Author: Darko Topalski

WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonian’s National Portrait
Gallery will recognize the influence of the “King of Rock n’ Roll,” Elvis
Presley (1935–1977), on American life, history and culture with two
exhibitions in 2010. “One Life: Echoes of Elvis” opens on
Presley’s 75th birth anniversary and is a one-room exhibition devoted to
the evolution and influence of Presley’s image after his death.
The traveling exhibition, “Elvis at 21: Photographs by Alfred
Wertheimer,” shows a young musician just about to rise to fame.

ALLENTOWN, PA (AP).- A Pennsylvania man used a
backhoe to break into a museum owned by his father — the pioneering fantasy
artist Frank Frazetta — in an attempt to steal 90 paintings valued at $20
million, police said Thursday. State police charged Alfonso Frank
Frazetta, 52, of Marshalls Creek, with theft, burglary and trespass after they
say he was caught loading the artwork into his trailer and SUV. The elder
Frazetta, 81, is renowned for his work on characters including Conan the
Barbarian, Tarzan and Vampirella. He was in Florida at the time of the
theft.

BARCELONA.- As of December 10 the Mies van der
Rohe Pavilion will be the object of an intervention that reflects on the use of
buildings and our concept of them as unique, unalterable spaces. The artist Ai
Weiwei, one of the leading – and most controversial – figures of Chinese
contemporary art, will fill the Pavilion pools with two elements that,
though very common in our everyday lives, are totally foreign to architectural
construction. He will replace the water of the two pools, one exterior and the
other interior, with milk and coffee, respectively. Visit : http://www.miesbcn.com/index.html

HARTFORD, CT.- The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of
Art has organized the first major exhibition of its American works on paper from
the years 1910 to 1960. American Moderns on Paper: Masterworks from the
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art will include more than 100 exceptional
works from the museum’s permanent collection—including a
recently-acquired Georgia O’Keeffe pastel—providing a groundbreaking
new look at the diverse directions pursued by modern artists in America. The
exhibition will tell the story of the Wadsworth’s acquisition of works by
artists from Edward Hopper and Charles Demuth to Salvador Dali and Ellsworth
Kelly, and will reveal how the museum was at the forefront of introducing modern
art to America.

PRAGUE (REUTERS).-Glitzy new shops, fast food restaurants
and trendy bars have replaced Prague’s former monochrome socialist-era landscape
but a museum dedicated to the country’s communist past offers glimpses of the
uglier times.The Museum
of Communism, which focuses on politics, history, sport and other aspects of
daily life in socialist Czechoslovakia, touts itself as the first of its kind in
Prague exclusively devoted to the system that dominated the country for more
than four decades following World War II. For many Czechs who grew up under communism,
there is little need of a reminder of how brutal the system was. But 20 years
after the Velvet Revolution some wonder whether many have forgotten the past in
a country where the communist party still attracts about 15 percent of the
vote.