If you’ve never read anything by Anita Desai, you’re out of excuses. One of India’s most celebrated writers, she’s been publishing for almost 50 years and come close to winning the Booker Prize three times. (Ironically, her daughter, Kiran Desai, beat her to it in 2006 for “ The Inheritance of Loss .”) Now she’s released “ The Artist of Disappearance ,” a collection of three superb novellas that’s a rare gift in the sparse December publishing season. Here, in miniature, you can experience the deceptively subtle, slightly surreal and profoundly insightful fiction of a world-class writer. Read full article > >

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Book review: Gripping novellas in Anita Desai’s ‘Artist of Disappearance’

“ The Artist ” got another awards season boost today after it was named the best film of 2011 by the Washington Area Film Critics Association. The group — which consists of critics and film journalists from the D.C. region, including (full disclosure) this writer — elevated the silent film to best picture status over four other nominated movies in that category: “Hugo,” “Drive,” “The Descendants” and “Win Win.” Read full article > >

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‘The Artist’ named best film of 2011 by Washington Area Film Critics Association

In a strong affront to the Chinese government’s attempt to censor artists and internet users, fans of the artist Ai Weiwei have raised more than $830,000 in three days through social media to help the artist fight a $2.4 million tax bill from the state. Weiwei, who was imprisoned for 81 days this spring without any charges filed against him, has been a target of the Chinese government for his politically outspoken art. On Nov. 1, Weiwei announced that the government had presented him with a bill for $2.4 million in back taxes , and gave him 10 days to pay. Read full article > >

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Ai Weiwei fans raise funds to pay his massive tax bill

Two decades after Nirvana’s “Nevermind” and the documentary “1991: The Year Punk Broke” had an imprinting effect on him as a teenager, the artist Andrew Kuo considers what it all meant.

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Music: Andrew Kuo Looks Back at the Punk of 1991

In this Aslan Media exclusive interview, contributor Flying Dutchslim sat down with flautist Ömer Faruk Tekbilek to discuss his music, inspiration, and Turkish roots. Born in 1951, Tekbilek is known for his performances on the ney, an ancient Middle Eastern cane flute. He also plays the Oud, Saz, Zurna and sings on many of his recordings. Tekbilek is the recipient of the 2003 “Best Artist” award from the Turkish Writers Association and was a nominee for the 2003 BBC World Music Award in the Middle East category. He has become a beloved icon in Turkey, connecting his many fans with historical and religious influences that were once suppressed.

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Interview with Turkish Musician Ömer Faruk Tekbilek

The season begins with a burst of Andy Warhol, as two shows in two major museums explore very different aspects of the pop pioneer. An exhibition at the National Gallery of Art called “Warhol: Headlines” arrives in the late afterglow of the Rupert Murdoch scandal and explores the artist’s fascination with tabloid media, celebrity and appropriation (Sept. 25). Billed as the first comprehensive exhibition to explore Warhol’s use of headlines and newspapers, the show will include some of the source materials on which he based his images, allowing viewers to analyze the road from cheap scandal sheet to high art, via the ironies of pop and the subtle improvements of an artist who was uncommonly good at tweaking the ordinary into something visually compelling. Read full article > >

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Fall arts: Two Warhol exhibits and the (E)merge Art Fair kick off the season

Last week, the Levantine Cultural Center hosted Hybrid , an art exhibition showcasing the works of Khalid Hussein . The public and art enthusiasts alike were also treated to an interesting discussion with the artist himself at the “Art and the Arab Spring” panel discussion on July 28.

