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Dutch publisher of 'The Betrayal of Anne Frank' halts publication
AMSTERDAM.- A Dutch publisher has said that it will no longer publish a bestselling book, The Betrayal of Anne Frank, which claimed to identify the informant who alerted Nazi police to the teenage diarists hiding place, because of doubts about its conclusions. The publisher, Ambo Anthos, which released the Dutch translation of the book by author Rosemary Sullivan in January, said Tuesday that it would halt publication in response to a refutation by five prominent Dutch historians that called the findings into question. Based on the conclusions of this report, we have decided that, effective immediately, the book will no longer be available, Ambo Anthos, which had apologized for the book last month, wrote in a statement on its website. We will call upon bookstores to return their stock. The Betrayal of Anne Frank received ... More

ART FOR UKRAINE launches to benefit humanitarian relief efforts
NEW YORK, NY.- ART FOR UKRAINEan initiative created by a group of arts professionals in urgent direct response to the current crisis in Ukraine is launching an online benefit art sale of contemporary works this week. 100% of proceeds from each sale of artwork will be donated to Razom For Ukraine, a non-profit providing critical humanitarian aid and relief to Ukrainians. In supporting this art sale, the cultural community will be directly helping the organizations emergency response of delivering humanitarian aid and critical supplieswhile collectors will be able to acquire an incredible selection of coveted works of art that have been generously donated and made available by artists for this important initiative. Artworks for sale include pieces by Alexandre Arrechea, Chellis Baird, Christopher Boffoli, The Bruce High Quality ... More

Rita Cofield joins Getty Conservation Institute
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Rita Cofield has joined the Getty Conservation Institute as associate project specialist to advance the Los Angeles African American Historic Places (LAAAHP) project, an ambitious effort announced in 2021 that identifies, protects and celebrates African American heritage across the City of Los Angeles. LAAAHP is a collaborative effort of the GCI and Los Angeles City Plannings Office of Historic Resources (OHR), which is responsible for the management of historic resources within the city. Cofield will be based at the Getty Center but will also be working collaboratively with L.A. City Planning as a key addition to the OHR team. Among Cofields priorities will be establishing a local advisory committee and to create a community engagement strategy. Once those are underway, the team will begin to supplement ... More

William Kraft, percussionist and force in new music, dies at 98
NEW YORK, NY.- Lamenting the abundance of what he called rat-a-tat, boom-boom music for drums, William Kraft set out to create more sophisticated offerings that would bring greater respect to instruments he felt were too often taken for granted in orchestras. The days of percussionists being second-class citizens in the musical society are clearly over, he wrote in 1968. The last of orchestral families to be exploited, they have come of age in the 20th century. Kraft, who as both a composer and a percussionist became a force in contemporary music, elevating overlooked instruments like the timpani and developing a style that drew on jazz and Impressionism, died Feb. 12 at a hospital in Glendale, California. He was 98. His wife, composer Joan Huang, said the cause was heart failure. A spirited performer, Kraft was acclaimed ... More

Bhangra is big on campus. Now it's inspiring a musical.
SAN DIEGO, CA.- Rehana Lew Mirza stumbled upon the world of collegiate bhangra dancing. An aspiring screenwriter working as an office manager, she had finally fallen in with a group of South Asian artists. She tagged along with a friend to Bhangra Blowout, an annual competition in Washington, where teams are judged for the skill with which they dance in the exuberant Punjabi folk style. Mirza became a superfan. She attended seven or eight competitions. She wrote a treatment for a bhangra-themed film. She became a playwright, met another playwright, and then, when the two of them married, they performed a bhangra dance at their wedding. So in 2014, when she and her husband, Mike Lew, were exploring a possible collaboration with a musical theater composer, she dug out that unproduced film script. Now the resulting ... More

'Upload' asks old questions with new technology
NEW YORK, NY.- I am certain that you exist, a daughter tells her father, only to reconsider: I am certain that you do not exist. Her ambivalence is understandable. The question of what it means to be human to exist is an old one, and, arguing with her father, this woman is not about to find an answer. Only more questions, which accumulate at a breakneck pace in Michel van der Aas Upload, a seamless interweaving of opera, film and high technology that had its American premiere at the Park Avenue Armory on Tuesday. This work would seem to contain more than it possibly could in its 85 minutes: a tutorial-like explanation of how a clinic offers immortality by backing up consciousness to the cloud, one mans journey through that process and his daughters conflicted response as he returns to her no longer alive but, ... More

