sábado, 31 de marzo de 2018

5 MINUTES WITH... A POLYCHROME YORUBA MASK


Bruno Claessens, Head of African and Oceanic art at Christie’s, with a mask from the Republic of Benin once owned by a French Cubist, shown at the first MoMA exhibition of African art in 1935, and now being offered at auction in Paris on 10 April
Many Christie’s specialists who work with paintings routinely look at the back of frames for labels that can provide clues to provenance or exhibition history. ‘That reflex is much less common for an African art expert,’ explains Bruno Claessens, Christie’s European Head of African and Oceanic Art.
 ‘When I was appraising a private collection in Paris last month, in a beautiful apartment filled with art, this piece — a vibrant polychrome mask from the Republic of Benin — immediately caught my eye,’ Claessens says. ‘I lifted it from its base to feel the weight of the wood and to check for signs that it had previously been worn. Intuitively I also examined the inside of the mask, and to my amazement I discovered several old paper labels stuck to the wood.’


The original Poittier shipping label from the mid-1930s, found on the inside of the Yoruba mask

One of these, an old French customs stamp, was proof that the mask had at one point left the country for an exhibition. Finding that stamp was a real ‘eureka moment’, Claessens says, ‘because it was proof that the mask had not always been in France, and had had a long life before it arrived in this collection in Paris.’

The label of the shipping company that transported it (Poittier, from St. Ouen) was even more telling. Although the label was partly damaged, Claessens was able to decipher on it the words ‘A. Lhote – Exp. Art Négre – New York.’ This was a significant discovery, for it revealed that at the time of its shipment to New York, the mask was owned by French Cubist painter André Lhote (1885-1962), who had begun acquiring African masks in 1906.

What’s more, Claessens knew that in the first decades of the 20th century, only a few African art exhibitions had been organised in New York. The ‘Exp. Art Négre’ reference thus quickly brought to mind the Museum of Modern Art’s much acclaimed 1935 exhibition African Negro Art. Checking the exhibition’s extremely rare, un-illustrated catalogue, which listed all 500 works in the show, Claessens discovered this mask, listed as lot #242: the ‘Polychrome mask – Dahomey – Coll. André Lhote, Paris.’ (Dahomey being the kingdom that existed in present-day Benin from around 1600-1900.)

‘It had a long life in Africa, impressed crowds at the first major exhibition of African art in New York, and was immortalised by one of America’s most important photographers’

‘The 1935 exhibition was key because, rather than presenting these works in an ethnographic museum, as was the usual practice at the time, here we had masks and other pieces exhibited in an art museum. And not just any art museum, but the Museum of Modern Art,’ the specialist explains. ‘It was a real game changer, because from that moment on people started looking at these works as art and started to appreciate their sculptural qualities.’

What’s more, most of the objects exhibited in the African Negro Art  exhibition — including this mask — were photographed by Walker Evans, the pioneering American photographer who not long afterwards would travel throughout the country documenting the effects of the Great Depression. ‘Evans’ photos from this exhibition are very well-known, and are already valuable and well-collected,’ explains Claessens.


Bruno Claessens, Head of African and Oceanic art at Christie’s, with Yoruba mask, Republic of Benin. Height: 28 cm (11 in). Estimate: €6,000-8,000. This lot is offered in Arts d’Afrique, d’Océanie et d’Amérique on 10 April 2018 at Christie’s in Paris

This mask therefore represents an extremely exciting rediscovery: ‘Not only did it have a long life in Africa, but once it left the continent it continued to impress crowds at the first major exhibition of African art in New York, and was immortalised by one of America’s most important photographers.’

Further sleuthing would reveal that it was sold at auction in Paris in 1943, and acquired by well-known French publisher Jean Aubier. From Aubier it passed to Pierre Vérité (whose collection was offered in November 2017 at Christie’s in Paris), and finally from the Vérité family to its current owner, who was unaware of its earlier provenance. Indeed, it was after the Vérité sale that the current owner approached Claessens to tell him that she had another piece, which once belonged to the Vérité family, and that he might like to see……………

https://www.christies.com/features/Yoruba-mask-shown-at-MoMA-in-1935-8977-1.aspx?sc_lang=en&cid=EM_EMLcontent04144A28recommended_1_0&cid=DM172616&bid=128899554

CARRIÈRES DE LUMIÈRES LES BAUX-DE-PROVENCE EXPOSITION NUMERIQUE IMMERSIVE PICASSO ET LES MAÎTRES ESPAGNOLS


Une réalisation Gianfranco Iannuzzi - Renato Gatto - Massimiliano Siccardi - avec la collaboration musicale de Luca Longobardi
Du 2 mars 2018 au 6 janvier 2019
Découvrez un siècle de peinture espagnole !


