“(He) enjoyed a wide-ranging career as a theatre and opera director without any of the obvious attributes for being so – no university or musical education, no artistic background, no connections – yet he succeeded over many decades in opera houses around the world, and for 10 years at the Royal Shakespeare Company.” - The Guardian
Among the arts folks who won this year’s $800,000 no-strings grants are playwright Heather Christian, photographers Tonika Lewis Johnson and Matt Black, artist/filmmakers Garrett Bradley and Tuan Andrew Nguyen, artist/curator Gala Porras-Kim, composer Craig Taborn, author Tommy Orange, cartographer Margaret Wickens Pearce, and traditional Wabanaki basket weaver Jeremy Frey. - NPR
Esterow purchased ARTnews in 1972 from Newsweek, which at the time was a division of the Washington Post Company, and owned it until 2014, when ARTnews was sold in 2014 to Sergey Skaterschikov. - ARTnews
“Over a career that spanned more than six decades, Mr. Klíma emerged as one of Central Europe’s most distinctive literary voices, chronicling what it means to live with both fear and conscience in societies ruled by ideology … (and) how ordinary people navigate systems designed to crush individuality.” - The Washington Post (MSN)
“The novels were robust, and full of comic observation – she had a caricaturist’s eye for telling contrasts of detail, a handsome sleek horse next to a shaggy-shanked pony. … Upper and middling natives pursued land, sports, profitable businesses, and each other, with lust and gusto, as in the works of Henry Fielding.” - The Guardian
Burney, who created a new zine to showcase the artists of his city: "Baltimore is a good microcosm, not even just for the social aspects of America, but the social aspects of the western world in general.” - The Guardian (UK)
“Despite financial pressures, Jenny continued the gallery’s tradition of innovation, exhibiting trade union banners and showcasing new and radical artists such as Joseph Beuys.” - The Guardian (UK)
“I would be a total disaster, because I do love to gossip. I would be going: ‘You know that guy? I think he’s working for the Russians.’” - The Guardian (UK)
“While Mr. Brilliant never truly stopped — he kept writing lines that he emailed to friends — among the official 10,000 are these: … No. 826: ‘I have abandoned my search for truth, and am now looking for a good fantasy.’” - The New York Times
“If one had to seize on a defining quality, it was her ability to see the humanity in a variety of eccentrics and outsiders. That was true whether she was playing the absurdly pretentious Hyacinth Bucket (‘pronounced bouquet’) in TV’s Keeping Up Appearances or Mrs. Malaprop in Sheridan’s The Rivals. - The Guardian
His hugely consequential three decades as director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art ended in September. For now he has consulting gigs in Saudi Arabia and India, and he’s giving a lecture series at the Louvre under the title “I Want a Museum. I Need a Museum. I Imagine a Museum.” - Artnet
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation has recently struck a licensing deal with Hollywood production company Galisteo Media to bring Wright’s story to the big screen as a movie. - Fast Company
Denis Raisin Dadre, 69, a recorder virtuoso and specialist in Renaissance reed instruments, founded Ensemble Doulce Mémoire in 1990 and developed an impressive array of programs in performance and on disc. His lifeless body was discovered in his apartment in Tours; drugs were found at the scene. - RTBF (Belgium) (via Google Translate)
In July, as part of a widely-reported sweep which affected high-profile critics in three other disciplines as well, the newspaper removed Green as chief theater critic. In his new position, Green will cover classical music and visual art as well as theater, writing “news and news analysis, features and multimedia pieces.” - Playbill
