Roundup: Pop Culture & the Arts ... Movies, Documentaries and Museum Exhibits

The Idea of a Black President in American Culture

Until the recent inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth president of the United States, the nation’s highest office has been reserved for white men. The idea of a black president has been so unthinkable to most Americans that, for much of our nation’s past, it has been relegated to rare comedic or fantastic explorations in the popular culture. Only over the last half century has that begun to change. Throughout most of American history, the idea of a black president has be

Relatives of art historian fight with Munich over Klee painting

The mayor of Munich says he's not going to allow the return of a Paul Klee painting, seized during Nazi rule from a German museum, to the relatives of the art historian who lent it to the museum. Sumpflegende (Swamp Legend) was one of 15 works on loan to the Provinzialmuseum in Hanover in 1926 by Sophie Lissitzky-Kueppers. Shortly after, she left Germany to join the Russian artist El Lissitzky near Moscow, and married him. Now her heirs are, once again, demanding the re

Goering's lost art

As Hitler's right-hand man, Hermann Goering committed some of the most horrific crimes in history. Yet he surrounded himself with beauty, exploiting his power to loot some of the world's most fantastic works of art and using them to to adorn the walls of Carinhall, his country retreat near Berlin. Now, for the first time, all the paintings have been documented, after a seven-year research project. Photographs of every painting ever possessed by Goering will be publishe

Artists jubilant as £50m Titian saved for nation

The sculptor Antony Gormley has welcomed news that a campaign to raise £50m to buy a painting by Titian from the Duke of Sutherland has been successful. The purchase will be announced officially tomorrow. Mr Gormley, one of 40 artists who signed a petition calling for the nation to buy two Titians being sold by the Duke, said the works – Diana and Actaeon and its partner Diana and Callisto – were "divine". He said: "They are an inspiration for everyone... a fixed poin

The day the music died America's apple-pie order began to crumble

A long, long time ago . . . I can still remember How that music used to make me smile. I can't remember if I cried When I read about his widowed bride, But something touched me deep inside The day the music died. So said Don McLean in his iconic 1971 song "American Pie," about the death in a light-plane crash of three of my generation's childhood heroes: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson, who was known as The

Alexander Rodchenko's Russian revolution coming to the Tate Modern, London

It's a bold statement, but one of the curators at the Pushkin Gallery in Moscow is not afraid to say it. "Alexander Rodchenko and Lyubov Popova were the first designers," she says. And looking round at the room dedicated to the man and woman who are considered two of Russia's most important avant-garde artists, you know what she means. Wooden mobiles in circles and squares hang from the ceiling, paintings and photographs line the walls, and furniture and ceramics make up

Top LA Curator Breaks the East-West Divide in German Art

Cold War art from both East and West Germany is the focus of a new exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which has already received considerable attention. DW-WORLD spoke with curator Stephanie Barron. DW-WORLD: What is the exhibition's aim? Stephanie Barron: The purpose of the exhibition is really to look freshly with a distance of twenty years and of being outside Germany at the remarkable range of art created during the Cold War in both Germanys.

“Cornbury: The Queen’s Governor” (NY Theater/Review)

Three centuries before Eliot Spitzer was brought down by liaisons with a prostitute, a governor of the territory encompassing New York and New Jersey was scandalizing the populace by publicly appearing in drag, according to some accounts from that period. Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, a cousin of Queen Anne of England, was sent across the sea in 1702 to rule a colony recently wrested from Dutch control. Lord Cornbury was firmly convinced he looked better in queenly get-ups than his co

Che the revolutionary hero? Ruthless serial killer more like it.

Like those tall tales, Fidel's myth of Che bears a superficial resemblance to historical facts, but the real story is far darker. Some Robin Hood probably did brutalise the rich and, to cover his tracks, give some of his loot to the poor. In medieval Spain, Quixote-like knights probably did roam the countryside, ridding it not of dragons but of the land's few remaining Muslims. The same goes for the legendary Che. No teenager in rebellion against the world or his parents seems able

A Look at the Coming Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial in D.C.