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The Art of Revolting: An Evening with Artist Khalid Hussein

SAN FRANCISCO — Much like the caller in the Lady Gaga hit song “Telephone,” some visitors to Amazon’s site received a busy signal Monday when they tried to download the digital version of the artist’s latest album, “Born This Way,” which the online retailer was selling for 99 cents on its release date. Spokeswoman Sally Fouts said Amazon experienced a high volume of traffic that caused delays for those downloading the album — echoing a posting on the album’s product page on Amazon.com. Customers who ordered the MP3 version of “Born This Way” on Monday will get it for 99 cents, she said. Read full article > >

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New Lady Gaga album priced at 99 cents leads to download delays at Amazon

The Queen of Soul will perform at Wolf Trap on June 21. (Courtesy of the artist.)Wolf Trap celebrates its 40th anniversary this year — and the pressure is on. The venue is coming off its most successful year ever, having drawn nearly half a million fans to its sprawling grounds in Fairfax County last summer.

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Wolf Trap announces 40th summer concert season

“A Fire in My Belly,” the David Wojnarowicz video seen briefly at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, recently reappeared in its natural habitat, hanging beside his uncensored works in the artist’s longtime New York gallery, PPOW.

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Art review: David Wojnarowicz’s ‘Spirituality’ at PPOW gallery in New York

The king of ’80s rock is stepping down: Phil Collin says he’s retiring from music due to the health problems it has caused him, including a dislocated vertebra in his back, some loss of hearing, and nerve damage in his hands. Collins, the artist behind…

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Phil Collins: I’m Quitting Music

Peter Andre is named the UK’s hardest working singer for notching up more major concerts in 2010 than any other artist.

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Andre is ‘hardest working singer’

Photographer John Arsenault overcomes heartbreak with an emotional exhibition of nudes and landscapes Sometimes love just isn’t enough, at least that’s how photographer John Arsenault tells it in his gallery exhibition “A Ghost Is Occupying My Heart.” After a nine-year-long relationship—the subject of most of his previous work—dissolved into blocked Facebook accounts and a self-healing playlist, the artist escaped from NYC and traveled to the insulated Massachusetts harbor community of Provincetown. There, Arsenault re-discovered himself by “stripping myself down emotionally, often literally nude, in order to create a body of work that revealed my pain as honestly as I could.” Arsenault is acutely aware of the viewer in all of his self-portraits, in fact he leverages that voyeuristic relationship to expose his isolation, making for a palpable feeling of discomfort that is both beautiful and eerie. “A Ghost Is Occupying My Heart,” is an introspective collection of work in which the photographer contrasts his emotional despondence against landscapes that express his state of mind. On view a few years ago, the self-portraits are now complimented by landscapes and still life imagery that express a need to be left alone in a state of contemplation. Arsenault achieves a strong sense of disconnection from his camera by literally positioning the apparatus in a way that seemingly startles the subject in the image. By discovering the camera he creates an exhibition in which he re-discovers himself. Putting a positive spin a somber situation, 10% of the proceeds from the exhibition will be donated to The Trevor Project , a suicide prevention organization for at risk LGBTQ teens. The show opens 6 January 2010 at Clampart and runs through the 12 February 2010.

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A Ghost Is Occupying My Heart

