Gyorgy Ligeti, one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, died today.

This is one of my favorite CDs for introducing people to his music. I was lucky enough to hear a performance of the Violin Concerto with Laura Park and the Brooklyn Philharmonic in the late 90s.

[image from the Schott website]

Tom Hulce as Mozart in Milos Forman’s Amadeus

Before today, I never knew that Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus_, which was the basis for one of my favorite films of all time, was a riff (to be kind) on Pushkin. I learned from the essays for today’s concert of the detail.cfm?Concert=30">American Symphony Orchestra</a> that Alexander Pushkin wrote a short play called Mozart and Salieri that is rather familiar to those of us who know the Shaffer play.

I love the words of Mozart towards the end of the Pushkin work. At this point he is unaware that he has been poisoned by by his friend Salieri (which has little, if any, historical basis). The “you” refers to Salieri.

If all could feel like you the power of harmony!
But no: the world could not go on then. None
Would bother with the needs of lowly life;
All would surrender to spontaneous art.
We chosen ones are few, we happy idlers,
who care not for contemptible usefulness,
But only of the beautiful are priests.
Is that not so? But I’m not well just now.
Something oppresses me. I need to sleep.
Farewell!

On a slightly related note, Tom Hulce is one of the producers of the excellent new musical, Spring Awakening, at the Atlantic Theater.

Related to my earlier post on the rich and their hunger for art/bohemia, I learn that W Magazine will have its first-ever art issue this fall. I believe the LTB Magazine will be called Culture and Travel, not Art & Culture as the NY Post says.

W magazine’s first-ever art issue is slated to hit newsstands in October, and will cover major artists, auction houses and dealers.

Some may chalk this one up to a simmering rivalry between James Truman, the ex-editorial director of Conde Nast, and Patrick McCarthy, the editorial director of stablemate W.

Truman is now the CEO of LTB Media, a company that has as its flagship Art & Auction. He’s also introducing his newest magazine, Art & Culture, in September, but is said to be struggling to find ads.

McCarthy denies any rivalry with Truman. “It has nothing to do with that. We’ve had this on the drawing board for nine months,” McCarthy said of W’s art number.

Still, he concedes, it is a first for W. And while he’ll be covering the art world, he said he’ll be going to the same high-end fashion advertisers.

I turn 40 today. If you run into me tonight at the openings, wish me a happy entry into middle age!

I have never cared for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). On a superficial level, I really dislike their equal sign logo (modified above for me by Art Fag City) which is designed to be as un-gay as possible. I remember a queer American friend, who lives in Europe, visiting around the time of the NYC GOP convention in 2004. He had no idea what the little blue = stickers were that some protesters where wearing.

Allegedly a gay rights lobbying organization, it has become so entrenched in the DC lobbying mindset that it is not merely ineffectual, it is actually harmful to gay rights in America. I am no fan of Charles Schumer, given his vote for the Defense of Marriage Act. A Jewish New Yorker representing Park Slope making an anti-gay vote? Yeah, that’ll get you the Christian Right vote. However, when the HRC endorsed Al D’Amato over Schumer in 1998, I was shocked.

Their newest outrage? They have endorsed Joseph Lieberman for the Senate, even before the primary. Thanks to his snuggling up to the GOP and Bush on matters ranging from the Iraq War to the PATRIOT Act, he actually stands a chance of losing the primary to Ned Lamont. Guess which of the two is more pro-gay? Lamont. Of course, the HRC always argues this about realpolitik, or about preserving access, but ultimately they are working against the interests of the people they supposedly represent.

Why is endorsing Lieberman so bad? Here is an excerpt of a blog post by Firedoglake:

He told the New Haven Advocate that “homosexuality is wrong,” joined with notorious homo-hater Jesse Helms in voting to take away federal funding from schools that counsel suicidal gay teens that it’s okay to be gay. On gays in the military, Lieberman has enunciated the now-discredited canard that “homosexual conduct can harm unit cohesion and effectiveness.” (Tell that to the dozens of countries, from England to Israel, that permit openly gay troops in their armed forces.)

In fact, Lieberman worked with Georgia’s Sam Nunn to fashion the destructive “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which resulted in escalating expulsions of gays from the military every year after it took effect. Its Catch-22 provisions have directly stimulated a rising wave of violent gay bashing and harassment in the military because victims can’t complain without “telling.”

He also explains why Ned Lamont is a good candidate for the gay community, so go take a look. One more post worth reading on the subject is Howie Klein at Huffington Post.

