Week
of August 5-12, 2001
1.
Special Interest
2. Dance
3. Media
4. Music
5. People
6. Publishing
7. Theatre
8. Visual Arts
9. Arts Issues
10. For Fun
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1. SPECIAL INTEREST
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#specialinterest
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NUMBERS
GAME: To hear some museum directors talk these days, you'd
think the most important part of their job was to get as many
people possible through their front doors. "So museums have
reached admirable attendance numbers. Now the question is, at what
cost? How do museums balance education and entertainment, all the
while keeping track of their admissions?" Chicago
Tribune 08/12/01
GETTING
BACK ON ARTS EDUCATION: "Since the 1970s, the arts have
dwindled nationwide because of lack of resources. Some art
teachers, unable to find employment, pursued other careers. But in
the last decade, study after study has linked arts education to
improved problem-solving skills and increased self-confidence.
Administrators around the country started to retool their
curricula accordingly." Los
Angeles Times 08/09/01
ART
FOR HIRE: Should artists be paid by the hour? An Australian
group "comprising economists, researchers and gallery
representatives, have proposed a per hour, sliding scale of
earnings, dependent on the artist's seniority. Top dogs of the art
world who are commissioned to place work in public foyers should
receive $125 per hour, they say, while emerging artists should be
paid at a rate of $30 per hour." Sydney
Morning Herald 08/08/01
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2. DANCE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#dance
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GRAHAM
SCHOOL WINS COURT BATTLE: A judge has ruled that the Martha
Graham Center can continue to use the name and teach Graham
technique. Graham heir Ron Protas had contended he owned rights to
all of Graham's work and was withdrawing permission for the school
for access to it. But the judge found that "there was clear
evidence that in 1956 Graham had sold the school and its name,"
and declared Protas not to be a "credible witness." The
New York Times 08/08/02 (one-time
registration required for access)
ONLY
TWO MORE YEARS OF MISHA? Mikhail Baryshnikov is 53 and still
dancing. "He has had six operations to one of his knees. Some
mornings he is so stiff that he has to crawl to the bathroom and get
under a hot shower before he can move easily. He is convinced he
will die at 60. He says, 'All my relatives died very young. I really
believe in genetics. I hope I am wrong. I will go when I am 55, when
I am 60. I am prepared: at least I can speak about it. . '." The
Telegraph (UK) 08/09/01
- POSTCARDS
FROM THE EDGE: There was a time Mikhail Baryshnikov
epitomized all that was classic in classical ballet. But in
the past decade he's turned into a champion for the most
forgotten corners of modern American dance. The
Guardian (UK) 08/08/01
BADMOUTHING
THE BOLSHOI: The Bolshoi Ballet is coming to New Zealand, but
the director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet isn't impressed.
"He admitted he had seen only a television advertisement for
the tour but said he knew immediately that it would be mediocre.
'I've been in the profession for over 30 years and I know what's
good and bad ... You can smell it'." New
Zealand Herald 08/07/01
ROYAL
WELCOME: Ross Stretton hasn't even taken over as the next
artistic director of London's Royal Ballet yet and the dance world
is already buzzing about who might take over if he doesn't work
out. Former Royal Ballet star Bruce Sansom left the company last
year to study arts management, and the speculation is...
The Telegraph (UK) 08/07/01
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3. MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#media
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STEALING
MOVIES: Hackers are infiltrating the computers that are
increasingly used to edit movies, and stealing copies. And,
"as digital technology makes its mark on every aspect of the
film industry, it becomes easier for ordinary computer users to
reach into cyberspace and grab whatever goodies take their
fancy." New Zealand Herald
08/09/01
- ANYTHING
YOU WANT: Top movies are now available in pirated versions
over the internet within days of their theatre release. It's
obvious that "the Napster file-trading phenomenon that
has rocked the music industry over the past year has caught up
to Hollywood with a vengeance." Toronto
Star 08/08/01
NOW
MAY BE THE TIME FOR HEAVENLY INTERVENTION: Despite the
suggestions to the contrary posed by contemporary programming,
there is a patron saint of television. She's an Italian noblewoman
from the 12th century, named St. Clare. New
York Post 09/09/01
THE
GENERIC SOUND OF PUBLIC RADIO: "One of the biggest
listener complaints with commercial radio is that the rock
stations here in Washington sound just like the rock stations in
New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. But the same thing is happening
in public radio. Further, public radio stations in the same city
are increasingly starting to sound alike. And, unlike in
commercial radio, your tax dollars help pay for this duplication.