Du 2 mars 2018 au 6 janvier 2019, les chefs-d’oeuvre numérisés de Picasso, Goya ou encore Sorolla, dialogueront en musique sur les immenses surfaces calcaires des Carrières. Véritable invitation au voyage, cette création multimédia inédite retracera un siècle de peinture espagnole pour une expérience artistique intense.
L’exposition immersive, ancrée dans l’Espagne, réunit de grands maîtres de la peinture moderne espagnole. La première partie met en scène les portraits et scènes de vie quotidienne de Goya, Rusiñol, Zuloaga et Sorolla. La seconde partie se concentre sur Picasso, sans conteste l’un des grands maîtres et influenceurs de l’art du XXe siècle, et propose un panorama de la grande richesse créative de son oeuvre.

De la cour royale aux scènes champêtres de Goya, à travers les jardins enchanteurs de Rusiñol, les portraits de Zuloaga et les scènes en bord de mer du lumineux Sorolla, les visiteurs seront invités à prendre le large avant de plonger dans l’univers pictural foisonnant de Picasso et son oeuvre magistrale. Les formes distinctives des Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), les rose et bleu apaisants de La Flûte de Pan (1923), mais aussi la puissance hostile de Guernica (1937) et les rives méditerranéennes de La Joie de Vivre (1946) transporteront tour à tour le spectateur au coeur du génie créatif de l’artiste.
Conçue comme une déambulation à travers l’art ibérique du XXe siècle, l’exposition numérique et immersive Picasso et les maîtres espagnols met en mouvement des milliers d’oeuvres numérisées, qui s’animent aux moyens de l’équipement technique de pointe AMIEX®. Les parois calcaires blanches se métamorphosent ainsi en toiles de maître sous les faisceaux d’une centaine de projecteurs. Le visiteur est invité à se balader librement dans l’espace monumental des Carrières pour découvrir à son rythme les projections dynamiques qui l’entourent. Une sélection musicale vibrante participe à enrichir les émotions du promeneur, qui redécouvre les chefs-d’oeuvre sous un angle unique, celui d’une expérience globale de l’art dématérialisé.

http://carrieres-lumieres.com/fr/picasso-et-maitres-espagnols

PABLO HERAS-CASADO EN MOZART IN THE JUNGLE


Pablo Heras-Casado aparece como invitado en la nueva temporada de la serie de Amazon Prime Video, “Mozart in the Jungle”. Haciendo de sí mismo en el noveno episodio, “I Want You To Think Of Me”, Pablo y Rodrigo (Gael García Bernal) tienen un malentendido…
La serie lleva produciéndose desde 2014 y está en su cuarta temporada. Todos los episodios están disponibles en streaming en todo el mundo a partir del 16 de febrero. La historia gira en torno a los personajes de Rodrigo de Souza, el director musical de la New York Symphony, una orquesta ficticia, y Hailey Rutledge, un oboísta con grandes ambiciones de convertirse en directora de orquesta, interpretada por la actriz Lola Kirke.
Inspirada en el libro “Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music”, las memorias del oboísta Blair Tindall publicadas en 2005 sobre su carrera profesional en Nueva York, apariciones previas han incluido a Gustavo Dudamel, Joshua Bell, Emanuel Ax, Lang Lang y Alan Gilbert, entre otros.
Vea el trailer de la cuarta temporada de “Mozart in the Jungle” a continuación:


http://pabloherascasado.com/es/2018/02/16/pablo-heras-casado-in-mozart-in-the-jungle/

FROM GERTRUDE STEIN TO THE ROCKEFELLERS: THE COLLECTING OF MODERNIST MASTERPIECES


Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art specialists Max Carter and Jessica Fertig tell the story of how important works from one of the first ever great collections of modern art, formed by Gertrude Stein, were acquired by Peggy and David Rockefeller
‘It’s rare that you can capture a moment of great change and transition,’ says Max Carter, Head of Department for Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie’s in New York. The suite of works from the Gertrude Stein collection that are offered in The Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller  this May is, says Carter, ‘fascinating for the way it links two great collecting families, which were both driven by an adventurous spirit and strong women who were looking at modernism and really finding themselves.’