The Fotomuseum in Maastricht presents Søren Solkær's exhibition of portraits of street artists
MAASTRICHT.- Fotomuseum aan het Vrijthof in Maastricht, the Netherlands, presents an exhibition by the Danish photographer SÃ¸ren SolkÃ¦r from 19 March until 25 September 2022. With SURFACE, the museum shows more than sixty portraits of international street artists with their colourful works of art in public space; from graffiti pioneers and emerging talents to the most influential figures on the street art scene. SÃ¸ren SolkÃ¦r portrayed Dutch street artists such as DOES, Laser 3.14 and Niels Shoe Meulman. Foreign artists include Blek le Rat, DABSMYLA, D*Face, ELLE, Icy & Sot, Invader, Lady Aiko, Maya Hayuk, Seen, Shepard Fairey and The London Police. The dynamic photographs show the makers behind one of the most important contemporary art movements. On request, some artists are unrecognizabl ... More

Hionas Gallery opens the first solo exhibition from artist Lou Eberhard
NEW YORK, NY.- Hionas Gallery is presenting Anguillid Theory of Gender, the first solo exhibition from artist Lou Eberhard. The show features a selection of new and recent drawings that explore, in the artists words, bodies and forms that are simultaneously familiar and foreign. Eberhards muse on this journey is the American and European eel, a creature with a complex and often ambiguous lifecycle whose very form organically lends itself to the artists sinuous freehand linework. As a transgender artist, Eberhard endeavors to portray the trans experience in an engaged and positive light, with a focus on gender euphoria rather than a voyeuristic exploitation of pain. Indeed, his subjects are anything but demure. They are present and sturdy within the frame, fixated on either a task or a fleeting thought, which appear ... More

A dance company looks to the future with a new artistic team
NEW YORK, NY.- In December, a shock rippled through dance circles when it was announced that choreographer Nai-Ni Chen had died in a swimming accident in Hawaii while on vacation. A prolific dance artist specializing in both contemporary and traditional works, Chen, a youthful 62, was a powerful presence in the Chinese American dance community. Andrew N. Chiang, the soft-spoken executive director of Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, was also Chens husband. On the plane traveling home to New Jersey from Hawaii a very, very difficult journey, he recalled recently he found that he was at a loss as to what to do next. Should he disband the company? Keep it going? He remembered a friends advice: When you dont know what to do, you need to reach out, Chaing said. So I thought, Who do I know? Who can I reach ... More

Deck of playing cards with cash reward encourages people to join in the hunt for missing masterpieces
DALLAS, TX.- The Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art announced the launch of a deck of playing cards featuring the WWII MOST WANTED ART still missing since the end of World War II. Determined to continue the mission of the Monuments Men and Women, the scholar-soldiers who, during World War II, protected and safeguarded civilizations most important artistic cultural treasures, the Foundation is now engaging the public to help find missing objects and return them to their rightful owners. The Foundation is offering a cash reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the recovery of each cultural object included in the WWII MOST WANTED ART deck of playing cards. Terms and conditions for the reward are fully outlined on the Foundations website at monumentsmenfoundation.org/wwii-most- ... More

Lafayette Anticipations opens an exhibition of works by Xinyi Cheng
PARIS.- The constellation of subjects and scenes captured in Xinyi Chengs evocative paintings are drawn from her encounters. From a tiny dog called Monroe staring at a bone on a red carpet to a man in leopard-print boxer shorts on a sofa speaking on the phone, her works unravel complex emotions, desires, and dynamics that permeate contemporary life. Chengs expressive use of light and colour help conjure feelings, reveries, and impulses that reside within our everyday experiences of being in the world. In an often enigmatic atmosphere of dreams and solitude, the characters depicted by the artist sound like unexpected tributes to the moderns such as Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas or Caillebotte. For Chengs first major institutional exhibition in France, the presentation brings together over thirty existing works from 2016 to 2021 spread ... More