Category: people

“[He] first received acclaim while living in the United States in the 1960s. When he returned to South Africa after the fall of apartheid in the early ’90s, he was welcomed as a national hero. In 2006, he became the second person to be named the country’s poet laureate. His poetry addressed themes of black solidarity, displacement and anticolonialism with an uncompromising directness.”

“[Kirill] Serebrennikov was charged in August 2017 with embezzling state funds at Moscow’s famous Gogol Center theater, in a case seen in the Russian artistic community as politically charged.” His house arrest, already extended once last October, was due to expire on Jan. 19. He has spoken out about Russian actions in Ukraine and Crimea, and he was the stage director of the controversial ballet about Rudolf Nureyev that premiered at the Bolshoi late last year.

“The #MeToo moment is a symptom of a broken legal system. All too frequently, women and other sexual-abuse complainants couldn’t get a fair hearing through institutions – including corporate structures – so they used a new tool: the internet. … [But] if the legal system is bypassed because it is seen as ineffectual, what will take its place? … In times of extremes, extremists win. Their ideology becomes a religion, anyone who doesn’t puppet their views is seen as an apostate, a heretic or a traitor, and moderates in the middle are annihilated.”

Molina came to the U.S. for an appearance on TV in 1956, and he never left. He formed José Molina Bailes Españoles, which toured the U.S. for 30 years, and taught flamenco and other dances for years afterward. A flamenco teacher who learned from him says, “He would say, ‘Better to do one thing right than 10 things badly.’ And students endured the endless repetition not only because of his expertise, but because he taught with such generosity, warmth, humor and charm.”

None of that was in her original plan of action. “The gallery business started as a bit of a lark. Baum had been working as a docent at LACMA when her friend Silverman approached her about opening a gallery together. The next morning, they found an empty storefront on Santa Monica Boulevard — wedged right between the prominent art spaces operated by Nicholas Wilder and James Corcoran.”

To quote one musician, sound engineer Laura Sisk is “a rad, funny, calm person in a field dominated by annoying, grumpy dudes.”

McShine, who organized a show that defined – and uplifted – Minimalism, and whose 1970 show “Information” at the Museum of Modern Art “set out to disturb the artistic and political status quo,” was a distinctive figure in the art world. “Especially in the 1980s and ’90s, Mr. McShine exercised a great deal of influence on what the Modern acquired in the way of postwar and more recent art, and applied a keen eye to its installation in the permanent-collection galleries.”

“A slew of think pieces ensued, with commentators alternately condemning the document as reckless, malicious, or puritanically anti-sex. Many called the document irresponsible, emphasizing that since it was anonymous, false accusations could be added without consequence. … Eventually, some media companies conducted investigations into employees who appeared on the spreadsheet; some of those men left their jobs or were fired. None of this was what I thought was going to happen. … It was intended specifically not to inflict consequences, not to be a weapon – and yet, once it became public, many people immediately saw it as exactly that.”

“As long as there has been transportation to faraway places, people have been sneaking on board. … The stowaway fad, however, was a different kind of social phenomenon. It was part of the attention-seeking aesthetic of the Jazz Age, a larksome activity similar to flagpole sitting, outrageous swimming challenges, and ‘buildering’ – the art of climbing skyscrapers. … And, in the new age of the mass media, each stowaway’s story of success incited more attempts.”

“[She] sailed the Nile, learned to box and ensconced herself in library archives to research humorous, frequently suspenseful novels about pioneer girls heading West, ‘turkeypokes’ herding poultry, a grave-robbing phrenologist and – told from a camel’s point of view – an Army experiment in the West Texas desert.”