The three works that Carter and his colleague Jessica Fertig admire in Christie’s Rockefeller Center galleries were initially assembled by Gertrude Stein, the great American writer and facilitator of the avant-garde who became the epicentre of beau monde Paris in the 1900s. When her collection came up for sale some half a century later, Peggy and David Rockefeller hatched a plan to acquire it.

Gertrude and her brother Leo Stein moved to an apartment on the rue de Fleurus in Paris in 1903 and began acquiring paintings from their then unknown artist friends, who included Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Paul Cézanne. At the time, the works cost just a few dollars each.


The Steins’ Paris home, circa 1912-13. Picasso’s Fillette à la corbeille fleurie, 1905, is to the left of the stove. Photo from the Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Artworks: © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018. © Succession H. Matisse/DACS, London 2018. © Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2018

Every Saturday Leo, Gertrude, and her partner Alice B. Toklas presided over a salon attended by their creative cohorts. Guests included not only the rivals Picasso and Matisse (who competed for space on the high walls of Gertrude’s atelier), but artists such as André Derain and Georges Braque, and the writers Guillaume Apollinaire, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The family bond between Gertrude and Leo was disrupted after 1910 when Alice moved into the apartment, although their views on art were becoming irreconcilable too. Leo was retreating from his earlier enthusiasm for the new painting; Renoir was now his paragon. Gertrude, meanwhile, had come to look on Picasso as a kind of twin soul — and to see her own fractured, iterative poetry as the literary equivalent of Picasso’s faceted Cubist canvases. Leo loathed his sister’s work (‘I think it abominable’, he said) and in 1913 this open antipathy resulted in the inevitable rupture. Leo decided to move out of rue de Fleurus; the collection, their joint project and mutual property, had to be divided between them.


Gertude Stein (left) and Alice B. Toklas. Photo from the Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

It was mostly an easy parting of the ways: Gertrude kept the Picassos; Leo took the Renoirs, the Renaissance furniture, and nearly all the Cézannes when he left Paris for a house outside Florence. Leo and Gertrude never set eyes on each other again.

Gertrude and Alice remained in Paris for 30 more years, buying and selling works when finances fluctuated. During the Second World War Gertrude once quipped ‘we are eating the Cézanne’ when questioned about a painting missing from her walls.

After Gertrude died in 1946 her collection of 47 paintings (38 of which were by Picasso) was bequeathed to her nephew but remained on the walls of Toklas’s home. Gertrude’s nephew eventually passed ownership on to his three children, who decided to sell when Toklas died.

David and Peggy Rockefeller were no strangers to modernism by the time news of the sale broke in 1967. David’s mother, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, had co-founded the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1929, and the museum was now keen to acquire a group of six Picassos from Stein’s collection, although it needed to find the funds.

The back of Picasso’s Pomme still retains the handwritten note from the artist to the couple, which reads, ‘Souvenir pour Gertrude et Alice. Picasso. Noel 1914’

David Rockefeller stepped in and formed a six-man syndicate made up of himself, his brother Nelson, William Burden, André Meyer, Bill Paley and John Hay Whitney, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune. An independent expert placed a total value of $6.8 million on Stein’s cherished paintings. This meant that each of the six syndicate members needed to put in a little more than a million dollars. ‘I felt this was far too good an opportunity to miss,’ David later wrote in his memoirs.


On a Saturday afternoon in December in 1968 in a back room at MoMA, numbered pieces of paper were put into an old felt hat. David was able to draw two lots from the hat after doubling up on his investment when Burden dropped out. By the time the hat reached him, however, there were only two pieces of paper left inside. ‘Fortunately for [David], the two lots that were left were numbers one and three,’ says Carter.

