On July 17, 2011, the world’s best known Egyptologist, Zahi Hawass, was fired from his position as Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities. The first news I received of Hawass being discharged came from Max Fisher’s article, Egyptians Celebrate Firing of the ‘Mubarak of Antiquities’, published in the Atlantic on July 18, 2001. Hawass was sacked by the country’s ruling army council,…
The Egyptian Museum became an improbable backdrop to Egypt’s ongoing revolution when on Jan. 25, 2011, pro-democracy protesters first occupied Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo, where the Victorian-era museum happens to be located. As the rebellion unfolded the rose-colored walls of the museum were seen on television and computer screens all across the globe; it was quite possibly the first…
Readers of this web log are no doubt aware of events in Egypt, where the people are in open revolt against the U.S.-backed dictator, Hosni Mubarak. The people have but one clear demand, the ousting of Mubarak and the sweeping away of his entire government. Apart from a few comments, I will mostly leave the political philosophizing and theoretical analysis…
On January 6, 2011, Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad unveiled the architectural plans for his new downtown L.A. art museum – which will of course be named, “The Broad.” The $130 million, three-story, 114,000-square-foot museum will be located on L.A.’s historic Bunker Hill, across the street from the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. On…
According to figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Dec. 3, 2010, the national unemployment rate in the U.S. is officially up to 9.8%. “Frugal” seems to be the most used word to describe the current Christmas season. Together with rising home foreclosures, increasing poverty, lack of healthcare, and some 14% of Americans relying on food stamps to…
I will never forget waking up on September 11, 2001 to the spectacle of the Twin Towers being hit by missile-like planes. That day I turned on morning television only to see those slow motion videos of doom and destruction; I watched with eyes full of tears and heart full of dread. Nearly 3,000 people perished in the terror attack,…
Celebrated American paintings were presented at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in an exhibition titled American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915. The exhibit was comprised of 103 paintings that depicted the American experience from the colonial period to the Gilded Age of the late 19th century. On display were iconic canvases by the likes of John Singleton Copley,…
In these “postmodern” days it has been said that there is no more passé a vocation than that of the professional art critic. Perceived as the gate keeper for opinions regarding art and culture, the art critic has supposedly been rendered obsolete by an ever expanding pluralism in the art world, where all practices and disciplines are purported to be…
