LA County Museum – The Michael Govan Years

“Five years into his stewardship of LACMA, having just signed a contract for five more, Govan, 47, has transformed the museum and its reputation. He has overseen the completion of two sleek new exhibition halls by renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano, grown the collection by about 12,000 objects and helped boost annual attendance by some 40%. But LACMA also has transformed Govan.”

Why There’s A Cult Of Leonardo

“More than any other artist, Leonardo has a cult following. He is not merely a figure of prodigal creativity, he is a source of myths, legends, untruths, half-truths and baffling conspiracies, the inspiration for an ocean of pseudo-science and mumbo-jumbo. Yet strangely, for most of history, Leonardo was best known not as a helicopter pioneer, a cross-dresser, a specialist in military fortifications or a painter with a nice facility at sultry, androgynous portraits, but as the author of The Treatise on Painting, an attempt to make art systematic, even scientific.”

France’s Cannes Contradiction

“Yes, Cannes might be a bit tasteless. But for the French, the whole affair still preserves the ultimate in filmic fiction: that it’s our opinion that matters. Sure, we might not have been able to sell any of our television series between Inspector Gadget and Spiral. Sure, our last Oscar-winner may have been March of the Penguins. But by Guillaume, we’re going to be the arbiters of cool in all things cinema.”