New associate director Kathy Halbreich isn’t the only change coming to New York’s Museum of Modern Art. “During the last eight months a younger generation has made its way onto the curatorial staff, with six new hires — all people in their 30s and 40s — in departments ranging from film, media, architecture and design to drawings and prints.” The upshot, MoMA hopes, will be a dramatic reinvigoration of the museum’s mission.
Category: today’s top story
Prison Bureau Waffles On Religious-Book Ban
“Facing pressure from religious groups, civil libertarians and members of Congress, the federal Bureau of Prisons has decided to return religious materials that had been purged from prison chapel libraries because they were not on the bureau’s lists of approved resources. … The bureau has not abandoned the idea of creating such lists, Judi Simon Garrett, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mail message. But rather than packing away everything while those lists were compiled, the religious materials will remain on the shelves….”
Broadway Contract Deadline Looms
“As representatives from the League of American Theaters and Producers and Local One, the stagehands’ union, continue their contract negotiations, it remains unclear what Broadway will look like this time next week.” A deal could be reached (unlikely,) talks could continue in open-ended fashion (possible,) or the league could move to lock the stagehands out (very possible,) bringing Broadway to a potential standstill.
Police Seize Nan Goldin Photo From Elton John
A photo in Elton John’s collection has been seized by police because it might “break Britain’s child pornography laws.” “The image, which featured two young girls one of whom was sitting down with her legs wide apart, was taken by the renowned photographer Nan Goldin.”
Beyond Tang: How The Space Race Influenced Art
The space race affected “American popular culture and art, from movies and television to architecture and design. … Deciding which cultural offerings from those post-Sputnik years were deep and lasting and which were probably not (space-age bachelor-pad music? ‘The Jetsons’? ‘Barbarella’? Tang?) will always be topics of impassioned debate among space aficionados. But a half-century into that once-imagined orbital future, it has become a little easier to put the era into cultural perspective.”
How Prisons Are Changing American Culture
“America’s prisons and jails now house some 2.2 million inmates – roughly seven times the figure of the early 1970s. For years sociologists saw prisons – with their disproportionately poor, black, and uneducated populations – partly as mirrors of the social and economic disparities that cleave American life. Now, however, a new crop of books and articles are looking at the penal system not just as a reflection of society, but a force that shapes it.”
The Man Who Lives In A Theatre
Joe Patten was instrumental in saving Atlanta’s old Fox Theatre movie palace from demolitionin 1974, forming a nonprofit to buy the property from Southern Bell. Today, at 80, he lives in a “one-of-a-kind housing arrangement. He lives rent-free in a stately 3,640-square-foot apartment under the onion domes, with 20-foot ceilings, leaded glass windows and balconies overlooking Ponce de Leon Avenue.”
The New Multiculturalism?
“In 2004, 37 percent of non-Hispanic whites thought Hispanics were influencing everyone’s lifestyle; today, it’s 44 percent. The result may mean less authentic messaging for Hispanics and African Americans, the study reports, if the same marketing strategies are used to reach ethnic consumers.”
The Literary Life, 2007 Style
“Theory in academic literary criticism seems to be playing itself out by the sheer force of its deep inner uselessness. Not a single significant book, nor any dazzling essays that I know of, have been produced in American literary criticism that are owing to their author’s adaptation of one or another kind of critical theory, imported or domestic, from deconstruction to queer theory. Such stuff continues to be taught, as it was taught to the people now teaching it and who themselves consequently know little else to teach. But one senses that the day of the predominance of theory in English departments is coming to a close: the fever has abated, the flame is guttering. Derrida and Foucault are no longer fighting but yawn-inducing words.”
Oligarch’s Mega-Purchase Stops Rostropovich Auction
“A spectacular sale of Russian art was cancelled last night, on the eve of the London auction, when a Russian billionaire stepped in to buy the entire collection of the late musician Mstislav Rostropovich, promising to return it to Russia. Alisher Usmanov, the 18th richest man in Russia, is believed to have paid more than £25m, well above the highest estimate of £20m, to stop the sale. Sotheby’s, which initially refused to identify Mr Usmanov, later confirmed his name when the Russian news agency Interfax identified him.”