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NY Review Turns 40

The New York Review of Books celebrates its 40th birthday; since 1963 it has been “the closest thing to a national literary journal in America, its distinctive white-paper bound magazine appearing at two-week intervals. Today, it’s a thick publication with 115,000 subscribers. It features lengthy reviews, journalism and commentary by an international list of writers both literary and political, and illustrations by David Levine.”

Buy A Beethoven

A movement of a Beethoven string quartet, written in the composer’s hand, is coming up for auction. Earlier this year a manuscript copy of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony sold for $3.47 million. “Unlike that manuscript, which was prepared by a copyist but had Beethoven’s corrections and comments on most of its pages, the quartet movement is entirely in Beethoven’s hand. Sotheby’s says it expects the manuscript to bring between $1.6 million and $2.5 million.”

Jack Valenti, Mogul Wrangler

Jack Valenti is 82, and he still runs the Motion Picture Association of America with consummate skill, just as he’s done for 37 years now. “What’s remarkable is he’s managed to hold all the companies together even though we’re often fractious among each other and competitive and have heavily divergent issues — some of us have networks, some have cable companies, some have theme parks, some have the Internet. We’re all often truly impossible to deal with. Jack has held us together.”

Choosing The Next Whitney Biennale

Three curators have chosen 108 artists for 2004’s Whitney Biennale. “While the 2004 biennial may be considered more conservative than biennials of the recent past, with its balance of midcareer and senior artists and unknowns, the mix has been intentional. ‘We deliberately set out to be very intergenerational. The last biennial focused on so many younger people, but some midcareer and senior artists we discovered are making the best work of their careers.”

Taking A Read Of China

“In China, as in America, there is a debate about what constitutes popularity in fiction: Are Yu Hua’s best-selling novels a concession to China’s newly consumerist culture or a necessary response to the intellectually serious but hopelessly academic “postmodern” fiction in fashion 20 years ago in China? Whereas in the United States this discussion is an aesthetic one, the debate in China has sharper teeth; American writers may fear the culture mafia, but at least they don’t have to worry about the Ministry of Culture.”

Narrowing What It Means To Be Warhol (Only Originals Count)

The Andy Warhol Authentication Board has decreed that any artworks the artist did not directly create will no longer be considered Warhol originals. “Andy Warhol often left assistants to ‘mass produce’ many of his most famous pictures, among them images of the Campbell soup tin. The decision means many art collectors are left with Warhol works which are now considered copies and therefore worth much less, and some are threatening to sue the board.”

Beethoven In China

Western European orchestral music has a big following in China. But until this month, Beethoven’s string quartets had never been performed as a complete set before. “The fact that it has taken this long for Beethoven’s quartets to be given this kind of hearing in a country where western orchestral music has built up an established, if still relatively small, audience may seem surprising. Why should the popularity of western chamber music lag that of western orchestral music?”

Christie’s Denied Wrongdoing In Stolen Painting Case

Christie’s says it alerted the seller of a painting thought to have been stolen by the Gestapo. The auction house says it was not obliged to tell heirs of the painting of its whereabouts or the authorities. “We do not have the legal right to breach our duty of confidentiality by contacting third parties without the vendor’s permission, nor did we have the right to withhold the painting from the vendor.”