“Many dealers brought art that they hoped might end up in the Louvre or Guggenheim being built nearby on Saadiyat Island. … A few American dealers described feeling like they were making a pilgrimage to present their wares to the king. Though it was not entirely clear whom they were meant to impress when it came to acquisitions.”
Tag: 11.10.10
French Historians Rail Against Sarkozy’s Planned French History Museum
“Just as François Mitterrand built the Louvre pyramid and Georges Pompidou lent his name to the landmark modern art museum, Sarkozy is searching for his own cultural legacy. But his planned museum, with its emphasis on ‘national identity’, has been attacked by academics as a dangerous, nationalistic attempt to pervert history for his own rightwing ideological purposes.”
Reality Is, In Effect, What We Make of It
Marcelo Gleiser addresses, for us civilians, “an old, and quite difficult, philosophical question: what is reality and how do we know? Let’s see what we can do in less than 1000 words.” (Warning: Hume, Kant, Einstein and “humancentrism” ahead.)
Architecture Class, The Techno Remix
“Architecture lectures commonly involve laser pointers and slides. In his, architect Tuomas Toivonen prefers throbbing bass and electronic drums.”
Science And Religion. And Never The Twain Shall Meet?
“Why do so many intellectuals now pay obeisance to the historically absurd idea of separate domains for science and religion?”
NPR Is Hugely Influential. And Yet…
“The upheavals under way in journalism these days have underscored the role that NPR and the rest of public radio and its 897 stations have come to play in American life.”
Berlin Philharmonic Plays in Arab World After 42 Years
“The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra returned to the Arab world for the first time in 42 years with a concert in Abu Dhabi. … The last time the orchestra performed in an Arab country was at the 1968 Baalbek International Festival in Lebanon, where it was conducted by Herbert von Karajan.”
England’s Touring Theatre Has Never Been More Important
“As regional playhouses wrestle with funding cuts, touring companies are more crucial than ever before.”
Met Museum to Return King Tut Artifacts to Egypt
“The Metropolitan Museum of Art is voluntarily returning 19 artifacts to Egypt that had been in its collection for decades and that Met curators recently determined came from Tutankhamen’s tomb, the museum said on Tuesday.”
Arts Writer Calls for Boycott of San Diego Union-Tribune
“A disgruntled arts blogger has caused a stir in the San Diego arts community for urging freelance writers to boycott the city’s largest newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune [over cuts in its arts coverage]. The kicker is that the call for a boycott was posted on the newspaper’s own website.”