At least two members of Congress aren't happy about it." Washington
Post 08/07/01
WHAT
HAPPENED TO GOOD MOVIES? "Today mainstream cinema looks
stupider than it has for a long time. This is real middlebrow
moronism of the kind we haven't seen since Robert De Niro and
Meryl Streep got their parcels mixed up in Falling In Love in
1984. We have become used to expecting more of cinema. We're going
to suffer now." Where to turn for good art films? The
Guardian (UK) 08/08/01
WAITING
FOR DIGITAL RADIO: With all the hoopla surrounding the coming
of digital television, radio's digital potential has been largely
ignored by press and public alike. But radio is mostly about music
these days, and the benefits of a full digital conversion would
likely be far greater than any television will realize. Still,
there may not be enough interest to get the change done in the
near term. Washington Post 08/05/01
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4.
MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#music
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CLASSIC
DILEMMA: Classical recording sales are down; jazz now outsells
classical. Tower Records (a major classical outlet) may be on the
verge of oblivion. And new recording projects are getting scarcer.
Why is business so bad? Dallas Morning
News 08/11/01
- IN
THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE: "Nonesuch, which began as a
boutique classical label in 1964, has generated a profit for
the Warner Music Group every year for a decade. Relying on
instinct rather than focus groups, Nonesuch manages an
increasingly rare trick: Its recordings receive glowing
critical notices and, at the same time, sell enough to sustain
the enterprise. Without benefit of radio hits or colossal
budgets, the tiny New York outfit has blossomed into one of
the last creative havens within the major-label system, a
place where the deep thinkers of new music sit cheek by jowl
with the glorious voices of 1950s Havana, and genre
distinctions such as classical and jazz are gleefully
trampled." Philadelphia
Inquirer 08/12/01
- HOW
TO SAVE THE CLASSICAL RECORDING BUSINESS: It's not easy to
market yet another recording of, say, Beethoven's Fifth. One
solution is to fall back on thematic programming. "You
present music organized around an enticing notion people will
be more likely to shell out for. When it's properly done, it
can refresh an overfamiliar work or draw attention to a
neglected one." Caveat: "Some of these albums reek
so badly of desperation you don't need to know anything about
music to know to stay away from them." Slate
08/08/01
MENOTTI
AT 90: Gian-Carlo Menotti is turning 90. "So much fuss.
All of a sudden I'm famous not because I write good music but
because I'm old and still here. My advice to composers is, try to
reach 90, and everyone will love you." But though he is
beloved in Italy and still has some champions, elsewhere his music
has been passed by. The New York Times
08/12/01 (one-time registration
required for access)
PAINT
CHICAGO RED: For the first time in 14 years the Chicago
Symphony, is running in the red. The CSO has an operating budget
of $55 million, and expects an upper-six-figure deficit for the
2001-2002 season. Gramophone 08/08/01
OPERA
IN THE LAND OF ITS BIRTH: "While there is indeed a great
deal of opera in Italy - almost every city or large town mounts
its own annual season - little of it is any good. Unions that down
tools at the blink of an eye make planning or rehearsal almost
impossible. The quality of orchestral playing is generally
execrable, and the sector has been riddled with corruption and
clientismo." The Telegraph (UK)
08/08/01
LEAVING
SAN FRANCISCO: So what did Lofti Mansouri accomplish in his 13
years leading the San Francisco Opera? "Pretty much every
success and every failure of Mansouri's regime - and there have
been plenty of each - can be traced back to his view of opera as a
popular art form, different in its particulars but not in its
essential nature from the theatrical sideshow." San
Francisco Chronicle 08/05/01
- MANSOURI'S
LEGACY: "He saved the company during one of the more
agonizing crises in its history, yet he never restored the
institution artistically to its vaunted reputation of the
1960s and 1970s, wonderfully heady decades when this really
was the most innovative and respected opera company in the
land." San Francisco
Chronicle 08/05/01
MAAZEL'S
STAYING POWER: Ever since he was named as the New York
Philharmonic's next music director, Loren Maazel has endured a
barrage of criticism from the Big Apple's notoriously catty
critics. He's too old, they say, and too set in his unadventurous
ways. But it cannot be denied that Maazel has enjoyed tremendous
success in building the orchestras under his command into some of
the world's top ensembles. Recent triumphs with his Bavarian Radio
Orchestra underscore the point. Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette 08/07/01
BUYING
