The primary beneficiary of Bloch’s largesse has been Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: he spent three years as its board chairman, he and his wife are the name donors on the museum’s 2007 expansion and its 2015-17 renovation, and at the same time the couple gave a collection of 29 major Impressionist paintings to NAMA. – ARTnews
Tag: 04.23.19
In Case Of Counterfeit Rodins, French Court Sentences Businessman And Art Dealer
Last week a court of appeals in Paris handed septuagenarian U.S. businessman Gary Snell a suspended prison sentence of one year and Parisian art dealer Robert Crouzet a four-month suspended prison sentence as part of an 18-year legal battle over counterfeited Auguste Rodin sculptures. – Artsy
In China, Two Historical Soap Operas Go Viral, And The Communist Party Promptly Cancels Them
The Story of Yanxi Palace and Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace smashed viewing records for the streaming services that showed them. Then the journal Theory Weekly (a title only a Communist bureaucrat could love) published an article condemning the series as “incompatible with the core values of socialism” and “[a] negative influence on society.” State media condemnation went on from there, and the series disappeared. Why? – The New Yorker
More Than 7000 TV Writers Have Fired Their Agents, Says Union
The writers’ union’s memo also claimed, “Most of the writers who haven’t yet signed termination letters are retirees or no longer actively working.” – New York Magazine
Suzanne Farrell Back At City Ballet – What It Means
Alastair Macaulay: “What makes Ms. Farrell so important? Her place in Balanchine history is central: She inspired him to make some of his most radically modernist works; opened up fresh torrents of Romanticism in him; showed how old roles could be transformed. She combined grandeur, musicality, wit, fervor and acumen to phenomenal degrees.” – The New York Times
Serious Shade: The Stupid Classics Book Club
It’s easy to dive into a classic book and after awhile get the feeling you’re reading something dull. Something… well, dumb. That may, of course be more about you and where you’re coming from than it is about the classic… – The Paris Review
Presenter Engagement
I have spoken with staff members of presenting organizations interested in community engagement who lament the fact that they are not in a position to select specific works themselves; they have to book what producing organizations are offering. Yet there are some ways in which the presenter is better positioned to support community engagement. – Doug Borwick
Getting It Backwards: The Shed’s Architects Came 1st, Its Artistic Director a Distant 2nd
When an ambitious new cultural institution chooses its architect six years before appointing an artistic director/CEO, you know its priorities are upside-down and backwards. – Lee Rosenbaum
Charity Tillemann-Dick, R.I.P.
Charity Tillemann-Dick, a coloratura soprano who suffered from pulmonary hypertension and who resumed her singing career after undergoing a double lung transplant, died this morning. – Terry Teachout
Truth Versus Lies: Suppressing The Lies From Being Heard Doesn’t Work
In On Liberty (1859), John Stuart Mill offers the most compelling defence of freedom of speech, conscience and autonomy ever written. Mill argues that the only reason to restrict speech is to prevent harm to others, such as with hate speech and incitement to violence. Otherwise, all speech must be protected. Even if we know a view is false, Mill says, it is wrong to suppress it. We avoid prejudice and dogmatism, and achieve understanding, through freely discussing and defending what we believe against contrary claims. – Aeon