David’s first selection was easy: Picasso’s 1905 masterpiece Fillette à la corbeille fleurie (Young Girl with a Flower Basket), which every other member of the syndicate wanted. ‘We actually know this is a portrait of Linda, a flower seller in Montmartre,’ says Jessica Fertig of the teenage model who worked outside the Moulin Rouge and later posed for Modigliani and Van Dongen. ‘It has such a unique palette in the way that [Picasso] uses colour and where he chooses to use it. And then the face — it’s haunting, it’s self-assured, it’s knowing.’

Leo Stein had paid $30 for the painting in 1905, long before his disenchantment with Picasso. Gertrude did not like it at all, and was furious with her brother for buying it. But over the years, once it was hers alone, she came to admire the work greatly. This Rose Period Picasso, which was painted while the artist was in his early twenties, went on to hang in between two windows of the library in David and Peggy’s 65th Street New York townhouse for the rest of their lives……………….

https://www.christies.com/features/From-Gertrude-Stein-to-the-Rockefellers-The-collecting-of-modernist-masterpieces-8973-3.aspx?sc_lang=en&cid=EM_EMLcontent04144A28C_0&cid=DM172616&bid=128899554

EXPOSITION DELACROIX (1798-1863). MUSEE DU LOUVRE


du 29 Mars 2018 au 23 Juillet 2018


Le musée du Louvre et le Metropolitan Museum of Art s’associent pour organiser une exposition dédiée  à Eugène Delacroix. Réunissant 180 oeuvres, cette rétrospective relève un défi resté inédit depuis  l’exposition parisienne qui commémorait en 1963 le centenaire de la mort de l’artiste.
Malgré sa célébrité, il reste encore beaucoup à comprendre sur la carrière de Delacroix. L’exposition propose une vision synthétique renouvelée, s’interrogeant sur ce qui a pu inspirer et diriger l’action  prolifique de l’artiste, et déclinée en trois grandes périodes.
La première partie traite de la décennie 1822-1832 placée sous le signe de la conquête et de l’exploration des pouvoirs expressifs du médium pictural ; la seconde partie cherche à évaluer l’impact de la peinture de grand décor mural (activité centrale après 1832) sur sa peinture de chevalet où  s’observe une attraction simultanée pour le monumental, le pathétique et le décoratif ; enfin, la  dernière partie s’attache aux dernières années, les plus difficiles à appréhender, caractérisées par une ouverture au paysage et par un nouveau rôle créateur accordé à la mémoire.
Les écrits de l’artiste viennent enrichir et compléter la redécouverte de ce génie en constant  renouvellement.
Commissaire(s) :
Sébastien Allard et Côme Fabre, département des Peintures, musée du Louvre.
Remerciements :
Cette exposition est organisée par le musée du Louvre, Paris, et le Metropolitan Museum of New York. Cette exposition bénéficie du mécénat de la Caisse d’Épargne, de Kinoshita Group, de Bouygues Bâtiment Île-de-France et de Deloitte.En partenariat média avec Le Monde, L’Express, The New York Times, ARTE, BFMTV et RTL.En partenariat avec la Fnac et la RATP.
https://www.louvre.fr/expositions

viernes, 30 de marzo de 2018

PALAZZO SPINI FERONI. SALVATORE FERRAGAMO



Palazzo Spini Feroni is a Medieval palace originally built in 1289 by Geri Spini, a wealthy merchant and banker to Pope Boniface VIII. It has known several owners over the centuries, from the Spini family to the Guasconi, Bagnano and Feroni families.

https://www.ferragamo.com/museo/en/usa/visit/building

6 CLASSICAL MUSIC CONCERTS TO SEE IN NYC THIS WEEKEND By DAVID ALLEN


András Schiff at Carnegie Hall in 2017. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

