“The problem of visas for visiting artists has become almost as much part of festival season as festivals themselves. … There is also an unpalatable whiff of profiteering, with analysis showing that the UK last year raised £44m in fees for visa applications that were rejected.” - The Guardian (UK)
In 1993 — not long after Munro's daughter Andrea told her mother of the abuse and Munro chose to stay with her husband — the author published in The New Yorker a story titled "Vandals." Laura Miller analyzes the tale and finds a likely explanation (though not a justification) of Munro's choice. - Slate (MSN)
His departure comes as the orchestra’s musicians and the administration are in the midst of heated talks over a new labor contract; the current agreement expires in September. The musicians have been seeking large wage increases. - The New York Times
"Film isn’t reality, no matter how it’s shot. … I guess people are so afraid of being tricked or manipulated that they feel if they impose a set of rules, somehow they don’t have to be afraid anymore. I would like to assure them that they still need to be afraid." - Nieman Lab
Kirsha Kaechele, the artist-curator behind the "Ladies Lounge" installation at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), said she painted the faux-Picassos specifically for this project ("to match the color scheme") and has been waiting for weeks for someone to figure that out. - The Guardian
Michael Andor Brodeur, whose day job is classical music critic for The Washington Post, was relieved when informed he would not be recording the audiobook of his memoir/cultural history Swole: The Making of Men and the Meaning of Muscle. Then he had to choose who would. - The Washington Post (MSN)
The project will include traffic-calming measures, new street fixtures and lots of lush plantings. The goal: "To get more people excited about South Broad (Street) and to attract more economic development … to give people a reason to come down and visit." - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
"Created by Austrian artist Esther Strauß, Crowning drew intense ire from some conservative Christians who viewed the work as ‘blasphemous’ and ‘scandalous’ before an unknown party took matters into their own hands and sawed off Mary’s head.” - Hyperallergic
Andrea Munro yesterday wrote an essay for the Toronto Star detailing the abuse, her mother’s response, the ways her father (owner of Munro’s Books in Victoria) treated her, and the legal case she brought against her stepfather, who was found guilty. - The New York Times
“Natalie Miroshnyk was at the Warsaw Book Fair for Ukrainian publisher Vivat when she heard that a Russian missile had hit her country’s biggest printing house, killing seven workers, injuring 22 others and destroying 50,000 books.” - Irish Times
In Berlin, “although every program booklet had a portrait of a female composer on its cover, her piece was usually a small fraction of the total running time: Unfamiliar works by women were often eclipsed by large-scale, crowd-pleasing compositions by men.” - The New York Times
That September, officials from present-day Belgium and the Netherlands arrived at the Louvre to reclaim artworks plundered during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. "(It) is such a critical moment in art history that 200 years later it resurfaces again and again as debates over repatriation continue." - The New York Times
The Apprentice (not to be confused with Trump's old reality TV series) is a rather unflattering depiction of the young Trump's disciple-like relationship with notorious lawyer Roy Cohn. The film's lead US funder, a Trump donor, is reportedly furious over the film, though he denies deliberately blocking it. - The Washington Post (MSN)
"Cultural figures supporting the women" — director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk, two highly decorated fixtures of contemporary Russian theater — "say this is the first time in Russia’s post-Soviet era that a work of art is effectively being put on trial." - The New York Times
After a tribunal ruled that Tasmania's Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) may not restrict the conceptual art installation "Ladies Lounge" to "persons who identify as ladies," artist Kirsha Kaechele decided that "a few of the bathrooms in the museum could do with an update. Some Cubism in the cubicles." - CNN
“There was a customer on the phone who said something along the lines of 'Just throw out $20,000,' and reported to our staff member to shout that out into the room. And boy did it work, because the first time it came up, it stunned the room and silenced the room.” - Slate
Crumb’s “scores — created by hand and themselves works of art — are rife with exacting instructions to performers: how to thread paper between the strings of a harp, or how string players should use the thimbles on their fingers.” - The New York Times
"From 1882 to 1892 she was Rodin’s assistant, lover, muse, and, most importantly, co-creator. However, aside from assertions in pop culture, such as Bruno Nuytten’s impressive 1988 film Camille Claudel, their collaboration has yet to be widely acknowledged by the art world.” - Hyperallergic
A fleet of ten is now seven, of which a majority “carry fewer books and have to be loaded and unloaded. librarian, whose yellow van did not return from the garage in April, said: 'I am worried that the mobile library service will fizzle out and die.’” - The Scotsman
