Longtime star Seattle gallery owner Linda Farris died after a long fight against cancer. “Linda was one of the most significant shaping forces for contemporary art in the history of Seattle. She nurtured artists and nurtured public appreciation for their work. Her gallery was not just an exhibition space but also a site of a dynamic dialogue about art that brought people together. The Contemporary Art Project characterized the imagination and flair she brought to everything she did and is one of her great legacies.”
Tag: 07.23.05
Bush Stars As ‘Idiot’ In Faulkner Parody
“A scathing parody that likens President Bush to the ‘idiot’ in William Faulkner’s novel ‘The Sound and the Fury’ has won this year’s Faulkner write-alike contest — and touched off a literary spat. Organizers of the Faux Faulkner competition are accusing Hemispheres, the United Airlines magazine that has sponsored the contest for six years, of playing politics by not putting Sam Apple’s ‘The Administration and the Fury’ in its print edition — only on its Web site.” Hemispheres’ editor says politics had nothing to do with the decision.
Jesus Got A New Halo. Who’s The Guilty Party?
“Over the course of nearly 150 years, two enigmatic paintings at St. Ignatius Roman Catholic Church have been treated as anything but masterpieces. They’ve been stashed away in closets, ripped, faded and – perhaps worst of all – touched up at the hands of a well-meaning, but ill-advised, artist. That apparent artistic license has been particularly puzzling to current church officials and a German conservator as they worked to restore the paintings, ignored for years but now believed to be the work of 19th-century Italian master Constantino Brumidi. Who would have painted a completely different halo over Jesus’ head, or given him a full new beard?”
Gallery Director Fired After ‘Daily Show’ Chat
“An art gallery director says she was fired for talking on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last week about a sexually explicit caricature of President Bush, a sheik and a barrel of oil.” The Florida gallery says the two events were unrelated.
Domingo As Neruda In ‘Postino’
“Tenor Plácido Domingo will create the role of Chilean Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda in a new opera, ‘Il Postino,’ by Mexican composer Daniel Catán, Los Angeles Opera company artistic director Edgar Baitzel said Friday.” Inspired by the novel that became the Oscar-nominated 1995 movie “Il Postino,” the opera will premiere in Los Angeles in 2009.
Quick! Which Font Is This?
Those who see design subtleties where the rest of us see only letters and numbers headed to New York this week to luxuriate in the company of their own kind. “These pilgrims were among about 500 people, some from as far away as Brazil and Finland, who have converged on the city for TypeCon, a yearly gathering of typographers, printers, designers, calligraphers and assorted, self-described font freaks and type nerds who can argue about kerning into the wee hours.”
The Violin Section, Where The Glass Ceiling Has Shattered
“A male violinist’s discrimination suit against the New York Philharmonic underscores a little-noted phenomenon: women have come to dominate the violin sections of some of the nation’s leading orchestras, or at least hold their own. And their numbers among violin players have also helped raise their prominence as concertmasters, the most important orchestra jobs after the conductors. But men still predominate in orchestras, and the testosterone level rises with the string instrument’s size.”