Artdaily.cc - The First Art Newspaper on the Net

Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp opens 'Eurasia: A Landscape of Mutability'
ANTWERP.- The concept of Eurasia evokes myriad different ideas across geological, ideological, cultural, racial and artistic paradigms. Housing three quarters of the worlds population (as well as three quarters of the worlds energy resources), the Eurasian supercontinent is also home to a great plurality of cultures. It is a space where historical, contemporary and futuristic visions coexist, interact and mutate. From the ancient world to the cultural horizons to come, Eurasia has hosted the free-flow of exchanges, and possesses more capacity than ever for trans- or rather supranational thinking and cultural transformation, superseding artificial distinctions of Asia and Europe. Once the harbinger of globalisation, the Silk Road was the lifeblood of cultural and economic interaction between East and West for almost two millennia. And now, following the rapid ... More

The 40-year mystery of smutty smiff and the missing rockabilly bass
NEW YORK, NY.- The moment he saw the standup bass in the pawnshop in Jersey City, New Jersey, Stephen Ulrich knew whose it was. It wasnt just the jet-black paint job with the pink-and-blue trim that caught his eye. It was the word SMUTTY written across the bottom in big pink letter. Ulrich, a guitarist and composer, remembered seeing that bass onstage on New York City's Lower East Side in the early 1980s, when a band called the Rockats particularly their bass player, Smutty Smiff changed his life. I was really struck by Smutty, he said. He was larger than life and wasnt like anybody else Id ever seen. He kind of rearranged my molecules. Smutty, his arms fully tattooed, his black pompadour bouncing, didnt just play the bass; he climbed it, surfed it, humped it, spun it and threw it about, all while thumping out the notes that held the Rockats songs together. A Rockats show ... More

Passing the time with a piano-playing pilot
NEW YORK, NY.- Its after midnight at the Palm Court in Cincinnati and staff is trying to close. Lights are dimmed as the last of the martini glasses and beer bottles are scooped up. But Beau Brant is still at the piano, playing for stragglers. Finally, a waitress gives him the wrap-it-up sign. Probably a good idea, since he has a flight to catch the next day, and he cant be late. Hes the captain. Perhaps there are other piano-playing airline pilots, but how many have cut seven albums, performed for a U.S. president and had an original song used by Oprah Winfrey? Brant, 41, has been playing and flying most of his life. He started on the piano at age 3 and was flying by 12. A pilot with United Airlines for 17 years, Brant considers flying job No. 1. But with every layover, he looks for a place to play, just for the fun of it. A regular performer now at many of his layover hotels, Brant flies ... More

A language bill deepens a culture clash in Quebec
MONTREAL.- Since Aude Le DubÃ© opened an English-only bookshop in Montreal last year, she has had several unwelcome guests each month: irate Francophones, sometimes draped in Quebec flags, who storm in and berate her for not selling books in French. You would think I had opened a sex shop at the Vatican, mused Le DubÃ©. Now, however, Le DubÃ© is worried that resistance against businesses like her De Stiil bookshop will intensify. A language bill that the Quebec government has proposed would solidify the status of French as the paramount language in Quebec. Under the legislation, which builds on a four decades-old language law and is expected to pass in the coming months, small and medium-size businesses would face more rigorous regulations to ensure they are operating in French, including raising the bar for companies to justify why they need ... More

Turkish philanthropist goes to trial again in a widely condemned case
ISTANBUL.- A well-known Turkish philanthropist went on trial again in Istanbul on Friday, his third prosecution in four years of detention, in a mass proceeding that has come to demonstrate the extreme lengths the Turkish government is willing to take to keep its opponents behind bars. In a highly contested move, prosecutors merged the cases against three groups of defendants, most of whom have already been acquitted of any charges, to establish a new case against 52 people. The philanthropist, Osman Kavala, is the best known among the group, which includes football fans, environmentalists and artists who took part in the Taksim Square protests of 2013. Kavala made a statement by video link from Silivri Prison, outside Istanbul, where he has been held mostly in solitary confinement for the past four years. A panel of judges ordered him to be further remanded in custody. Charged ... More

