When artistes begin to perform off-stage

We are moving into a post-critical world. By 'critical' here, one doesn't mean a dire state pointing towards the ICU, but being open to criticism — essentially to feedback, especially negative ones, to a person's actions or creations. A case in point that's cropped up is that of Croat-Austrian classical pianist-composer Dejan Lazic. Like all creative sorts (and industrialists but unlike most politicians), Lazic doesn't like a bad review. But unlike most artists and performers, he now has demanded that all signs of a negative review of one of his performances be removed from the face of the Earth.

Invoking the European Union's ruling on the 'right to be forgotten' — still limited to the internet, thankfully — Lazic is upset over the Washington Post review describing his recital of Chopin and Schubert as having had "fine moments, but they stubbornly refused to add up to anything more than a self-conscious display of Fine Moments". As evident, the review is not a hatchet job, let alone a pick-axe one. But Lazic, it turns out, is more sensitive than even the standard choleric artist. The pianist insists that his appeal for the review's removal has "absolutely nothing to do with censorship". We're not convinced. Concerned about other epidermis-less rhinos following his lead, we think that the pianist doth protest too much.