Controversy broke out when Anthony Ekundayo Lennon was selected for an Arts Council England-funded program to train minority theatre artists as directors: While he says his skin coloring has caused him to be treated as black or mixed-race in the acting marketplace, he acknowledges that his parents were white. Now the director of Talawa, the black-led theatre company that took Lennon on as a trainee, has spoken up about the choice.
Tag: 11.08.18
Philadelphia Orchestra Finds Harassment Claims Against Conductor Charles Dutoit ‘Credible’
Just a few days after the Montreal Symphony, where Dutoit was music director from 1977 to 2002, could not confirm or refute allegations of his sexual misconduct there, management in Philadelphia, where Dutoit’s long relationship with the orchestra culminated in his 2008-12 tenure as chief conductor, stated that “our internal investigation found reports [of Dutoit’s misconduct] to be credible.” (The Philadelphia Orchestra, along with several others, cut all ties with Dutoit last December.)
After Worldwide Booksellers’ Rebellion, Amazon’s AbeBooks Backs Off Ban Of Merchants From Certain Countries
“AbeBooks had told bookshops in countries including Hungary, the Czech Republic, South Korea and Russia that it would no longer support them from 30 November, citing migration to a new payment service provider as the reason for the withdrawal. The move prompted almost 600 booksellers in 27 countries to pull more than 3.5m titles from AbeBooks’ site.” AbeBooks’ CEO apologized for the “bad decision.”
After Censorship Outcry, DC Arts Funder Backs Off Prohibition Of ‘Offensive’ Art
“On Monday, the city’s arts agency added sweeping language to already approved grants requiring that artists and arts organizations avoid producing work that could be considered lewd, vulgar or political or be at risk of losing their funds. The arts community protested, saying the amended contract infringed on their First Amendment rights. The [D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities] capitulated.”
Court Finds Jeff Koons Liable For Plagiarizing Famous Fashion Ad
“The American artist Jeff Koons has been found guilty of plagiarising an iconic French clothing advertisement for one of his celebrated sculptures, Fait d’Hiver. Advertising creative director Franck Davidovici had sued Mr Koons, among the world’s most bankable living artists, for copyright infringement, saying he had produced what his lawyer called a ‘servile copy’ of a famous advertising campaign he ran in 1985 for French clothing brand Naf-Naf.”
Schoolteacher Leaves $4.7 Million To Philadelphia Orchestra
A beloved music teacher to generations of children in suburban Abington, Jane Kesson also spent decades as a volunteer for the orchestra. So when she passed away last year, it was anticipated that she had included the Philadelphians in her will. But no one anticipated a gift this big.
Longtime Champion Of Latinx Plays Named Long Wharf Theatre’s Artistic Director
Jacob G. Padrón, a Yale Drama alum (as both student and administrator) who has produced more than 100 new plays and who founded the Sol Project to support and promote Latinx playwrights, succeeds Gordon Edelstein, who was fired early this year following accusations of bullying and sexual harassment.
Chris Dercon, Director Driven Out Of Volksbühne Theatre, Will Head Paris’s Grand Palais
The 60-year-old Belgian had had very successful tenures running London’s Tate Modern and Munich’s Haus der Kunst when he was recruited to lead the former East Berlin’s “People’s Stage”; as an outsider and non-theatre person, he faced stiff local resistance and resigned after about a year. Now he’s been named president of the Réunion des musées nationaux-Grand Palais, which operates the Musée du Luxembourg as well as the Palais, Paris’s flagship art fair and exhibition venue.
Surprise Winner Of France’s Prix Goncourt: Nicolas Mathieu’s ‘Leurs Enfants Après Eux’
The novel, which will be published in the U.S. late next year under the title The Children Who Came After Them, is one of several widely successful recent works of fiction in France to deal with the lives of young people growing up in the country’s poor, de-industrialized towns.
LA MOCA Director Klaus Biesenbach’s Plan To Stabilize The Museum
Several people told him the MOCA directorship would be “the most difficult, if not the most impossible, job in the art world,” he says. “But after 10 years of working for and with [MoMA PS1 board chair] Agnes Gund, I follow one very important principle in decision-making: ‘It’s not about you, it’s about the difference you can make.’”