The plaintiffs’ suits against the company and its artistic director, Albert Schultz, seek a total of well over $6 million. At the board’s direction, Schultz has taken what’s being called a leave of absence, pending investigation; executive director Leslie Lester, Schultz’s wife, has voluntarily done the same.
Blog
Spotify Slapped With $1.6 Billion Lawsuit
“Wixen, a Californian company that collects royalties on behalf of artists including Tom Petty, Neil Young, Janis Joplin and the Doors, alleges that Spotify ‘took a shortcut’ when it cut deals with major labels to host their back catalogues. … The news comes at an awkward moment for the tech company, which is reportedly preparing for a stock market sale.”
Another Deaccession Uproar: La Salle University To Sell 46 Works From Its Museum
The Catholic university in Philadelphia, “which has struggled to plug a projected deficit in recent years, plans to sell 46 pieces of art from its prized museum collection to help fund teaching and learning initiatives in its new strategic plan, officials said Tuesday. The sale, which includes masterpieces by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Georges Rouault, and Albert Gleizes, could raise more than $7 million, officials estimate.”
Former NY City Ballet Dancers Wonder If Board’s Investigation Into Peter Martins Will Be Cover-Up
Kelly Cass Boal, who was one of the first to publicly accuse Martins of physical violence, describes her interview with the lawyer leading the inquiry as more like a cross-examination than a fact-finding effort: “I felt she was uninterested in the facts, and was just trying to mess up the timeline. She asked me, ‘Why weren’t you watching the performance when he grabbed you?’ … She was trying to spin it that I wasn’t being punished.” Another dancer says the same attorney refused to allow her to record her interview or bring a witness.
Royal New Zealand Ballet Chief Patricia Barker Answers Reports Of Turmoil
“The former Pacific Northwest Ballet star and concurrent director of Grand Rapids Ballet took over RNZB last June, and although the most troubling aspects of what has been reported, such as accusations of abusive behavior and other workplace grievances, pre-date her appointment, some complaints have been directed at her.” Steve Sucato gets her side of the story.
Paris’s Quai Branly Museum Is Ready To Return African Art
“French President Emmanuel Macron’s pledge to return African artefacts is an ‘awesome challenge’, according to Stéphane Martin, the president of the ethnographic Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac Museum in Paris. … The Quai Branly museum has a collection of more than 70,000 artefacts from sub-Saharan Africa, and displays 1,000 of them in its galleries on the Left Bank of the Seine.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.03.18
It’s complicated, or complex, or chaos, or…
The idea of “best practices” has always driven me a bit nuts. The world is full of complexity and context and interconnections, I figured. … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2018-01-03
A New Leonardo?
Has the unprecedented sale of Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi brought more paintings by the Renaissance master out of the closet? Over the courses of this fall and winter, some people were speculating that that would happen, … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2018-01-03
More on La Salle’s Sales: My Revealing Q&A with the University’s Spokesperson
La Salle University’s website provides surprisingly scant information about its astonishing plan under a relatively new president to dispatch to Christie’s some 46 objects from its museum’s collection to raise funds for non-museum activities. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-01-03
Across the Pacific
“To all Sailors, Soldiers, Marines, wherever ye may be and to all mermaids, flying dragons, spirits of the deep, devil chasers, and all other living creatures of the yellow seas, Greetings: Know ye that …” read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2018-01-03
Biographer And Estate Go To War Over Richard Avedon Bio
The feud has cast a pall over what was billed as an intimate and revelatory tell-all. Ms. Stevens drew on her own conversations with Avedon over the decades, and interviewed many of his prominent friends and collaborators, including Calvin Klein, David Remnick, Twyla Tharp, Donatella Versace, Jann Wenner and Isabella Rossellini. Some of Ms. Stevens’s revelations about Avedon’s personal life are so juicy that they leaked to the gossip pages in advance of the book’s release on Nov. 21.
Fred Bass, 89, Owned The Strand Bookstore
Bass, a New York City native and Brooklyn College graduate who took over the business from his father, Benjamin, had worked in the Strand as a boy and continued coming in regularly until a few months ago. He owned and managed the Strand along with his daughter, Nancy Bass Wyden.
Just How Will Hollywood Culture Change After Abuse Scandals?
“This year’s anguished discourse about art and artists underscores that criticism is rooted in lived experience. There’s no right or wrong way to review (well, there is, but that’s a discussion for another time). But I’m as impatient with critics who embrace self-serving auteurist fundamentalism or aesthetic formalism as I am with those belligerent fan boys who insist that only a comic-book obsessive can review a superhero movie. None of these camps want their pleasures challenged or their bubble worlds burst by reminders that a cherished director, say, denigrates women. I mean, by all means enjoy! But don’t expect me to shut up about it.”