Category: people

One of England’s premiere high-tech architects is taking on the task of turning around the decidely low-tech and troubled Royal Academy. “As far as running the RA is concerned, Nicholas Grimshaw plans to institute what he calls a six-monthly forensic audit to assure himself that an organisation which now has £23m turnover is on the right track. “My role is to encourage on all fronts, I am an optimistic person generally. All the so-called problems are perfectly handlable’.”

John Updike’s basement was full of books. So he called up a book store dealer and had him haul them away. The cache has turned out to be valuable. “In some of the books’ margins are handwritten questions and analogies from the novelist and essayist — writings that Updike called his “scribblings.” Those editions will go for between $200 and $1,000 (U.S.).”

When journalist and cultural commentator Bill Moyers signs off the PBS airwaves for good this month, he will be leaving a news industry that he believes to be in tatters, and sorely in need of self-examination. In his career, Moyers frequently bucked the conventional TV news wisdom to craft truly impressive, if admittedly partisan, works of journalism on a network which seems forever trapped in a whirlwind of bias allegations from the right. “Moyers dabbled in commercial TV for CBS, but he’s no fool. He knew his true calling was the truly independent voice of Public Broadcasting, where he led exhaustive reporting on the things that got under the skin, and grew there, like a rash.”

“Anybody who has paid attention to Mr. Moyers’s 54-year career in journalism would not be surprised by his jeremiad. He is a rigorous journalist, one whose documentaries and television news reports always point to the facts, but when he makes up his mind, he lands hard on his conclusions. And among other epiphanies, Mr. Moyers has decided that the current administration in the White House represents a threat to free and unfettered discourse.”

Agnes Martin died this morning (Dec. 16) at approximately 6 a.m. at her home in Taos. Details about her death have not been released. “Martin apparently wished to have no obituary written about her, nor any memorial services.”

Paul Taylor’s company is clebrating 50 years this season. But Paul Taylor the man is happy to stay at home at his house on Long Island. “I had a very physical life while I was dancing, and the minute I stopped I was so glad to just be still and not hurt. I found barres and exercising extremely boring. You think I’m going to jog? Have you ever seen a jogger that looks like he’s not in pain? No, sir, not me. I don’t exercise. I do a little outdoor work, gardening, cleaning up the woods, playing with my chain saw, that kind of thing. But I’m very happy not to move anymore.”

The director of Documenta 11 has a new gig – dean of academic affairs at the San Francisco Art Institute. “Most people in the art world know Enwezor, 41, as the director of Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany, the 2002 edition of one of world’s most prestigious survey exhibitions of contemporary art. He made it an even more international event than usual by staging, in advance of the exhibition, topical conferences in Vienna, New Delhi, St. Lucia and Lagos, Nigeria.”

Recently, the Yes Men hoodwinked media by issuing a dummy statement on the tenth anniversary of the Bhopal disaster. “Somewhere between satire and surrealism, activism and absurdism, the Yes Men seem likely to wreak embarrassment and confusion for some time to come, and not even the censure that followed the ‘Bhopal incident’ seems to have dimmed their determination.”

Herbert Breslin’s tell-all biography of Luciano Pavarotti has been the talk of the opera world this year for its catty and bitter tone and mind-boggling revelations concerning the superstar tenor. But the book also represents the final public split between Pavarotti and the author, who spent decades managing the singer’s affairs, completely in the thrall of his stunning voice and outsized personality. “As Pavarotti got bigger in every way, Breslin’s adoration shrank. By the time of the Three Tenors, a pop phenomenon engineered not by Breslin but by the impresario Tibor Rudas, Breslin was miserable.”

The Cleveland Arts Prize, which recognizes local artists who have attained national attention for their work, has named Terri Pontremoli as its new executive director. Pontremoli had previously managed a jazz festival in the city, and had raised $6 million for local jazz groups.