Benjamin Millepied: “I think every time it has been about what we are in the mood to make. We start discussing it, go from simple feelings or descriptions to some complicated place, then take it back”
Nico Muhly: “The big question about making a ballet is: What is the emotional heart of the thing?”
“The Internet generation is rediscovering granny’s knitting needles — and the yearning to make, or own, authentic handicrafts has propelled virtual craft fairs from a niche pursuit into big business.” (Only, the people running the craft websites don’t have time for handwork anymore.)
“It might be unfair to categorize Edvard Munch as a one-hit wonder. His 1894 painting Vampire sold for $38 million in 2008, and plenty of art critics are interested in his lesser-known work. Still, he fits rather well into the conceptualist-revolutionary category.”
“Philosophically, they’re less about art’s being–art objects displayed and for sale–than they are about artists becoming–creating circumstances free from market pressures and the need to hobnob with the rich (who are, after all, the only people able to buy even modestly priced art with any regularity).”
“Harvard’s involvement follows M.I.T.’s announcement in December that it was starting an open online learning project, MITx. Its first course, Circuits and Electronics, began in March, enrolling about 120,000 students, some 10,000 of whom made it through the recent midterm exam.”
“After studying and writing about art for 40 years I see too many other options, options that would allow me to put together an encyclopedic mini-museum for the same dollars. That museum, filled with art that could be bought, even in these over-the-top times, for comparative bargain prices.”
“A second man has been charged in connection with a raid at Durham University’s Oriental Museum in which artefacts worth almost £2m were taken. Thieves cut a 3ft wide hole in the wall of the museum on 5 April and stole a Chinese bowl and figurine.”
“A lacklustre response to its 2011 season and a splurge on IT systems have combined to push Sydney’s premier theatre, Sydney Theatre Company, into the red for the first time in three years … a sharp turnaround from a profit the year before of nearly $1 million.”
“Sydney Dance Company, led by artistic director Rafael Bonachela, has turned in an operating surplus of more than $500,000 and a 47 per cent increase in paid attendances. Almost 50,000 people saw SDC perform in Sydney and on tour in Australia and overseas.”
Your correspondent travels from the honeybee hives on the roof of the Palais Garnier, through the opulent auditorium and foyer, back to the 19th-century stage machinery, and over to the office of director Nicolas Joël at the glass-and-granite Opéra Bastille.
