Philip Kennicott: “What it does well, it does as well or better than any museum in the country … bearing with it something that most historians and museum professionals may have thought was long discredited: the ‘master narrative’ idea of history, that there is one sweeping human story that needs to be told, a story that is still unfolding and carrying us along with it.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Another Classical Music Critic’s Job Is Gone: David Patrick Stearns To Leave Philadelphia Inquirer
Faced with the almost-certain elimination of his position, Stearns has accepted a buyout offer from the paper after more than 17 years.
Masha Gessen, Jesmyn Ward, Robin Benway, Frank Bidart Win 2017 National Book Awards
“At a glitzy gala in New York City on Wednesday night, four writers emerged with one of the world’s most illustrious literary prizes, the National Book Award: Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, won for fiction; Masha Gessen’s The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, for nonfiction; Frank Bidart’s Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016, for poetry; and Robin Benway’s Far from the Tree, for young people’s literature.” (includes video of complete ceremony)
$450 Million – Leonardo’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ Is Now The Most Expensive Artwork In History
“After 19 minutes of dueling, with four bidders on the telephone and one in the room, Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi sold on Wednesday night [at Christie’s] for $450.3 million with fees, shattering the high for any work of art sold at auction. It far surpassed Picasso’s Women of Algiers, which fetched $179.4 million at Christie’s in May 2015.”
Philadelphia Orchestra Names Two Interim Co-Presidents To Succeed Allison Vulgamore
“Matthew Loden and Ryan Fleur will share administrative leadership, with the title of interim co-presidents, as the orchestra looks for a successor to … Vulgamore,” who departs Dec. 31. “Fleur and Loden are currently executive vice president for orchestra advancement and executive vice president for institutional advancement, respectively.”
Documenta Promises This Year’s Massive Deficit Won’t Derail The Next Festival
“The dates have been set for the next Documenta, the pace-setting quinquennial German contemporary art exhibition, allaying fears that the future of the show was in doubt after this year’s edition ran over budget and caused a deficit expected to be €5.4m at the end of the year. The city of Kassel is able to shoulder the extra costs incurred by the 2017 extravaganza, the mayor says.”
This Movie Drew So Many Violent Protests In Russia That – They’re Making It Into A TV Series
Russian Orthodox extremists have demonstrated, made death threats, and even committed arson to protest Matilda, a romantic period film about a ballerina with whom the young Nicholas II had an affair before he married. (The last tsar, now considered a saint and martyr, would of course never have done such a thing.) So director Alexei Uchitel announced that he’s expanding it into a four-part miniseries.
‘Toxic’ Office Culture Leads To Massive Staff Turnover At Queensland Symphony: Report
“Twenty-seven full-time and part-time staff have left [the Australian] orchestra in just 21 months, an unusually high turnover rate for the company which currently lists 26 people on its staff. … Orchestra insiders claim that morale at the QSO is ‘toxic’ and an external consultant has been contracted to improve morale and company cohesiveness. Former staff describe scenes of ‘backstabbing, gossip and shouting matches’ among administrative staff and management.” At fault, allege current and former staffers, are music director Alondra de la Parra and CEO David Pratt.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 11.15.17
Another classical music critic is sent into the night … and this time it’s me.
Life in the newspaper world these days can’t help but feel like Russian Roulette. With every wave of layoffs, my position has seemed that much closer to its end. And I’m surprised that I lasted as long as I did. … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2017-11-15
Soft power and the arts (2/3)
The British Council and the University of Edinburgh have teamed up to prepare an empirical analysis of the actual effects of soft power (my introduction on soft power and the arts is here). How does … read more
AJBlog: For What it’s Worth Published 2017-11-15
“Ballsy Bidding”: My Storify on Leonardo’s (& Christie’s) $450-Million Jesus Superstar
That surely wasn’t the Getty or any other public (as opposed to single-collector) museum who plunked down a jaw-dropping $450 million after a dramatic 19-minute bidding war, the likes of which I’ve never seen, … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-11-15
How Cities Develop Collective Moral Codes (And How Easily They Can Break Down)
“Cities are very unequal places. They are mixtures of very rich people and very poor people, very connected people and very disconnected people, people with a big inheritance and people that are utterly disinherited. The interesting question is why – despite extreme, structural, long-term, ongoing inequalities – these places cohere in some fashion. They cohere so long as a basic premise doesn’t get violated.” Michael Ignatieff talks with CityLab about how those premises arise.