Our guide to the city’s best classical music and opera happening this weekend and in the week ahead.
CONTACT! at National Sawdust (April 2, 7:30 p.m.). Esa-Pekka Salonen is doing double duty at the New York Philharmonic this week, in his role as a valued guest conductor and as the orchestra’s composer in residence. First up, he hosts what may well be the last concert of the Contact! series, Alan Gilbert’s important yet ill-fated contemporary music endeavor. It had to be saved from oblivion once and will be retired under the new music director, Jaap van Zweden. This program looks at current Russian composers, including music by Nikolay Popov, Denis Khorov, Marina Khorkova, Dmitri Kourliandski and Alexander Khubeev.
212-875-5656, nyphil.org
JENNIFER KOH at National Sawdust (March 31, 7 p.m.). “Limitless” is the latest of Ms. Koh’s pioneering commissioning projects, in which the violinist plays newly written duets with their composers, who have deliberately been chosen to present an inclusive vision of classical music’s present and future. On this second program of two, there is music by Lisa Bielawa, Vijay Iyer, Tyshawn Sorey, Nina Young and Du Yun.
646-779-8455, nationalsawdust.org
JUILLIARD ORCHESTRA at Carnegie Hall (April 2, 8 p.m.). David Robertson leads the superb young players of the famous conservatory’s leading ensemble in Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”; Ives’s “Three Places in New England”; and Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 3. The soloist is Tomer Gewirtzman.
212-247-7800, carnegiehall.org
MATA FESTIVAL at the Church of the Epiphany (April 2, 7 p.m.). Now in its 20th iteration, this festival has done a great deal for young composers, as any glance through its alumni will testify. This year’s concerts kick off with a new focus on sacred music, featuring works by Shawn Jaeger, Lydia Winsor Brindamour, David M. Gordon and Nico Muhly, and performers including Miranda Cuckson and Blair McMillen.
matafestival.org
NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC at David Geffen Hall (April 4, 7:30 p.m., through April 6). Mr. Salonen conducts what is for him a relatively standard program among his other Philharmonic dates this week. The bulk is Beethoven: the “Eroica” Symphony and the Piano Concerto No. 3, with the sublime soloist Benjamin Grosvenor. Novelty comes with the premiere of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s “Metacosmos,” a new work from a composer with a distinctive idiom.
212-875-5656, nyphil.org
ANDRÁS SCHIFF at Carnegie Hall (April 3 and 5, 8 p.m.). Mr. Schiff’s pianism continues to divide opinion, and his two programs this week will likely do the same. They are resolutely narrow in their choice of composers, but somewhat unexpected in the way they are otherwise put together. On Tuesday, the proceedings begin with Mendelssohn’s Fantasia in F sharp minor, move on to Beethoven’s Sonata in F sharp, head through Brahms’s Op. 76 Piano Pieces and Op. 116 Fantasies, and end up at Bach’s English Suite No. 6. On Thursday, an even more circuitous route takes in Schumann’s “Variations on an Original Theme,” more late Brahms, a Mozart rondo, a Bach prelude and fugue, and, finally, perhaps with a hint of irony, Beethoven’s “Les Adieux” Sonata.
212-247-7800, carnegiehall.org

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/arts/music/classical-music-in-nyc-this-week.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FClassical%20Music&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection

LOEWE CRAFT PRIZE


30 shortlisted artists for the 2018 edition of the LOEWE Craft Prize. Each finalists’ work will be exhibited at The Design Museum, London from 4 May – 17 June 2018.
For the 2018 edition, a panel of 11 experts convened in Madrid for two days to review all presented works and select the shortlist. In their deliberations, the panel sought to identify the most outstanding works in terms of technical accomplishment, innovation and artistic vision.


Regarding the selection process, Anatxu Zabalbeascoa, Executive Secretary of the LOEWE Craft Prize Experts Panel, stated: ‘This year the judging was harder than prior years, with the standard of applicants impressively high across every category. Our chosen works reflect an almost alchemical manipulation of each medium’s possibilities and reward those who have mastered traditional skills in order to transform them for the contemporary age. The selected finalists —who range in age from 27 to 76— are a multigenerational snapshot of the utmost excellence in craft today.’

http://craftprize.loewe.com/

AMAZING EGYPTIAN ARTIFACTS RECOVERED FROM SUNKEN CITIES IN THE NILE DELTA


Part archaeological expedition, part adventure story, the Sunken Cities exhibition opened this week at the St. Louis Art Museum.

