It was inevitable, of course, that the cleaning of Michelangelo’s 500-year-old David should spark controversy… “Should the marble colossus be restored to its original perfection or simply cleaned of grime? Or should it learn to live with the inevitable streaks and blotches of venerable old age?”
Tag: 07.15.03
Buena Vista Star Dies
Compay Segundo, the Cuban singer and guitarist who came to international attention in the 90s with the ‘Buena Vista Social Club’has died at the age of 95. “Mr. Segundo, who rose to global fame in his 90’s after decades of obscurity, was the most accomplished of the dozen or so Cuban musicians gathered in Havana in 1996 by the American producer Ry Cooder for a recording session meant to recapture the lost music of the pre-Revolutionary Havana nightclub scene.”
That’s The Picture
Two dozen photography shows in London right now make this a summer of photography. “The London shows leave you with no specific definition of what photography is now, except that it is, fruitfully, many things at once, which is a functionally vague description of the medium. You can nevertheless get a fairly clear idea of the differences between a good photograph and a bad one.”
Glyndebourne – A Report Card
Things are looking up considerably at Glyndebourne. Artistically the offerings are getting better, and new management is steering a progressive course, and… no one seems to be fighting about which direction to charge…
Dallas: A View From The Middle
Dallas ranks in the middle of “literate” US cities at No. 36. “The surprise is that Dallas ranks above New York City (No. 47), Los Angeles (No. 54) and Chicago (No. 45). In fact, Dallas is the highest-ranked big city. All of the cities that placed above it have populations well below 1 million, while Dallas has 1,006,877 people. The study’s author says it “does tend to penalize the biggest cities. New York and L.A. have very high numbers of publications, colleges and newspaper readers, but their populations are so big and varied that they offset any literary concentrations those cities might enjoy.”
Report Blasts Australia’s National Museum
A report on Australia’s National Museum of Art gives the museum low marks. “The NMA is short on compelling narratives, engagingly presented dramatic realisations of important events and themes in the Australian story. And there are too few focal objects, radiant and numinous enough to generate memorable vignettes, or to be drawn out into fundamental moments. The report warned the museum may be failing in its role to inspire and educate its visitors because of a problem of translating narrative into museum practice, particularly in areas dealing with post-European arrivals to Australia.”