Painter Alexandr Zhdanov, 68

“Alexandr Zhdanov, a Soviet dissident artist whose life and work were marked by difficulty, defiance, determination and more than a touch of madness, died July 18 of a heart ailment at Howard University Hospital. He was 68. In the 1970s and 1980s, he was part of a group of independent-minded underground artists who challenged the authority of the Soviet Union’s communist officials and sometimes paid a bitter price for rebellion.”

You’re Better, Damn It (It’s a Festival)

This summer’s Lincoln Center dance offerings suffer from “festivalism”, writes Apollinaire Sherr. “Of course, people cheered when the lights went out. They were at a festival, where you’ll be damned if you don’t have an experience. Plus, the dance asked us to be kind to ourselves – a voice identifying itself as Rachel came over the sound system to tell us to “connect to pleasure” and put our hands on our thighs “and think that you have plenty of time” (an invitation to self-pity for most New Yorkers) – so we cheered for ourselves. Most likely, though, they were the exact same selves as sat down 70 minutes ear-lier.”

Could Shakespeare Use A Few Body Slams?

What is it about professional wrestling that draws so many people to become fans? More importantly, could the arts, which so often struggle to attract new audiences, learn anything from the ultraviolent soap opera that is the WWE? “No, I don’t want Martha Henry to show up in a leather halter-top to tell us how she’s going to smackdown Ibsen in the upcoming Stratford production of Ghosts. But I’d like our theatres to have one-tenth of the bravura, imagination and downright nerve of the WWE when it comes to promoting and presenting their own.”

Looking For A Piece Of The Hollywood Pie

When a book becomes a hit movie, you’d figure that the publisher who got the whole thing started would come in for a healthy slice of the profits. You’d be wrong – they generally don’t see a dime. “Galled by decades of this kind of equation, New York publishing houses have launched ventures intended to get a bigger piece of the Hollywood action. And who could blame them? Publishers hardly ever control the film rights to the books they put on the market.”

The Lasting Legacy Of Rembrandt

“Museum attendance continues to set records in America and Europe, yet probably fewer people now than 50 years ago could give an informed response to a Rembrandt painting… But enter into a Rembrandt drawing, almost irrespective of its subject, and for an instant its very fluency makes it feel doable: a soothing sensation of deliverance from incapacity comes forward.”

New DecArt Curator For Carnegie

Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art has hired decorative arts curator Jason Busch away from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. “He was formerly assistant curator of American decorative arts at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut… The [Carnegie’s] assistant curator of decorative arts, Elizabeth Agro, will be leaving soon for a position at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.”

What’s In A Ticket Price?

The admission hikes at various New York museums have sparked a great deal of debate over what, if anything, museums should charge the public to see their treasures. “A museum’s admission policy is charged with meaning. It encodes the institution’s core values — its sense of itself, its mission and its public — and broadcasts them to that public. It’s like a thumbprint, a tiny yet accurate key to a whole identity.”

No Cursing, Please. The Feds Are Watching.

The FCC’s crackdown on televised profanity has broadcasters of all stripes running scared, even staid old PBS, which usually has more to fear from conservative activists than it does from the threat of indecency fines. Specifically, PBS has changed the rules for the award-winning documentaries that have long been a staple of its programming, excising profanity wherever it occurs, even in the mouths of soldiers caught up in World War II. Documentarian Ken Burns, for one, can’t believe the new prudishness.

The Grass Isn’t Always Greener

For Americans tired of Broadway’s seemingly endless appetite for commercialism and tired revivals of decades-old shows, London’s theatre scene has always seemed like a mystical promised land. But a closer look shows that London’s West End is suffering from many of the same problems that plague Broadway: notably, the lack of almost anything new on the stage. “The fragile health of the drama became a subject of national publicity in Britain recently with a televised competition, vaguely in the spirit of ‘American Idol,’ among untried playwrights.”