost: Record sleeves, media towers, and Tower Records. We have digital equivalents of all these things, so it’s not like we necessarily miss them. But perhaps the one thing we lost that we’ll never get back is the hidden track. It was one of the few things about an album that couldn’t easily be converted to MP3 or Spotify. … Today’s Tedium analyzes the artform of the hidden track.”
How Big A Mess Was David Hallberg When His Foot Injury Nearly Ended His Career? This Big
“It turns out he was adrift in a sea of Carlton Draughts … During more than a year of self-imposed exile in Melbourne, he spent hours on park benches, washing away the pain of a wrecked career with six-packs of beer.” Sarah Kaufman looks at Hallberg’s new memoir.
Queen Victoria’s Fake Cranach Turns Out To Be Genuine
“For more than a century art historical experts have labelled a painting Queen Victoria bought as a Christmas present for Prince Albert a 19th-century fake. But a new generation of art historians has discovered they were wrong. Victoria and her advisers were correct when they bought the painting in 1840. It is a genuine work by the German master Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop.”
Looking Back At The ‘Gay Girl In Damascus’ Hoax And The Middle-Aged Married White Guy Who Pulled It
Tom MacMaster did some real damage with the blog where he pretended to be Amina Arraf, a young Syrian-American lesbian caught in Damascus when the Arab Spring arrived – especially when, about to be exposed, MacMaster posted that “Arraf” had been kidnapped. Kevin Young considers the hurt that the hoax caused to MacMaster himself, other individuals, and even the early rebellion against Bashar al-Assad.
Jeremy Hutchinson, Who Argued Some Of The Most Important Court Cases In Britain’s Cultural History, Dead At 102
He was one of the two attorneys whose groundbreaking defense prevailed in the 1960 obscenity trial of Penguin Books for publishing Lady Chatterley’s Lover; eleven years later, he won a more difficult case against Paul Ableman’s The Mouth and Oral Sex, establishing the “literary merit” argument. “He added a service to the arts by ending the cultural vandalism of Mary Whitehouse, whose attempt in 1982 to prosecute the National Theatre for staging Howard Brenton’s The Romans in Britain collapsed after his (and the Old Bailey’s) most remarkable cross-examination.”
Old Vic Investigation Turns Up 20 Complaints Of Sexual Harassment By Kevin Spacey
“An investigation opened by the theatre, following allegations that the actor had sexually assaulted young men while working [as artistic director] there, led to 20 people coming forward to report incidents of inappropriate behaviour up to 2013. … The Old Vic said a ‘cult of personality’ had existed around Spacey during his time as director and that his stardom and status had prevented people, particularly junior staff and young actors, from speaking out.”
New York Public Library Unveils (Another) New Master Plan
“The $317 million plan, approved by the board on Wednesday, will be the largest renovation in the history of the [system’s flagship] building, which opened in 1911. … [The plan] does not dictate any specific future for the most hotly disputed unused historic space in the building: its seven football-field-size floors of stacks, which have been largely empty since 2013.”