Monica Uszerowic

Archaeologist eye to eye to with a sphinx underwater, Eastern Harbor, Alexandria, Egypt (1st century BCE, photo by Jérôme Delafosse © Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation, courtesy St. Louis Art Museum)

Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds is a spectacularly beautiful opportunity to indulge your inner Indiana Jones. Part archaeological expedition, part adventure story, the exhibition opened this week at the St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) in Missouri. The ancient artifacts on display were discovered under the sea during recent excavations by Franck Goddio, president of the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology, and his team. This is the North American debut of Sunken Cities, which has also been shown at the British Museum in London, the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, and the Museum Rietberg in Zurich.

Lisa Çakmak, Associate Curator of Ancient Art for the collection, studied both classical art and archaeology, and was deeply moved by the exhibition after seeing it at the British Museum. At SLAM, the exhibition includes over 200 artifacts from the cities of Canopus and Thonis-Heracleion, both of which were long believed to be lost to time: 16-foot statues of pharaohs and goddesses like Hapy, jewelry, bronze vessels, and statuesque homages to the god Osiris, all salvaged from just ten meters below the sea. There, they were covered by a layer of silt that obscured them from sight, but protected their integrity. Though Thonis-Heracleion’s history dates as far back as 12th century BCE, lavish jewels and gold coins from the area maintain an otherworldly glow.


A four-foot statue of a priest holding an Osiris-Canopus with veiled hands, Alexandria, granodiorite, National Museum of Alexandria (1st century BCE-2nd century CE, photo by Christoph Gerigk © Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation, courtesy St. Louis Art Museum)

The black stele that originally demystified the names Thonis and Heracleion is on display, still intact and scrawled with dense lettering. (There are three other steles to check out, including a greywacke, tombstone-shaped piece dedicated to Horus.) The cities were once thought to be separate, despite their similar descriptions in ancient Egyptian and Greek literature. But in 2000, after surveying the Abu Qir Bay off the coast of Egypt for nearly five years, Goddio and his team discovered Canopus and Thonis-Heracleion; the stele revealed that Thonis was the port city’s Egyptian name, and Heracleion its Greek moniker.
Located about 20 miles northeast of Alexandria and built on adjoining islands in the Nile Delta, Thonis-Heracleion was just a short distance from Canopus, another coastal town. The city was a massive trading hub, wealthy and well-traversed, and Sunken Cities recalls its opulence: a thick ring from the Ptolemaic period, its band a twist of thick coils; beast-shaped earrings; serving dishes made of gold. It was also a center for religious pilgrimages, with sanctuaries dedicated to the healing arts and, specifically, Osiris. During a yearly festival, called the Mysteries of Osiris, a ceremonial boat was led from the temple of Amun to a shrine in Canopus.


The stele of Thonis-Heracleion raised under water on site in the bay of Aboukir, Thonis-Heracleion, Aboukir Bay, Egypt; National Museum, Alexandria, IEASM Excavations. (photo by Christoph Gerigk © Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation, image courtesy St. Louis Art Museum)

Though this barge will not be on view at SLAM, Osiris is everywhere, with over 30 objects depicting him in various ephemera — an amulet, a vase, a statuette held in the goddess Isis’s arms, a basalt structure shaped like his death bed. For those of us who associate ancient Egyptian literature rather immediately with Isis and Osiris, Sunken Cities, with its treasures from a city quite dedicated to the latter’s existence, will inspire a sense of mysticism, and still more mystery. Goddio estimates that his team has found only five percent of Canopus and Thonis-Heracleion. This knowledge — that there’s so much we still haven’t seen — may be as tantalizing as any of the objects on display.


