The sounds of the city weren’t just decorative, musical — they could define the physical contours of a space as dramatically as a concrete wall or an open door to the street. - Reasons to be Cheerful
“Tashkent is reinventing itself. The Uzbek capital, which is home to 3 million, was once the fourth-largest city in the Soviet Union and has long been a cultural hub in Central Asia. … The Center for Contemporary Arts Tashkent has opened. It’s a watershed moment for the nation as it expands its cultural ambitions.” - Artnet
A forward-looking director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art wooed Duchamp, that’s how. Sidney Fiske Kimball “offered what Duchamp wanted: space and control. Lots of it.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
Ann Temkin has been a curator at the museum since 2003 and was promoted to chief curator in 2008, becoming the first woman to lead MoMA’s richest and most powerful department. - The New York Times
Drexel says that while it appreciates the William Penn Foundation’s “public suggestion that it assist in temporarily keeping the Academy’s museum open,” they have “not received a formal proposal with a defined level of financial support.” - Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
“Unionized staff at the Whitney Museum of Art will begin striking on Monday, October 5, if they cannot reach a contract agreement with the museum, Local 2110 UAW announced. … (That’s) only three days before member and press previews open for the museum’s major Roy Lichtenstein retrospective (the show opens to the public October 11).” - ARTnews
“The decision follows months of discussions between the Government, museums, the tourism sector and local leaders to examine whether charging tourists from abroad could boost the institutions’ finances. … Free entry to museums was introduced by Sir Tony Blair’s government in 2001.” - The Independent (UK)
“In the 30 years since she won the Linbury prize for stage design in 1995, Es Devlin has established herself as a go-to set designer for highbrow theatre, international opera, global pop …, official celebrations …, fashion runways and public sculpture.” - The Guardian (UK)
“Even as a Melbourne local and a longtime art lover I find it near impossible to keep up with the independent openings happening in my city.” - The Guardian (UK)
“Drake made and inscribed ambitious stoneware jars while enslaved in South Carolina in the 1800s, despite punishing conditions and anti-literacy laws that prevented teaching enslaved persons to read.” - The New York Times
Krasner and Pollock were, in mid-20th-century New York, at the heart of the artistic movement that would become Abstract Expressionism. At that time, the only label more detrimental to a talented artist’s career than “woman” was the handle “wife.” - The New York Times
“After almost two decades of high leadership turnover and a more than year-long search, the Museum of Contemporary Art has appointed Jonathan Abbott as its new director and chief executive.” He comes from Boston’s PBS affiliate, GBH, where he was CEO for 15 years. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
MAD Architects is a team that has completed major cultural and residential projects in 16 countries and counting. Their signature is hard-to-believe designs that do all of the shouting — etched towers churning like hula-hooping women; a museum honed like an ancient stone; an opera house resembling a mountain, bursting from the ground. - The New York Times
When Kim and Jon Shirley visited Alexander Calder’s Mountains and Clouds (1976/1986) in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building, the stabile portion of the sculpture (the mountains) was there, but the mobile part (clouds) had been removed due to structural damage. Ten years and $10 million later, the clouds are back. - ARTnews
