Muslims Have Been Visually Depicting The Prophet Muhammad For Centuries

Certainly, images of the Prophet of Islam have been far, far less common than those of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and other Christian figures, and Muslim culture, especially in the Arab world, has tended to disapprove of pictures of any human or animal. Yet miniatures and manuscript illuminations featuring Muhammad did start appearing in the late Middle Ages in the Persianate world, and a calligraphic equivalent in Arabic was developed as well. – The Conversation

Why We Need To Rethink The Idea Of Public Statues

Ideas about statues change as society changes. As this happens, different groups contest the meanings behind the sculptures, leading to disagreement about whether they should be kept or taken down. But while ideologies can change, causing this iconoclash, communities retain their collective memories about something, whether they are good or bad. – The Conversation

What Will The Biden Administration’s Arts Policy Look Like?

“The big idea was to create a White House office on arts, culture and the creative industries,” says Megan Beyer, the co-chair of the campaign’s Arts Policy Committee and a former executive director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities under Obama. She compares this to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which was established by Congress in 1976 with a broad mandate to advise the president on domestic and international policy that could be applied across federal agencies. – The Art Newspaper

Of Long-Gone Jazz Clubs And Race

Oral histories suggest that jazz musicians have related to each other with more ease than can be found in other parts of the culture. At the same time, there’s no doubt that venues in general were hostile to racial mixing. So the degree to which jazz — the music and the business — contributed to a progressive model of race relations is an open question, one that generates many different opinions. – ArtsFuse

Classical Grammy Nominations: Dudamel/LA Phil, Danielpour’s ‘Passion of Yeshua’, Met’s ‘Porgy and Bess’, Ted Hearne’s ‘Place’

Richard Danielpour’s oratorio, performed by the Buffalo Philharmonic under JoAnn Falletta. was nominated in three categories; the Metropolitan Opera’s recording of Gershwin’s opera received two nods, as did the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s release of the complete symphonies of Charles Ives, Thomas Adès’s Piano Concerto (with Kirill Gershtein and the Boston Symphony), and composer Ted Hearne’s staged oratorio Place. Both Adès and the San Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas have two different recordings among the nominees. As usual in recent years, contemporary classical music has a major presence in categories beyond its own. – Los Angeles Times

Daniel Cordier, French Resistance Hero Who Became Prominent Art Dealer, Dead At 100

He and his mentor, Jean Moulin, spent part of World War II undercover as art dealers in occupied Nice, where they showed Matisse, Degas and Bonnard. After the war, Cordier took up art as his career, running a leading Paris gallery (with outposts in Frankfurt and New York) and giving Robert Rauschenberg his first major show in France. – Artnet