The bust of the colossal statue of the god Hapy, strapped with webbing before being raised out of the water of Aboukir Bay, Egypt, by IEASM Excavations (photo by Christoph Gerigk © Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation, courtesy St. Louis Art Museum)

Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds is on view at the Saint Louis Art Museum (1 Fine Arts Drive, St. Louis, Missouri) until September 9.





https://hyperallergic.com/434740/sunken-cities-egypt-st-louis-art-museum/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MAR%2030%202018%20-%20Burning%20Man%20Goes%20to%20Washington&utm_content=MAR%2030%202018%20-%20Burning%20Man%20Goes%20to%20Washington+CID_94929ebb8faeb74b180a56ac7332620e&utm_source=HyperallergicNewsletter

jueves, 29 de marzo de 2018

VERGNANO IN USCITA DAL REGIO: L’ADDIO È UN GIALLO


Tante voci ma lui nega: “Nessuno mi ha mai chiesto di andarmene”
EMANUELA MINUCCI
TORINO
Dopo quasi vent’anni alla guida del Teatro Regio (la sua prima nomina risale al 1999) per il sovrintendente Walter Vergnano sarebbe arrivata l’ora dell’addio ai velluti rossi di piazza Castello. In realtà il suo mandato scade nel 2019. Ma in questi giorni si moltiplicano le voci su una sua uscita anticipata. Passo indietro che - secondo indiscrezioni trapelate dal consiglio di indirizzo - sarebbe addirittura stato chiesto dal diretto interessato. Uno sfogo che avrebbe avviato l’intero iter di sostituzione del numero uno del Regio. Ma la vicenda ha i contorni del giallo. Vergnano infatti nega in modo netto: «Io dimissionario? Non mi risulta nel modo più assoluto. Il motivo è presto detto: ho un ottimo rapporto con la sindaca Appendino e lei non mi ha chiesto niente». 


LEGGI ANCHE Incidente al Teatro Regio: la procura apre un’inchiesta per lesioni 
LEGGI ANCHE Trama, libretto e dvd, l’opera lirica diventa interattiva 
Il probabile successore 
Ma ci sarebbe anche il nome del successore, Giancarlo Del Monaco, classe 1943, figlio del grande tenore Mario. A sentirlo, Vergnano si fa caustico: «Ha esattamente dieci anni più di me, sarebbe davvero questo il nuovo che avanza?». Il Soprintendente replica anche alle voci secondo le quali la sua sostituzione sarebbe la conseguenza di un problema di salute: «Sono mancato per un po’, ma ora ho ripreso ad andare in ufficio tranquillamente». Quindi replica all’ipotesi di un addio per aver esaurito gli stimoli: «Se sono stufo di lavorare? Come tutti quelli che sono da decenni impegnati nello stesso lavoro, ma non ho ancora deciso di andarmene».
LEGGI ANCHE Regio, la denuncia dei sindacati: “Sul palco emergenza continua” 
LEGGI ANCHE: Tutti gli appuntamenti, gli eventi e le mostre a Torino 
Però, nonostante le smentite del diretto interessato, sembra chiaro che dalle parti del Regio qualcosa stia succedendo. Per andare a buon fine l’operazione ha la necessità di essere condivisa dall’intero consiglio di indirizzo e poi timbrata dal ministero. Gli enti pubblici lasciano intendere che il movimento c’è ed è chiaro che non sarà scelto direttamente il candidato Del Monaco perché è necessario passare attraverso un bando o qualcosa di simile. 
I guai tecnici 
Già quattro anni fa la poltrona di Vergnano traballò in seguito a un forte dissidio avuto con il direttore artistico Gianandrea Noseda, ma allora intervenne il sindaco Fassino che costrinse i due a fare la pace. Oggi, invece, tutto appare più difficile anche per il momento complicato che il teatro Regio sta attraversando. C’è la situazione finanziaria che a detta dei sindacati non è delle più rosee «In forma ufficiale non ci è ancora stato comunicato niente - Pierluigi Filagna della Fials - e ieri abbiamo ricevuto il cedolino dello stipendio cosa importante e non scontata, certo è che non si fa altro che parlare di una situazione faticosa dovuta ai ritardi nei pagamenti da parte degli enti locali. Appena ce lo diranno ufficialmente sentirete la nostra voce forte e chiara». Voci autorevoli interne al consiglio d’indirizzo spiegano che questa situazione costa al teatro 600 mila euro l’anno in termini di interessi passivi. 
Il cartellone rimescolato 
Una situazione che pare abbia suggerito ai vertici artistici del Regio anche un cambio di passo nella scelta del cartellone che verrà presentato a maggio. Un po’ più pop per incrementare pubblico e incassi e avere messe in scena più semplici e compatibili con le necessità della sicurezza. 

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