Note: I use gay above, but I mean it more in a general sense of queer. I don’t feel like listing a number of groups that follow under that umbrella, and I’m not offended by the word queer, but it seems to make some people (including my fellow homos) squeamish.

Portrait of Alexander Herzen (1867), Painted by Nikolai Gay [source]

Ooh! Ooh! I want to see this!

Lincoln Center Theater has set dates for its production of Tom Stoppard’s award-winning trilogy of plays, The Coast of Utopia, to take place at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. The first part of the trilogy, entilted Voyage, will start performances on October 17, and the last part of the trilogy, Salvage, will conclude on March 11.

During the final three and one-half weeks of the production’s run, audiences will have the opportunity to see all three parts of the trilogy in successive performances. In addition, on three Saturdays — February 24, March 3 and March 10 — theatergoers will be able to see all three parts in one-day marathons beginning at 11am.

…

Beginning in mid-19th century Russia during the repressive reign of Tsar Nicholas I, the play spans a period of 30 years. It tells the panoramic story of a group of Russian intellectuals, headed by the radical theorist and editor Alexander Herzen, the novelist Ivan Turgenev, the literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, and the aristocrat-turned-anarchist Michael Bakunin, who lead a band of like-minded countrymen in a revolutionary movement in which they strive to change and fix a political system by using their minds as their only weapon.

Voyage, which is set in the Russian countryside as well as in Moscow and St. Petersburg, will open officially on November 5. Part two, entilted Shipwreck, begins 13 years later outside Moscow and follows the characters’ exile to Paris, Dresden, and Nice. It begins previews on December 5 and opens officially on December 21. Salvage, which takes place over a period of 12 years in London and Geneva, begins previews on January 30 and opens officially on February 15.

I’ve been wanting to see this since I first read about it four years ago on The Observer’s web site. My favorite paragraph of the article:

Marx distrusted Herzen, and was despised by him in return. Herzen had no time for the kind of mono-theory that bound history, progress and individual autonomy to some overarching abstraction like Marx’s material dialecticism. What he did have time for – and what bound Isaiah Berlin to him – was the individual over the collective, the actual over the theoretical. What he detested above all was the conceit that future bliss justified present sacrifice and bloodshed. The future, said Herzen, was the offspring of accident and wilfulness. There was no libretto or destination, and there was always as much in front as behind.

J.T. Kirkland
Bulb I
Ink on archival scrapbook paper
12″ × 12″

I spotted this on his blog, Thinking About Art. Visit this post to see more.

Gustavo Artigas, Rules of the Game, 2000-2001, video still

I think this has already been mentioned on Artnet, but I just now realized that Roebling Hall is closing its Williamsburg location after the next show. From the press release for the show:

Celebrate the Final Gallery Opening at Roebling Hall, Williamsburg!
This Saturday June 3, 6-8pm preview party

…

This portion of the show is the last exhibition at Roebling Hall’s Brooklyn gallery.

This makes me almost as sad as when Schroeder Romero left. It’s the end of an era. I fear Williamsburg is turning into a yuppie playground, but without anything like the public transit of much of Manhattan. I’m sorry my schedule and the crappy weather discouraged me from attending William Powhida’s eulogy tonight.

Flush with cash from all of their tax cuts and asset appreciation, the rich need new ways to entertain themselves. Pretending to be more connected to bohemia and artists appears to be the new black.

James Truman, formerly of Condé Nast, is starting up a magazine for LTB Media called Culture and Travel. Here is an excerpt from a Anthony Haden-Guest column in the Financial Times.

So to Culture and Travel. Truman was editorial director of Conde Nast for 11 years. How will the new title differ?</p>

“We’re going to select the audience, 60,000 people, from proprietary lists that we’re compiling of art lovers, people who are very involved in culture, people who travel, rich people.” Another explosive laugh.

And the critical content? “It won’t be an art magazine in the sense of having reviews. It will work off the cultural calendar somewhat. But really it’s a travel guide for creative people. And those people who want to live a creative life for a few weeks.”</blockquote>

This reminds me of an article I saw in Business Week about Ian Schrager declaring that “design hotels” are over, and “art hotels” are the new thing. Read the Chelsea Hotel Blog for more on that story.

I didn’t get around to adding these two things yesterday to my previous post. First, the excellent New York Post cover from yesterday:

Second, the ABC news blog reports that part of the funding cut was justified by explaining that New York has no national monuments or icons.