Canada’s representative at this year’s Venice Biennale is a film directed and shot by a dog. “For all its carefree frolicking 35 cm above ground, Stanley’s [the dog] perspective and Jana Sterbak’s editing produce a profoundly affecting piece that is shown on six screens zig-zagging across the length of the Canadian pavilion. It conveys both the exuberance of a young pup’s discovery of the world, but also his nervous, toddler-like dependency on the people looking after him.
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Guards Charged With Stealing Dali
Four guards at New York’s Rikers Island prison have been chaged with stealing a Salvaore Dali painting. The four “staged a phony fire drill” to “steal a $250,000 Salvador Dali sketch from the jail’s lobby, then replaced the artwork with an unframed copy, prosecutors said Tuesday.”
An (Ancient)Queenly Furor
Berlin’s Egyptian Museum placed a 3000-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti atop the modern nude torso created by German artists, who then videotaped it for their installation at the Venice Biennale. But Egyptians are protesting, saying the project demeans their culture. Museum officials defend the work, saying that “the 19-inch-high bust, with its elegantly arched brows and towering blue headdress, sat only briefly on the life-size body created by Hungarian artists Andras Galik and Balint Havas. The transfer on May 26 was done with care.”
Swiss Take Steps Against International Art Theft
Because of its lax laws, Switzerland is well-known as a “transit centre for stolen works of art”. But the Swiss Parliament has passed a new law to bring it into compliance with the UNESCO Convention against cultural goods trafficking. “Until now, Swiss law has treated cultural goods no differently to ordinary merchandise. With the new legislation, which has taken over ten years to be approved, the laundering of stolen artworks should also disappear.”
World’s Oldest Children’s Museum Forced To Cut
The Brooklyn Children’s Museum – opened in 1899 and the first museum for children – is cutting its outreach programs and charging more for admission after having its city funding cut. The small museum attracts 260,000 visitors a year.
Celebrating Frederick Olmstead
A century after his death, Frederick Olmstead’s legacy continues to enrich America. The father of American landscape architecture made an impact on cities across America. “He democratized the whole idea of open space. To me, I don’t think the United States would have turned out like it did without Olmsted.”
California Center for Arts Museum To Close
The California Center for the Arts Museum in Escondido is closing July 20. It’s said to be a “temporary closure” but as the staff is being let go, it looks like the museum is done. Why? The CCA blames reduced state funding. “Though it consumes only $438,000 of the center’s current $7.3 million budget, the center says it can no longer afford to keep the museum open with reduced state funding.”
Next In Mags: Bring Out Your Dead!
What’s the next great idea in magazines, asks Russ Smith? Obituaries. It’s a winner, he writes. Everyone’s interested in dead people. “It’s long been a truism that the most popular features of a daily newspaper are the sports pages, comics and death notices. In many cases, people over 40 turn to the day’s obituaries first, not only for morbid fascination, but because they recognize the names of famous men and women or, on a local level, neighbors and friends. Obviously, there wouldn’t be a shortage of material for such an enterprise.”
Toning Up With Ballet
More and more people are taking to ballet as a new exercise regimen. “The release of the New York City Ballet’s second workout has added to the attraction. The video, which has shifted more than 250,000 copies worldwide, has just been released in Britain. Already the tasteful images of perfectly toned, graceful yet powerful bodies have been enough to make women desert their pilates and ashtanga for a session at the barre.”
Universal Translator
“In the era when it is proposed that computers translating machines will soon be able to perform most translating tasks, what we call literary translation perpetuates the traditional sense of what translation entails. The new view is that translation is the finding of equivalents; or, to vary the metaphor, that a translation is a problem, for which solutions can be devised. In contrast, the old understanding is that translation is the making of choices, conscious choices, choices not simply between the stark dichotomies of good and bad, correct and incorrect, but among a more complex dispersion of alternatives, such as good versus better and better versus best, not to mention such impure alternatives as old-fashioned versus trendy, vulgar versus pretentious, and abbreviated versus wordy.”