Through a series of sketches, animation and video walk-throughs, this video provides an overview of the next major memorial to be constructed on the National Mall in Washington D.C. The Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial site is a four-acre plot on the north east corner of the Tidal Basin within the precinct of the Jefferson Memorial and north of the memorial to President Roosevelt. It was designe

Museums cutting jobs of scholars

Arts advocates have been outraged this week by Brandeis University’s plan to sell all of the art in its museum as a way to raise money for the university. It turns out Brandeis isn’t the only university where critics are questioning the university’s commitment to important values for academic museums — although many may be relieved to know this other controversy does not involve a university selling off a collection. (Update on Brandeis: Its president on Wednesday indicated he might go along wit

Washington Post's Book World Goes Out of Print as a

The Washington Post has decided to shutter the print version of its Sunday stand-alone book review section and shift reviews to space inside two other sections of the paper.

BBC One plans remake of Jane Austen's Emma

The four-part serial will be the last Austen remake for some time on the BBC, as the corporation recently announced plans to move beyond conventional 'bonnet dramas'. "We don't just want to do 19th century book adaptations. Emma will be our last Austen for a few years," said Kate Harwood, the BBC's controller of series and serials. The Emma remake will be a "fresh, humorous and perceptive" take on the classic story, originally published in 1815. It

Greece to help Iraq restore damaged archaeological sites and museums

Greece pledged Tuesday to provide financial and technical aid to help Iraq restore and conserve its damaged archaeological sites and museums. Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis said Greece and Iraq have also agreed to build a monument honoring the Greek warrior-king Alexander the Great at an ancient battlefield in southern Iraq. She was speaking after talks in Athens with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

Shah Abbas exhibition at the British Museum

Reclining on a terrace overlooking the world's second biggest public square, watching the sun set over the domes of blue-tiled mosques and columned palaces as merchants and their customers bustle in and out of the bazaar below, a scene that has changed little in 300 years, seems like the perfect place to start searching for an understanding of the enigma that is modern Iran, where they are preparing to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. On February 1, 1979, t

50 years after Holly, Richardson and Valens were killed, Iowa recalls the day the music died

It's been 50 years since a single-engine plane crashed into a snow-covered Iowa field, instantly killing three men whose names would become enshrined in the history of rock 'n' roll. The passing decades haven't diminished fascination with that night on Feb. 2, 1959, when 22-year-old Buddy Holly, 28-year-old J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson and 17-year-old Ritchie Valens performed in Clear Lake and then boarded the plane for a planned 300-mile flight that lasted only minute

Kubrick's lost movie: Now we can see it...

You probably haven't heard of Johanna ter Steege, even if the legendary American film-maker Stanley Kubrick once called her the best actress he knew. Ter Steege, who was born in 1961, has had a reasonably successful career, appearing in such films as George Sluizer's The Vanishing (1988), Istvan Szabo's Sweet Emma, Dear Boebe (1992), and Bruce Beresford's Paradise Road (1997) but she is hardly a household name, even in her native Holland. It could all have been so very, very differe

Glasgow's Salvador Dali painting of Christ's crucifixtion at centre of copyright battle

While the sombre work of art, entitled of Christ of St John of the Cross, is now valued at more than £60 million, the council believes it could be worth more still in uncollected licensing fees and royalties. Its lawyers are said to have drawn up a list of 50 companies including ashtray manufacturers, poster makers and artists that have apparently copied it without permission. Warnings have already been issued to 25 firms and individuals internationally to "cease

'Goya masterpiece' was painted by his student

El Coloso, a painting of a giant striding through clouds above a valley of people and their animals fleeing in terror, was in fact most likely executed by Goya's chief apprentice Asensio Julia, the museum disclosed on Monday. Experts at the museum revealed their findings after an exhaustive study of the work that began last summer amid criticism that the painting was of a lesser standard than Goya's other works. After a close analysis of the style, techniques and compos

Lincoln: Prelude to the Presidency (TV Documentary)

Riding through prairie grass on trails just barely wide enough for his horse, Abraham Lincoln traveled more than 500 miles each spring and fall as a lawyer on Illinois’ Eighth Judicial Circuit. WILL-TV’s "Lincoln: Prelude to the Presidency" tells the story of his experiences from 1837 to 1860 that shaped the views and honed the skills that guided him when he became president. Reenactments filmed in central Illinois help viewers envision Lincoln riding the dusty circuit, te