“How do you support artist relief, raise money, how do you help people still feel like they haven’t disappeared? It has been a huge effort. When I posited the idea of how best to create continuity with what we have in a rapid economic decline, [the answer was not], “Why don’t we just stop because everything stopped?” No, we have a moral obligation, and that’s a gift.” – San Francisco Classical Voice
Two Years After The Notre-Dame Fire, What’s The State Of The Cathedral’s Organs?
In something of a miracle, the huge fire that ravaged the Paris landmark on April 15, 2019 did almost no serious damage to the 8,000-pipe Grand Organ; the major problem is that lead dust from the melted roof covered and coated every part of the instrument, and cleaning up a neurotoxin is no easy matter. But of the smaller Choir Organ, at the other end of the church, only the metal pipes could be saved. In a Q&A, Notre-Dame titular organist Olivier Latry talks about the progress of the repairs. – Vox Humana
New Turn In Saudi Arabia-vs.-Louvre ‘Salvator Mundi’ Drama (It’s Still About Spite, Though)
Last week several news outlets reported, based on a French TV documentary, that the world’s most expensive artwork wasn’t in the Louvre’s big 2019 Leonardo show because Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (reputedly the work’s buyer) was angry that the Louvre’s curators refused to guarantee that it was Leonardo’s work. Now David D. Kirkpatrick and Elaine Sciolino report that French experts did, in fact, determine that Salvator Mundi is genuine — and that the reason that the Saudis didn’t let the painting be included in the Louvre’s exhibition was rather more petty. – The New York Times
Artist Rachel Whiteread Has Changed Her Art, And Her Life
Whiteread won the Turner Prize when she was 30, the first woman, and youngest artist, ever to win – and she id it for casting an entire house in London. She’s been casting objects and the spaces around objects for three decades. But now? Now, she’s building new things. – The Guardian (UK)
Poets Lost A Lot Of Readings, Series, And Opportunities During The Pandemic, So What Do They Think Is Next?
“For readers still thawing from a year in isolation, two questions in [Sesshu Foster’s untitled] poem are especially prescient: ‘How to start again? How to wake up?'” – Los Angeles Times
We Know Theo, But What About Vincent Van Gogh’s Sisters?
He (and Theo) had three. From reading a book that includes some newly translated letters, we can learn that “Lies was frustrated that women didn’t have more professional options that were socially acceptable. We learn about how Wil often copied Vincent’s drawings and was his favorite model, and that the two wrote to each other about art and literature and inquired about one another’s mental health.” – Hyperallergic
Benita Raphan, Maker Of Lyrical Short Films That Hover Between Documentary And Experiment, Has Died At 58
Raphan’s “genius” films – about people with unusual minds and talents – weren’t quite documentary; they were that, but more. “Up From Astonishment (2020), her most recent film, is about Emily Dickinson. In it, ink blooms on a page; butterflies pinwheel; there are empty bird nests, an abacus and various inscrutable shapes. Susan Howe, a poet, and Marta Werner, a Dickinson scholar, are the film’s narrators, but not really. Ms. Raphan had sampled clips from her interviews with them and used their words strategically and evocatively.” – The New York Times
The Great Depression’s Dance Marathons Were An Exploitative Craze
They might sound like yet another fun thing for young people to have done back in the day, but no. They were even deadly, with reports of at least two dancers dying near the dance floor as others simply passed out. “Dance marathons, also called walkathons to avoid legal and moral scrutiny, were essentially the Netflix dating show of that era. As an emcee entertained the audience with dancers’ biographies over live music, the couples danced, stumbled and dragged each other for weeks on almost no sleep in the pursuit of money and glory.” – San Francisco Chronicle
BAFTA Wins Include A Fair Number Of Surprises
Chloé Zhao won another directing award for Nomadland, which also won best film on the second night of the mostly online awards. Anthony Hopkins was a surprising win for The Father; at 83, he’s the oldest male actor to win a BAFTA. Promising Young Woman and Emerald Fennell also came in for surprising wins, and Youn Yuh-jung’s win for Minari capped a late surge for the actor. – The Guardian (UK)
Statues Are Living The High Life In Boris Johnson’s Britain
Lucky statues! “Without themselves needing to organise, these historically neglected members of the inanimate community have within the last few months secured privileges, protections and high-level advocacy that, in addition to their existing plinth status, falls only narrowly short of full suffrage – and even that cannot confidently be ruled out.” – The Guardian (UK)
A New Path Forward For Museums
Art museums sometimes have difficulties responding to the current moment, by design. A new show in Louisville might change some of that. “Conventional encyclopedic museums like the Speed, the largest and oldest art museum in Kentucky, are glacial machines. Their major exhibitions are usually years in the planning. Borrowing objects from other museums can be a red tape tangle.” A new show about Breonna Taylor’s life changes the equations. “It speeds up exhibition production, focuses on the present, and in doing so reaches out to new audiences vital to the institutional future.” – The New York Times