Pianist Lang Lang is only 21 years old, and this summer, he is everywhere in the world of classical music. Recordings, TV specials, and a seemingly endless series of performances have turned the young Chinese-born phenom into the Next Big Thing in the industry. But David Patrick Stearns warns that if there’s one thing classical music buffs hate, it’s the notion that an artist is being forced on them. Lang is as good as the hype, says Stearns, but he needs to start watching out for the inevitable backlash.
Tag: 08.02.03
The Ownership Conundrum
Museums are not generally in the habit of acquiring stolen goods intentionally. But in the long, shady history of public and private art acquisition, countless works of art may come to a museum with little in the way of a paper trail. Most museums accept such works without question, and proceed to claim them as having been legitimately acquired. But with the drive to ‘repatriate’ artworks looted by Nazis gathering steam, and governments fighting over ownership of cultural artifacts, museums are increasingly under pressure to take an active role in stemming the unchecked flow of stolen antiquities. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is currently on the horns of just such a dilemma.
Great Words of the Depression
“Writers are usually unabashed about claiming authorship for their work. So it’s curious that many of the alumni of one of the most significant American literary projects of the 20th century were ashamed of it: the Federal Writers’ Project, a program of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. Created in 1935, in the heart of the Great Depression, the Writers’ Project supported more than 6,600 writers, editors and researchers during its four years of federal financing.” Still, many of the writers involved in the WPA project were ashamed of their participation, and so their work has gone largely unnoticed in the years since the program’s demise. A new exhibit at the Library of Congress aims to change that.
Harvard Museums Brace For Layoffs
“Employees of the Harvard University art museums are bracing for a round of cuts as the museums try to shrink a projected operating-budget deficit of almost $1.5 million. Workers were told by memo last week that layoffs would be part of a larger plan to balance the budget.” No one is talking in hard numbers yet, and museum administrators have criticized a student paper for hyping the layoffs, but with more than 70% of the museum budgets funded by endowment funds, which have been hard-hit by the continuing economic slump, few expect the staff cuts will be minor.
The Universe Revolves Around… Maine?
Nearly everyone spent at least some amount of time as a student cobbling together some sort of dubious model of our solar system for science class. But in rural Maine, residents have taken such projects to a whole new level. “A community endeavor four years in the making before its completion in June, the Maine Solar System Model is a three-dimensional roadside scale model of the solar system, stretching from the Northern Maine Museum of Science in Presque Isle 40 miles southward to the hamlet of Houlton. The scale is 93 million to 1.” The sun is represented by a huge mural at the museum, whereas Pluto is a 1-inch diameter ball, in accordance with proper scaling.