Is There Such A Thing As “American” Art Anymore?

“Many curators of American museums say they’re moving away from traditional definitions: In the past, the label has been more actively used to decide who does and doesn’t belong in the country’s cultural history. But art reflects identity, and the U.S. national identity has only grown more pluralized in recent decades, thanks to immigration and globalization.”

Twyla Tharp On Performing In The Wake Of Atrocity

“Ultimately we go on with no mention of this obscene parallel reality abroad. But our pre-curtain announcement, ‘Turn off cellphones as a courtesy to your fellow audience members,’ seems poignant to me as I think about courtesy, as I think about gatherings, and as I realize that performance cannot take place without the right to assemble.”

The Couple Who Paid $170 Million For A Modigliani Want To Build China’s Answer To The Guggenheim and MoMA

Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei own the Long Museum in Shanghai and plan to make it one of the world’s great art institutions. “And nothing, Mr. Liu said, says world class quite like a Modigliani nude. … He added, ‘The message to the West is clear: We have bought their buildings, we have bought their companies, and now we are going to buy their art.'”

Seymour Lipkin, 88, Pianist, Conductor, Teacher

He entered Curtis at age 11; by age 17 he’d been hired by Jascha Heifetz as accompanist for a European tour. He studied with Koussevitzky at Tanglewood and apprenticed with Szell in the late 1940s, even as he was winning the Rachmaninoff Piano Competition in 1948 and going on to play concertos with major American orchestras. He spent decades as a sought-after at Curtis and Juilliard, and re-emerged as a soloist and chamber musicians in the 1980s and ’90s.