Blog

Cuban Artists Increasingly Kept Out Of US

Increasingly, cultural events in the US featuring Cuban artists(primarily in south Florida) are having to be canceled because the US is failing to issue visas. “We did everything on time, knowing all that is happening with the visa process – and nothing. Some big name writers have declined to participate in the Book Fair all together because they don’t want to endure the humiliation they are being put through in this process. This situation is creating tension, ill-will, and is hurting our cultural events.”

Shakespeare As Glamorous Global Hamburger

Rome has built itself a replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. “The Roman Globe will no doubt be celebrated as yet further evidence of the ‘universality’ of Shakespeare’s art. Unfortunately, by the same reasoning, the conquest of Italian city centres by the McDonald’s franchise demonstrates the universality of hamburgers (hamburger, in Italian slang, means ‘fool’). Don’t be misled by the difference in the product being sold: the Globe is the perfect icon of globalisation. Globalisation replaces many cultures with one, and the language of that new international monoculture is English.”

Cross-Gender Confusion

Cross-arts collaborations are all the rage in London. “Collaborations at their best can be energising creative moments produced by artists headed in unexpected new directions; about extraordinary melting pots of ideas. Or they can be a disaster, like the Steve McQueen and Jessye Norman encounter. They should also be undertaken with enormous care. Hitherto, there have been a few certainties about the capital’s artistic life: the Wigmore was the home of chamber music and song; the ENO was the home of opera in English; Sadler’s Wells was the home of modern dance. One might have found those certainties deadening or dull, but at least it was clear what those organisations were for. There’s a problem with mixing it all up: you can get all mixed up.”

Forsythe: New Movement Required

As choreographer William Forsyth contemplates moving on from the Ballett Frankfurt, he says his priorities in dance have changed. “He is interested in subtler, more inward kinds of movement in dancing that is more ‘behavioural’ than display, in dance that requires new arenas and new ways of working. He wants the freedom to work outside theatres, in smaller, more versatile spaces. ‘Theatres are inherently ideological. It’s us – the dancers – and them, the public. What about finding other ways of being together’?”

Royal Shakespeare Homeless In Capital

The Royal Shakespeare Company is running out of time. If the company can’t find a theatre by the end of the week, it will be the first time in 40 years the RSC hasn’t performed a season in London. “If, as seems likely, that deadline passes without a result, it will be the first time in the RSC’s history that its Stratford season has failed to transfer to the capital. As so often happens with the Bard, tragedy has followed farce: the RSC’s disastrous decision to quit its long-standing London home at the Barbican is blamed for its embarrassing predicament.”

The Whitney – Digging Out Of A Hole

The Whitney Museum is deep in trouble. “Adam Weinberg, its former curator of collections, recently director of Andover’s Addison Gallery, returned as its director on October 1. Weinberg is an encouraging choice; he’s smart, convivial, knows the board, and loves art. In order to save this ailing institution, however, he must do several thorny things while standing up to its pesky trustees.”

Kramer: Lamenting The Barnes Deal

While some are celebrating the imminent move of the famed Barnes Collection to Philadelphia, Hilton Kramer writes that the deal is a dark one with big implications. “The enemies of the late Albert C. Barnes (1872-1951) are about to achieve their fondest desire: the ‘legal theft,’ as it has been dubbed, of Dr. Barnes’ great collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.”