Frank Gehry And His Favorite Buildings, And How He Thinks About Buildings

“I don’t play music and I don’t paint, but I always thought architecture was an art and I try to practice it that way. Architecture is intuitive. It’s humanly expressive. You’re putting yourself on the line. You start out not being understood, and you keep going because you have to. And it’s harder to explain.” – New York Magazine

How Two Belgian Avant-Gardists Rebuilt ‘West Side Story’ From Top To Bottom

Despite his success with revisionist productions of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller plays, Ivo van Hove seemed an unlikely choice to direct a major revival of the Bernstein-Laurents-Sondheim musical. Even less likely was the selection of austere formalist Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker to choreograph the first production whose dance wasn’t based on Jerome Robbins’s exuberant movement. Yet their participation was blessed by Stephen Sondheim, the only one of the show’s creators still living. Writer Sasha Weiss spent several months watching them cast and develop the production — and then rework their ideas (in one notable case, at the cast’s insistence). – The New York Times Magazine

Italy’s Carabinieri Art Squad, Catching Thieves, Looters, And Traffickers For 50 Years

The Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale was founded in 1969 as the world’s first law enforcement service to specialize in art and cultural heritage. Its agents have worked from Rome and Venice to London and New York to war-ravaged Palmyra to recover stolen treasures, and it has developed an international databse of 1.1 million missing objects. – Artsy

One Of New York’s Most Storied Experimental Venues Is Letting Artists Run It For A Year

“Performance Space New York [formerly P.S. 122], the historic performance arts nonprofit in Manhattan’s East Village, will shift to a new, artist-run model for 2020. A cohort of NYC-based artists and collectives will direct the organization’s programming, working in collaboration with its staff, board, and leadership. The artists will have ‘full transparency into the organization’s inner workings’ and control of its annual production budget to pay their own wages and develop programs … The only requirements of their tenure is that the spaces must be utilized.” – Hyperallergic

Detroit Symphony Chooses Its Next Music Director (It Was Love At First Sight)

Jader Bignamini’s first performances with the DSO were unexpected: in 2018, due to cardiac surgery, outgoing music director Leonard Slatkin had to cancel the final concerts of his tenure with the orchestra, and Bignamini stepped in. It was, says the DSO’s board chairman, “the right time, right place, right chemistry.” The new maestro begins his initial six-year term this fall. – Detroit Free Press

Sasha Waltz And Johannes Öhman To Leave Staatsballett Berlin

“According to a company press release [about the two artistic directors], Öhman is leaving to accept a directorship at Swedish contemporary dance presenter Dansens Hus. Waltz” — whose appointment was greeted with fury by the company’s dancers (though they later patched things up) — “has chosen to depart at the same time rather than become sole artistic director, though she will continue to be artistically involved with the company through 2021 as a choreographer.” – Dance Magazine

Longtime Boston Symphony CEO Mark Volpe Announces Retirement

“In an era when many of his peers have been buffeted by economic challenges, Mr. Volpe, 62, has kept the orchestra on firm footing by capitalizing on what he has referred to as its ‘multiple brand strategy.’ … During his tenure, the Boston Symphony may not have been as flashy as, say, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which has changed how orchestras think about programming and community engagement. But Boston has steadily expanded in ambition and reputation, and avoided the labor unrest that has hit some of its peers.” – The New York Times