Works by Hera Büyükta&scedil;c&inodot;yan and Chaouki Choukini acquired by Centre Pompidou
DUBAI.- Green Art Gallery announced that the works of Hera BÃ¼yÃ¼ktaşcıyan and Chaouki Choukini have entered the collection of Centre Pompidou, Paris, France. Hera BÃ¼yÃ¼ktaşcıyan integrates metaphors from local myths and historic and iconographic elements of different geographies to open up new narrative scopes. She locates the figure of the Other between the twinned spectres of absence and invisibility in order to weave connections between identity, memory, space and time. Since the late 1960s, Chaouki Choukini has developed an astoundingly consistent aesthetic worldview. His sculptural works, mainly in wood but occasionally in marble or stone, range from horizontal Lieux and Paysages to upright, anthropomorphic, almost totemic figures. Hera BÃ¼yÃ¼ktaşcıyan was born in Istanbul in 1984, and graduated from Marmara University, Faculty of Fine Arts, ... More

Louise Farrenc, 19th-century composer, surges back into sound
NEW YORK, NY.- Read the reviews that composer, pianist and teacher Louise Farrenc received in the middle of the 19th century, and the kinds of gendered, backhanded compliments that male critics have so often given to female artists pop up with tiresome regularity. There was innuendo. By the magic of her musical palette, a critic wrote in 1841, the composer envelops you with nocturnal images, at once mysterious and blissful. There was surprise. It is such a rarity for a woman to compose symphonies of real talent, offered a journal in 1851. There was patronizing praise. Well written, Hector Berlioz called a Farrenc overture in 1840, and orchestrated with a talent rare among women. But if Farrencs success, greater than any of her female contemporaries except Emilie Mayer, had critics admitting she stymied their stereotypes, those stereotypes were then slyly reimposed. ... More

Chinese American Arts Council gallery opens Xiaojing Yan's first solo exhibition in New York
NEW YORK, NY.- Ghostly landscapes wavering on silk, sculpture, and abstract paintings make up Xiaojing Yans first solo exhibition in New York. It features a site-specific installation, two unusual portrait busts of a young girl, and a few abstract ink paintings on paper, all from 2016-2020. Some of the materials she uses are surprising even if were accustomed to contemporary artists idiosyncratic, unfettered choices. Yan (born in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu, China in 1978 and based in Toronto, Canada) straddles two cultures, sourcing both although she is most deeply invested in representations of her native heritage. Her preference is evident in her subject matter, often based on traditional Chinese landscape paintings, aesthetic canons and its ancient folktales, legends, healing treatises, spiritual teachings, and philosophies. Landscape and the concept of place are central ... More

It's all in the eye: Tunisia's veteran photographer Jacques Perez
TUNIS.- "It's the eye that makes a photograph, not the camera," says 90-year-old Jacques Perez, who has forever retained his curiosity for his homeland Tunisia. An exhibition of his work named "Souvenirs d'Avant l'Oubli" (Memories before Oblivion) is being held until the end of October in a palace in the medina of Tunis, the old city where he was born and still lives. "I didn't study to take photos -- no need. It's above all about seeing. I like to look at 360 degrees and show what I saw," he said. "This was not a vocation, it came on its own." Perez said he began photography at the age of 11 or 12: "I was lucky to have a German mother and an Italian grandmother who gave me illustrated magazines" and educated his eyes. After 15 years of amateur photography alongside a teaching job, he was commissioned by a major Tunisian publisher to create a photo book of Sidi Bouzid, a poor ... More

Bolshoi performer killed in accident on stage
MOSCOW.- A performer of Russia's legendary Bolshoi Theatre was killed Saturday in an accident on stage during the performance of an opera, the Moscow company said. The theatre said the incident took place during a set change in Sadko, a 19th century opera by Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. "The performance was immediately stopped and the audience was asked to leave," the theatre's press service told the Interfax news agency. Moscow's Investigative Committee said in a statement that it was probing the death of the 37-year-old male performer. They did not reveal the name of the victim, but said he received injuries and died before an ambulance arrived. Citing a source, Interfax reported that the performer and was crushed by a ramp during a set change. The accident is not the first tragedy to strike Moscow's renowned theatre. In 2013, a senior ... More