Author: Matthew Westphal

2021 May Be The Year Europe Gets Serious About Returning Looted African Cultural Objects In Museums

A consensus has been building over the past few years that statues, ceremonial objects, and other items taken from Africa during the colonial period should be given back — but few items have actually been transferred so far, largely due to European laws on museum deaccessions. Naomi Rea reports on why, next year, the logjam may finally break. – Artnet

The Agonizing, Years-Long Journey That Took David Hallberg To The Australian Ballet

“I was broken,” the new director of the company says. In 2013, he injured a foot, and the treatment he got for it (including one badly misguided surgery, followed by another to correct the first) over the next two years was disastrous, much worse than he revealed publicly at the time. At age 33, not only could he no longer dance, he couldn’t really walk properly. Desperate, he got a one-way plane ticket to Melbourne and turned to the Australian Ballet’s unique physiotherapy team. Here’s the story of how they saved him. – The Age (Melbourne)

How ‘Citizen Kane’ Got To Be, And Stopped Being, The ‘Greatest Film Ever Made’

“Maybe it’s hard to imagine now, but for many years, Kane‘s dominance wasn’t a matter of personal preference. It was practically a piece of data — like the name of the president, or the location of Florida. Miles and miles of words have been written about why Orson Welles’s masterpiece was so widely acclaimed … [and], of course, about whether it deserves that acclaim — not to mention who, exactly, is responsible for its greatness. But how did Citizen Kane become so firmly established at the top of the canon in the first place? Who put it there?” Bilge Ebiri gives a run-down of the history. – Vulture

Louise Glück Felt ‘Panic’ At Receiving Nobel Literature Prize

“‘Mostly I am concerned for the preservation of daily life with people I love,’ she told the prize organisers on 8 October, when asked how she felt about winning. ‘It’s disruptive. [The phone] is ringing all the time. It’s ringing now.’ Speaking to the press outside her house that same day, she said she felt ‘agitation and joy’ before getting in a waiting car.” – The Guardian

Great Dead Pop Singers Are Posting TikTok Videos

“Frank Sinatra has a TikTok account …, as do Whitney Houston, John Lennon, and Prince. Some of the profiles were clearly set up by the late-singers’ estates. Others seem to be the work of record labels, in a bid to introduce their catalogues to a younger generation. And while the phenomenon is a little weird, it’ll also probably work.” – Mic

Inside The Collapse Of The Baltimore Museum Of Art’s Big Deaccessioning Plan

Peggy McGlone and Sebastian Smee report on how director Christopher Bedford’s plan to raise $65 million to fund diversity-equity-and-inclusion projects by selling paintings by Andy Warhol, Brice Marden and Clyfford Still was conceived, approved, attacked, and withdrawn. “There’s one thing the Baltimore episode made clear: Even the most noble of causes, including paying the mostly minority guards a living wage and improving access for the community, can’t be funded by monetizing the collection.” – The Washington Post

Well, Someone’s Taken Credit For The Monoliths (Just Guess What They’re Doing Now)

“An anonymous collective called The Most Famous Artist says it was behind … the original steel stele in Utah as well as the replica that popped up in Atascadero, California, before being swiftly dismantled by a band of Christian zealots. And now — as if there were any doubt as to where this was headed — the collective is selling facsimiles for the low, low price of $45,000.” – Artnet