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R.B. Kitaj, Kennst Du das Land?, 1962 © R.B. Kitaj Estate

A few years ago during a summer spent in Catalonia, I strolled through the port city of Sant Feliu de Guíxols. It is a special place: it was spared the transgressions of the Spanish coast’s building mania due to its fishing industry. It is not merely decorative but in fact successful in a particular industrial branch: producing cork. And here – nominally part of Spain but somehow a place all of its own – R.B. Kitaj and his wife spent the winter of 1953/54. Twenty years later, he bought a house in this town. What did it mean to him, this stubborn region that again and again rebelled against Spanish supremacy? → continue reading

Migration is a topic of increasing importance for museums, including our own. A conference taking place today in Newcastle (UK) as part of the European Museums in an Age of Migrations (MeLA) project looks specifically at museum displays as they adapt to show social interaction in greater complexity: www.mela-project.eu/events/details/-placing-europe-in-the-museum-people-s-places-identities

The Aspen Music Festival, 8000 feet above sea level and high in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, is in full swing. For 8 weeks 600 students from all over the world are making music literally around the clock: in concert halls, music tents, churches, a brass quintet has set up on a street corner just in front of the ice cream parlor usually in the afternoon between scheduled performances and the very handsome, very young Eylon Ben-Yaakov is regaling us with Chopin’s polonaise in A-flat, followed by Prokofiev’s piano sonata No, 3 at the Aspen Chapel, a faux 12th century construct.  → continue reading