RCRD LBL’s creative director gives us some insight into the world of music and start-ups An extensive collection of diverse artists combined with a huge assortment of free and legal downloads, RCRD LBL is the premiere site for discovering emerging artists. We recently had the opportunity to sit down with RCRD LBL’s Creative Director Elliot Aranow, who told us about music distribution, start-ups and the importance of sharing. How do you describe RCRD LBL? RCRD LBL is an editorially driven, free and legal music site focusing mostly on emergent talent. If I were talking to my aunt I’d call us a curated, cool, free iTunes. For artists that are established, do you act more as a distribution platform? Personally I always believed that the expiration date for records on the Internet was way too short. What we do is plan out our schedule 5-10 days in advance so we are able to offer a robust second wind to a label. The response from our audience has been remarkable, we get about 40,000 people downloading a record that has been “out” on the internet for a few days. How would you, as the Creative Director, define your market? I would say our market would be very well intentioned, passionate music fans that want to get put on to good stuff. It’s regular people who are interested in more left-field or independent music—a really refreshing audience to be communicating with. There are college kids and cool dads, and then there are the communities that we’re super meshed in with, DJs, producers, punk guys or Brooklyn and London kids. Are you targeting your brand at any one group specifically? My dream from a creative standpoint was to cross the brand over. I always looked at shows like “120 Minutes” and “Yo MTV Raps.” Thats how I got into PIL, Depeche Mode, Nirvana and all that kind of stuff. I knew that because of the level of taste we were always going to resonate with DJs and the music heads, but really for me it was more about breaking things to a more casual listener. That’s what I try to do, that’s why you can juxtapose Waka Flaka Flame with some super weird UK funky guy that’s put out his first 12-inch. You get people with the big hook and hopefully you keep them with the newer stuff that they haven’t heard before. How has RCRD LBL evolved in relationship to the way people are accessing information? We started right after the first wave of professional blogging. Initially we wanted to design something people could come check out everyday and there would always be cool new records. In the past couple years things have changed to where we are entering into much more interesting distribution agreements or using platforms that are super commonplace now. Rather than building the mountain and expecting people to come, we have decided that people want to engage with the material in a lot of different ways. They might follow us on Twitter, check in on Facebook, they might get it in their email or check it out via RSS—it’s just important to give people a lot of different ways to interact with the music rather than creating a very static one-dimensional relationship with them. Is it more valuable to expose the artist to the public or the public to the artist? It’s important to expose the artist to the public because people that are making compelling music, that know how to tie it together with good-looking album artwork and great live performances, I think they deserve to have a career that goes beyond the Internet. If we’re going to put MNDR in front of people I want them to listen to her record, enjoy it, and then hopefully be inspired to go check out a show or buy a t-shirt.The artist is always the centerpiece. What are some creative decisions you’ve made to directly broaden RCRD LBL’s appeal? When we started I was mostly working with groups that I knew, mostly from Brooklyn and a couple from L.A. My logic at the time was that if this band can sell 3,000 CDs then we can give away 40,000 free downloads. But then I realized that once you get out of major cities certain bands are a lot less exposed than you think. One of the decisions I made around two years ago was rather than being in a conversation with blogs, I was more interested in being in a conversation with our users and I think that decision has really paid off for us. What differentiates RCRD LBL from other music sites? We have an intentionally narrow focus. We don’t do interviews, we don’t do videos, we don’t do news—we serve up downloads everyday. I think its good for people to know that when they come to RCRD LBL there will a bunch of new stuff. We’re not music critics, I like to think of us more as authoritative, passionate fans. A lot of people like to interact with music from a trusted source, and they want a little “amuse-bouche” if you will. I think that we do something similar where if we are turning you on to a new band we’ll give you what we have decided is the best song, and if you are interested in digging a little bit deeper you can certainly go and do that. There’s always been a really rich history of DJs and journalists and people in the scene putting people on to other stuff, that’s where I’ve always drawn our editorial inspiration from. Do you think your model has staying power as system for distribution and exposure online? Well I’m a bit biased but I do think our model certainly has room to grow. Our audience has really pleasantly surprised me in the past few years. I think there are more and more people out there interested in the stuff we are excited about, and I think there is always an opportunity to reach them. What’s the next step? Without giving away any of the trade secrets that we keep in a small box under lock and key, I see us being able to offer more kinds of music to people. I think the format of a site that offers you free music with the artist’s and the label’s blessing is a good model. Personally, I would like to see some punk and hardcore in the mix—it’s really just about showing people that we can go from Passion Pit to abrasive, strange music to very beautiful stuff and it all makes sense. Any advice for start-ups in the new year? Strive for consistency and don’t take too much money up front because you’ll wind of spending it on bad things before you have any idea what you’re actually doing.

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An Interview with Elliot Aranow

In 1973, a 1624 image of Philip IV was found to have been made by Velázquez’s studio, not the artist. A reassessment has reversed that conclusion.

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Reconsidered, a Met Velázquez Is Vindicated