In 2000, Oleg Mavromatti was making a film depicting himself crucified. The Russian Orthodox Church complained to the government, and he was charged with the crime of “inciting religious hatred and denigrating the church.” Facing five years in prison, he fled to Bulgaria. “Last month, the Russian consulate in Sofia refused to renew Mavromatti’s passport,” without which he cannot apply for refugee status.
Tag: 10.05.10
Columnist: Detroit Simply Can’t Afford the DSO Anymore
“The financial realities bearing down on one of the state’s premier cultural gems are forcing a leveling that doesn’t respect artistic accomplishment, salary scales at rival orchestras or the outsized expectations of patrons who can’t – or won’t – accept the implications of a decade of economic decline and corporate retrenchment.”
Can Ethics and Morality Really Be Defined Objectively?
Well-known neo-atheist Sam Harris argues that they can, directly contradicting Hume’s idea that “statements about how things ought to be cannot be derived from statements about what is true.” What’s an objectively good moral value? Not lying. Well, except for when lying serves a higher value, like saving a life. Or a marriage. Except when …
That Calder Mobile in the Old Sears Tower? Sears Wants It Back
“Alexander Calder’s motorized art installation, The Universe, has become the subject of a legal dispute between the current owner [of the skyscraper now called the Willis Tower] – a Chicago-based investor group called 233 S. Wacker LLC – and the tower’s original owner, Sears, Roebuck & Co.”
The Key To Getting Your Ideas Across – Pictures
“If you want everyone to have the same mental model of a problem, the fastest way to do it is with a picture. Unfortunately, picture-drawing is considered childish, which is partly why visual thinking has taken a backseat to verbal agility. But that may be changing, because the Internet has boosted the utility of imagery.”
New Head for NY Public Library
“At a time when the digital revolution has thrown the mission of libraries into question, the New York Public Library is planning to name Anthony W. Marx, the current president of Amherst College, … as its new president.”
Netherlands Threatens to Disband All Its Radio Ensembles
“The Dutch government has proposed that the Muziekcentrum van de Omroep in Hilversum – better known as the Netherlands Broadcasting Music Centre – be closed down. If the Dutch parliament passes the motion, it would mean the closure of a symphony orchestra, a chamber orchestra, [a choir,] the world’s largest pop and jazz orchestra and a library.”
Washington National Opera Names New Music Director
“Philippe Auguin, who made a huge impression on both the orchestra and the audience when he stepped in for ailing then-Music Director Heinz Fricke to lead the concert Götterdämmerung last fall, is now replacing him altogether.”
Rescuing a Century of Tango Music
Buenos Aires musician Ignacio Barchausky is leading a huge project “to save, by digital transfer, some 100,000 recordings made by at least 1,700 artists between 1902 and 1995 …on 78s, LPs and singles, preserved on wax cylinders, shellac, vinyl and tape.”
A Lost Michelangelo Pietà Rediscovered?
“An unfinished painting of the Virgin Mary and Christ owned by a former pilot is a lost masterpiece by Michelangelo,” according to art historian Antonio Forcellino. The small oil painting on a fir panel is said to have been owned by Renaissance cardinals and German barons; it is currently in the hands of a pilot in Buffalo.