Category: people

Ofra Haza was one of Israel’s most beloved pop stars. When she died earlier this year at age 42, fans kept a vigil outside her window. But in the wake of revelations she died of AIDS in a country that has a low AIDS infection rate, a debate about the stigma of the disease has erupted. – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

Renzo Piano just might be the world’s busiest architect: For Hermès he is designing a Far East headquarters in Tokyo. In America, he is working on the Harvard Art Museum, the Chicago Art Institute, an art campus in Atlanta and a sculpture gallery in Dallas. There is a telecom HQ in Rotterdam, a Paul Klee museum in Switzerland, a trio of new concert halls in Rome, an elegant tower in Sydney nearing completion, and a pilgrimage church in southern Italy which looks set to be the religious masterpiece of millennium year. In Berlin his Potsdamer Platz, a vast development spanning a blighted area on either side of the Wall, is nearly complete. – The Times (UK)

French intellectual Marc Fumaroli has very precise ideas about how our cultural history has gotten us to where we are. “Because I think that Renaissance is a continuity of antiquity, it is a rebirth, but at the same time it is a continuity. But with the French and the English at the end of the 17th Century, something new begins, and this novelty that has been acclaimed as a wonder, as a great period of Enlightenment, was perhaps full of the seeds of the Satanic elements that we have in this century, since spread in Europe and elsewhere.” – The Idler

Even his admirers call Gottfried Helnwein that. “He earned his first gallery show in the 70s by driving around his native Vienna dressed in Nazi uniform, his head bandaged, fake blood trickling from his mouth. It caught the eye of an art dealer who signed him up and has remained faithful to Austria’s enfant terrible ever since.” – The Guardian

In January New York art dealer Mary Boone signed David Salle to her stable. Now she’s suing him for $1 million. Evidently “Boone promised to advance Salle $500,000, in return for which he would consign work worth at least $850,000 to her gallery. She’d pay all the promotional costs, and they’d split the sales, 60-40 in his favor.” Boone says Salle failed to deliver on the promised work. – New York Daily News

Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki was one of the more adventurous and radical composers of the 20th Century. Now he’s written a piece that sounds like it could be Mahler or Brahms. “It is, though, a curious state of affairs when the composer who, more than any other, was identified with that scandalous way of writing should become the one who most saliently repudiates it.” – Sunday Times (UK)

Jane Alexander’s new memoir recalls the battles over arts funding while she was chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. – Washington Post

Time art critic Robert Hughes may have won his court battle, beating reckless driving charges in Australia yesterday. But he sure blew it in the court of public opinion. “With a phalanx of cameras surrounding him, the New York-based art critic rose from his wheelchair, limped down the steps of the historic courthouse, and launched a broadside at those in the other car involved in the accident, describing all three as ‘low-life scum’. And after making several jibes about the ‘curry-munching’ crown prosecutor Lloyd Rayney’s Indian background, Hughes accused him of being overzealous in his bid to score points by aiming for a high-profile scalp.” – Sydney Morning Herald

A court in Western Australia has thrown out the dangerous driving charges against art critic Robert Hughes. – The Age (Melbourne)

London mayor-elect Ken Livingstone’s recent promises have already thrilled the art world. He plans to support the film industry, strengthen independent cinemas, and help make London a user-friendly environment for filming. He also “intends to maintain free entry to museums, and to introduce a “capital arts card” in partnership with business to give students, senior citizens and the unemployed the chance to attend theatres, cinemas and concerts for £3. And he wants to support cultural diversity in the arts.” – The Times (UK)