Last week it was the MFA. But there’s also Harvard and the Gardner…
Tag: 11.20.10
The Conductor Who Walked Out And Never Came Back
“The principal conductor of the Huddersfield Philharmonic orchestra stormed out of rehearsals just three hours before the concert was due to start – and never came back.
Natalia Luis-Bassa, a talented and fiery Venezuelan who has held the baton for seven years, accused the musicians of being “disrespectful” and said their attitude had affected her health.”
LA County Museum Pushes The Pause Button On New Construction
“A mixed review of LACMA’s recession-buffeted finances issued Wednesday by Moody’s Investors Service lays out the reasons why the museum that opened the Broad Contemporary Art Museum and the BP Grand Entrance in 2008 and the Resnick Exhibition Pavilion in September is stopping for a refueling before pushing ahead.”
Madrid – Saving The Arts Through Recycling
“Managing to turn rubbish into art is a valuable skill for a city like Madrid, which is trying to enhance its cultural credentials by opening more galleries, turning old industrial space into art centers and holding festivals in the midst of an unprecedented financial crisis.”
Mark Twain Autobiography Is An Instant Best-seller
“It is a smash hit across the country, landing on best-seller lists and going back to press six times, for a total print run — so far — of 275,000. The publisher cannot print copies quickly enough, leaving some bookstores and online retailers stranded without copies just as the holiday shopping season begins.”
V&A Museum Director Departing
“During Sir Mark Jones’s directorship, the museum underwent a £120 million refurbishment that saw it open a new wing of Medieval and Renaissance galleries. Visitor numbers, the gallery said, are now at the highest level in its 150-year history.”
Why We’re Fascinated By “Reality” Shows?
“We are indiscriminately supportive of all the contestants. We empathise with them in a way we never normally engage with actors or celebrities precisely because they are real and because – at the touch of an interactive red button or the dialling of a phone number – we can have a say in their future.”
Boston’s New MFA Wing – A Place For Art, Not Building
“At least since architect Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, back in 1997, it seems we’re always being told that the museum itself, not its contents, is the real work of art. Not at the MFA. This is a building where the art is thoughtfully displayed in an architectural setting that doesn’t call attention to itself.”
Orhan Pamuk: The Novel As Visual Canvas
His is an “account of the novel as an ‘essentially visual’ literary form. Novels, the Nobel Prize winner argues, consist of “ordinary human details which are quite often visual details,” strung in sequence like beads on a necklace.”