Category: people

“At some point, Banksy crossed the line between success and establishment hack. He should have seen it coming. The art world, with its unforgiving addiction to novelty, always sneers at popular success. The critical backlash was two fold.”

Why did the industrious and dutiful German musician abandon his duties? Was he tired of the job or even depressed? In light of the sensational find, German music journalists have been quick – perhaps too quick – to talk about “Bach’s burn-out.”

Dear old Georg Frideric was quite a fascinating character: prosperous, gluttonous, gifted, truculent, generous, sometimes glowing with happiness – much more than the pious gentleman who composed oratorios like Messiah.

“[She] was a film and stage star in Europe in the 1930s, traveled from Hollywood to Broadway in the 1940s and continued to win audiences in cabaret performances well into her 90s.”

“Mother of God, become a feminist!” sang Pussy Riot in the protest that made them world-famous. But “is it just a crazy oxymoron to imagine the Virgin Mary, to whom a very large proportion of traditional Christian ritual and prayer is addressed, as a feminist heroine?”

“Initially, he was prominent among the musicians who created the west coast jazz style, picking up combo gigs and recording dates with the best players in California. Later, after the death of his first wife, he relocated to Europe and established himself as a salaried artist in a subsidised orchestra.”

“They also stressed that they have no plans of capitalizing on the Pussy Riot brand or even using it in the future.”

When Francis Ford Coppola asked the Polish composer what it took to write music like that in the movie Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Kilar cryptically replied: ‘You need to live in Katowice.'”

“Mr. Gan is also not a huge fan of Francis Ford Coppola, but he did service the Olivetti that Mr. Coppola used to write the Oscar-winning screenplay for ‘The Godfather.'”

“Gurlitt, the ‘art dealer to the Führer,’ reinvented himself: as a victim of the Nazis, a man who had saved precious artworks from destruction and someone who had never done anything malicious.”