“Sotheby’s, which auctioned the contents of Versace’s villa in London yesterday, withdrew an 18th-century portrait by the German artist Johann Zoffany after its subject’s family claimed that it had been stolen from their home in London 30 years ago.”
Tag: 03.19.08
Doing The Right Thing (Politically)
David Mamet is the latest of several prominent writers to abandon the Left for the political Right. “As former victims of political delusion, these defectors claim a unique authority. But there is something quite particular about spending the second half of your life taking revenge on the first.”
Public Liraries Battling Over Music Lending
“Like retail music stores, which saw a 16 per cent fall in sales in 2007, libraries are finding that their music offerings are slowly becoming obsolete. Combatting the decline in CD usage by offering a digital alternative is expected to take months, if not years.”
Theatre Under Difficult Circumstances
Taskent theatre Ilkhom Theatre has “produced controversial and contrarian work since 1976, when it became one of the first companies in the Soviet Union to refuse state funding. Since then, Ilkhom has outraged Communist apparatchiks, Muslim fundamentalists, and members of the current Uzbek dictatorship. But detectives concentrated their murder investigation on the artists of Ilkhom, interrogating them for hours at a stretch, asking about their personal lives and favorite positions in bed.”
The Oil Company And British Modernism, A Histoy
“The Shell Guides, beginning in the early 1930s (contemporary with the development of Cockfosters itself), marked the replacement of this particular Metroland of fixed stations and daily commutes with another kind of relationship to travel and the landscape: one based upon the supposed freedom of the car, enabling the exploration of Britain’s strange outposts. Yet at the same time the Shell Guides were part of an attempt to establish a distinctively British modernism.”
Beleaguered Iraq Museum To Stay Closed Even After Renovation
The museum, which is struggling to rebuild its collection after it was looted in April, 2003, in the U.S.-led invasion, is still in a terrible state.
San Diego Globe Theatre’s Artist Director Quits For NY Job
“Jerry Patch, co-artistic director of San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, is leaving the No. 2 position at the Globe to take a job as director of artistic development for New York City’s Manhattan Theatre Club.”
Italy Invites Pooches Into The Opera
“The proposed law would allow pet owners in Tuscany to take their cats, dogs and other animals to any sort of public place – including museums, cinemas and even theatres. If approved, it would open up new possibilities for millions of holidaymakers who descend each year on the museums of Florence and Siena.”
Tate Tries To Raise £6m to save a Rubens
The Tate is making “a last-ditch appeal for the public’s help to acquire the country’s most significant work by the 17th-century Flemish master, painted at the height of his powers. If it fails, The Apotheosis of King James I will be sold overseas.”
Why One-Person Shows Are So Powerful
“First and most obvious is our intimate, almost instinctive connection with the techniques and traditions of the storyteller. Spinning a tale is the world’s oldest theatrical form.”