While the Czech-but-now-French author is known in much of the world for his pointed depictions of how the Communist regimes of Europe twisted the lives of regular people, he’s been viewed ambivalently or worse by many in the Czech Republic — not least because he got out of Czechoslovakia in 1975 and didn’t have to suffer through the final years of the Communist Party’s misrule. Now a new 900-page biography of Kundera has reignited criticism of and debate over the most famous modern writer the country has produced. – Global Voices
Tag: 07.02.20
America’s Largest Arts Funder Is Pivoting To Social Justice Causes. Its President Explains Why
Elizabeth Alexander of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: “We were going to do it anyway, [but in] this moment … it seems very clear … that we all need to be thinking very sharply about how the work that we do contributes to a more just society.” But that doesn’t mean Mellon will stop funding the arts: “The way that we’re interpreting social justice is very broad. It’s very important to Mellon in all of our grant-making to say, ‘Who haven’t we reached? Who haven’t we supported?” – Artnet
Michelangelo: Portrait Of The Artist As An Old Man
When Michelangelo turned seventy, as he does at the beginning of Michelangelo, God’s Architect, he had nineteen more years to live, every one of them spent at work. As dear friends died and his body weakened, he took on a remarkable series of huge, daunting projects, fully aware, as William Wallace emphasizes, that he would never live to see them completed. In his deeply spiritual vision of the world, his own limits hardly mattered; God had called him, and he had answered. – New York Review of Books
Big Problem For The Arts: Insurers Won’t Insure Against Virus Cancellations
“Right now most insurers, if not all, have come out with a virus or communicable disease exclusion that they’re putting on their policies.” – Reuters
How Elegant Vienna Became An Explosion Of Modernism
A much-romanticised era for the city, these years are commonly celebrated as a period of explosive artistic, literary, intellectual and especially musical modernisation in which resolutely iconoclastic geniuses such as Schoenberg, Sigmund Freud, Gustav Klimt and Alfred Schnitzler broke with the past in order to lay the groundwork for the future. In this narrative, Vienna’s musical revolution was especially radical: Schoenberg’s Pierrot was later characterised by Igor Stravinsky as ‘the solar-plexus of modern music’ – the culmination of a shift away from tonality and hundreds of years of classical music, in favour of a new music for a new century. But how did this happen? – Aeon
UK Libraries Were Already Endangered. Then Came COVID
Last year, official figures revealed that almost 800 libraries had closed since the implementation of austerity in 2010. “We do think these current announcements could be the ‘canary in the coalmine’ for a fresh wave of austerity cuts to local services,” warned Nick Poole, chief executive of the librarians’ association Cilip. – The Guardian
How The “Museum Of Ice Cream” Melted Down
From all indications, the Museum of Ice Cream is melting down. Spending was slashed in January. In March, Bunn temporarily closed the permanent installations in New York and San Francisco, and laid off around 200 workers. – Forbes
Now Is Probably The Best Opportunity To Rethink Our Cities
We tend to treat cities like the weather, using past patterns to predict outcomes over which we have no control. But the last few months have reminded us that cities are not givens, the status quo isn’t immovable, and citizens can force their elected officials to crash through bureaucracy and inertia. – New York Magazine
Scots Gaelic Could Die Out In Next Ten Years: Researchers
“The study … found that only 11,000 people were habitual Gaelic speakers, after a rapid decline during the 1980s when the density of native speakers fell below 80%. … The language is rarely spoken in the home, little used by teenagers, and used routinely only by a diminishing number of elderly Gaels dispersed across a few island communities in the Hebrides.” – The Guardian
Philippine Artists Fight Against Duterte’s Anti-Terrorism Bill
“The bill’s vague provisions make it easy for the state to target artistic and creative productions, especially critical, satirical or protest forms it subjectively deems as anti-government or subversive – or terrorist, in today’s cruder parlance,” says Concerned Artists of the Philippines secretary general Lisa Ito, who compares current conditions under Duterte’s government to the martial law period under Ferdinand Marcos. – South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)