The Belgian boy reporter with the fluffy white dog appears to finally have found a scrape he can’t get out of. Tintin, the unlikely comic book hero whose adventures have been delighting children and adults around the world for 75 years, has emerged from retirement for one final adventure, culled from the notes of his creator, Georges Remi, who died in 1983 before he could finish the book. The final installment, which has already sold 400,000 copies in France, is classic Tintin in every way but one: the end of the story appears to leave the hero doomed.
Tag: 06.12.04
The American Edinburgh
Charleston, South Carolina, is best known as a tourist town full of Old South charm and beautiful beaches. But in the summer, Charleston may be the most diverse and successful arts town in the U.S. Not only is it home to the stateside incarnation of the Spoleto music festival, but the high-minded chamber music plays alongside a decidedly Edinburghian fringe festival known as Piccolo Spoleto.
Those Dirty, Dirty Impressionists
Impressionist paintings are frequently characterized by the hazy, cloudy look of their landscapes, and in the case of Monet, by the fog that seems to hang eternally over the London that he so loved to paint. It’s all very pretty on the canvas, but a new exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario makes the case that what Monet and others were really showing us was the horrific environmental effects of the Industrial Revolution on the great cities of Europe. That’s not fog hanging over London, it’s smog. And those pretty pink clouds? Coal gas and industrial waste.
High-Tech Auction House Opens In Philly
“Kamelot, believed to be the first auction house to open in Philadelphia in two decades, will have its inaugural sales today and tomorrow at its quarters in a onetime mill in Manayunk. Backing the new gallery is Susanin’s Auctions, a Chicago gallery known for its sophisticated auction technology.” Auctions at the new house will include online bidders, live remote video for gallery patrons, and absentee bids.
Not Just A Victim, Not Just A Symbol
This weekend marks a particularly harrowing literary anniversary: Anne Frank would have been 75 years old on June 12. Frank, of course, died at the age of 16 in the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp shortly after her family was captured in a friend’s attic. To this day, Frank is the most recognizable face of the Holocaust, and the story she told in the pages of her diary continues to resonate around the world. But Frank was more than a symbol of the brutal era that Nazi oppression and violence inflicted upon a continent: she was a writer, and a very good one, which only makes her untimely death all the more tragic.
Sounds Like The Next Michael Moore Film, Doesn’t It?
Steven Kurtz is a widowed art professor who uses agricultural products in his work to create protest art aimed at the genetically modified food industry. But to the government of the United States, he is a dangerous potential terrorist hoarding controlled agricultural chemicals in his home with unknown intent. It all started when a paramedic, called to Kurtz’s home when the artist’s wife had a fatal heart attack, spotted some of his chemicals, and called the feds. Now, “several of Mr Kurtz’s colleagues and artistic collaborators have been subpoenaed and a date for a federal grand jury hearing set for Tuesday. Both artist and his art are set to go on trial for their alleged links with terrorism.”
Lost In Translation
Italian sculptor Eleonora Aguiari had no idea, when she wrapped a 19th-century sculpture in red tape as part of an exhibition of her work, that “red tape” has a political meaning in English and American society. So she was a bit confused when a British ad agency contacted her, asking if she could wrap, for instance, an ambulance in red tape as part of an ad campaign for the UK’s Conservative Party. Aguiari was further confused by the fact that the ad agency is called “Saatchi,” and was initially under the impression that her work had caught the eye of the famous collector Charles Saatchi. Once the confusion was sorted out, however, the sculptor turned the spin doctors down, saying that “my ideas are not for sale.”
In Search Of Ludwig’s Immortal Beloved
There is no doubt that Ludwig van Beethoven was deeply in love several times in his life. However, being the emotional basketcase that he was, nearly all of his objects of desire “women whose social or marital status – often both – placed them safely beyond reach.” The most famous of Beethoven’s women is, of course, the anonymous muse known as “Immortal Beloved.” To this day, no one knows who she was, “but she left the composer in a creative crisis that lasted for years.”
Festival In A Tent
“Art Chicago, the annual international art exposition that has taken place in spring at Navy Pier for decades, will move to a tent in downtown Chicago for its 2005 edition.” The location is yet to be announced, but as the tent will reportedly cover 125,000 square feet, there may be a limit to the number of potential locations in the downtown area.
Many Voices To Be Heard In Chicago MD Search
Daniel Barenboim’s successor at the helm of the Chicago Symphony will be chosen by a panel of 17 musicians, managers, and board members, according to the orchestra. In addition, the CSO is promising to give the public a serious voice in the process, soliciting comments by e-mail, and offering several open forums for concertgoers to voice their opinions on what qualities are most important in a music director.