Jozef Czapski was a Polish officer fighting the Nazis in 1940 when he and his fellows were captured by the Red Army and shipped to a gulag (and thus barely avoiding the Katyn Massacre). To pass the evenings, the officers took turns giving lectures about what they remembered best, and Czapski chose Proust. Here’s why. — The New York Times Book Review
Tag: 01.16.19
How An Old Jewish Doctor Had A Stroke And Became An Underground Rap Star
Dr. Sherman Hershfield was a rehab doctor from Beverly Hills, who, after his stroke, started speaking in rhymes. He started recounting the Holocaust in rhyme on the bus, and a passerby suggested he visit an open-mic rap night in South Central. He was 40 years older and 40 shades whiter than anyone there, but he ended up befriending KRS-One and became “Dr. Rapp.” — The Atlantic
American Alliance Of Museums Launches Program To Diversify Museum Leadership
“The project, ‘Facing Change: Advancing Museum Board Diversity & Inclusion,’ will be supported by $4 million in grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Alice L. Walton Foundation and the Ford Foundation. The funds will go toward training and resources over the next three years that will help museum leaders better reflect the communities they serve.” — The New York Times
What It’s Like When *You* Own The Wall Banksy Spray-Painted
“After a Banksy mural appeared on his Port Talbot garage last month, Ian Lewis found himself facing a ‘very, very stressful’ battle to protect the artwork from thieves and vandals. Here, four people share their own, very different experiences of being ‘Banskied’.” — The Guardian
‘Uncomfortable Art’ And #QueerMuseum: Alternative Museum Tours Are Catching On In Britain
Dan Vo leads groups on #QueerMuseum tours of Cambridge museums and the V&A, pointing out things like an Antarctic explorer’s scandalized notes on male-on-male penguin sex and a “gender-fluid” statue of Lucifer. Alice Procter’s “Uncomfortable Art” tours through the likes of the British Museum point out the ways colonialism pervades the collections. — The New York Times
‘Crown Jewels’ Of Pre-Colonial South African Art To Get New Museum In Pretoria
“One of Africa’s pre-colonial treasures, the Mapungubwe gold collection, discovered in the 1930s near what is now the South Africa-Zimbabwe border, will take pride of place in … the new 280m rand ($19.7m) Javett Art Centre.” — The Art Newspaper
Choreographer-Filmmaker Jo Andres Dead At 64
She became known in the 1980s for projecting slides and film images into the bodies of her dancers, who performed more often in rock clubs than in theaters; in the 1990s, she made short experimental films and cyanotypes. (Okay, yes, she was also married to Steve Buscemi.) — The New York Times
The Disney Princess Body Proportion Issue
“Disney princesses have extremely small waist-to-hip ratios that are nearly impossible to achieve naturally,” write anthropologist Toe Aung of Pennsylvania State University and independent researcher Leah Williams. They argue that such characters “might heighten or reinforce our preference for lower waist-to-hip ratios, and the perception that physically attractive individuals with lower waist-to-hip ratios possess morally favorable qualities.” – Pacific Standard
Broadway’s Next Evan Hansen Is An Actual Teenager
“The role is wrenching, vocally and emotionally, and [Andrew Barth Feldman] will be the first teenager to tackle it on Broadway. The character is 17, but adolescent boys are often thought to be too immature to play adolescent boys, and all of his predecessors have been in their 20s.” — The New York Times
Increasingly, Indigenous Art Is Getting Its Due
That headline may not sound like news, but it is, in one sense. Many occurrences in the world of indigenous art that may not, on their own, make international headlines are adding up to real progress, intensifying a trend that began a few years ago. — Judith H. Dobrzynski