AMERICAN: "As Americans complain that their orchestras
look only to Europe when searching for new conductors, it is worth
noting that Munich's orchestras, like many others in Germany, have
looked to America. Certainly, there is an American prejudice in
favor of all things European. But there is also a widespread
German belief that Americans are better trained and easier to work
with." The New York Times
08/06/01 (one-time registration
required for access)
MUSIC
ON THE BRAIN: "If the ability to appreciate music is
ingrained in the human brain, could music making have evolved to
help us survive and reproduce? Is it akin to language and the
ability to solve complicated problems, attributes that have
enhanced human survival? Or is it just 'auditory cheesecake,' a
phenomenon that pushes pleasure buttons without truly filling an
evolutionary need?" Discovery
08/01
WILL
ANYTHING LAST? Hundreds of new American operas were written in
the 20th Century. But will any of them find any real staying
power? "It seems not to matter whether an American opera
received praise or blame at its premiere; few entered the
repertory. Of the more than one hundred new operas produced during
the 1990s, only thirty-three received more than one
production." Opera News 08/01
CAN'T
WIN FOR PRODUCERS: The music recording industry seems to be
winning its court battles against digital copiers. But it's an
illusion. The copy/download battle has been lost. And as the
record producers prepare to unleash their for-pay services, the
courts are frowning... The Economist
08/09/01
THE
MUSIC CURE: Music makes you smarter, cures cancer, and takes
away back pain. At least, that's what studies claim... Why the
rush to try to prove music has all sorts of non-musical benefits?
"Much as I would love music to cure cancer, foot and mouth,
senile dementia and car accidents, I dread the day when it does -
for that will be the day music loses its spiritual mystery and
becomes a functional power tool in the hands of the ever more
intrusive masters of the universe." The
Telegraph (UK) 08/09/01
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5. PEOPLE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#people
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LIFE
AFTER VIRGINIA: What was Leonard Woolf's influence and
contribution to Virginia Woolf's work? A set of letters, written
by Leonard after his wife's suicide to a woman he had a prolonged
afair with, shed some light on Virginia's creative life. Irish
Times 08/10/01
POETRY
CON: Ravi Desai pledged millions of dollars for poetry
programs at major American universities. But after fanfare over
the gifts died down, Desai failed to come through with the money.
"Most business cons are for riches. This was a con whose
payoff was to rub shoulders with poets. What did he gain, except
for an engraved ax?" Poets &
Writers 08/01/01
BIG
BUCKS, BIG THANKS (EXPECTED): Alberto Vilar has given more
than $200 million to the cause of opera. "The magnitude of
his giving would guarantee his fame; the conditions often attached
to those gifts, however, have given him a quirky notoriety. Vilar
persuaded the Met to give the names of major underwriters greater
prominence in its programs; this took some effort."
Opera News 08/01
WHOLE
LOTTA CONTEMPT GOIN ON: Writer Arundhati Roy has been
protesting a court decision in India not to stop work on
construction of a dam. The court charged her with contempt of
court for her characterization of the decision. And now the court
is deciding whether her response to the contempt charges is
further contempt. The Times of India
08/04/01
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6.
PUBLISHING
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#publishing
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20
YEARS OF THE USUAL SUSPECTS: Sure, Martin Amis and Salman
Rushdie are important writers. So are Ian McEwan Julian Barnes.
But those four have dominated the British literary scene since the
seventies. Are there no new voices coming along, or are readers -
and editors - too lazy to find them? The
Guardian (UK) 08/06/01
NO
OLD WORDS: Is it more difficult for older writers to get
published? Even long-established writers are having difficulty.
“I think it is virtually impossible now for any novelist over
the age of 30 to get published. Publishers are not interested
because their editors are all aged about 12 and they only want
books by girls in their twenties, particularly if they are
pretty." The
Times (UK) 08/07/01
READING
NATION: Australia's book publishers sold 126 million books
worth $1.2 billion last year. That total was a 13 percent increase
over 1997/98. The Age (Melbourne)
08/10/01
NEXT
HARRY: JK Rowling denies writer's block. "There is no
writer's block; on the contrary, I am writing away very happily. I
made it clear last summer that I wanted to take the time to make
sure that book five was not dashed off to meet a deadline, but was
completed to my full satisfaction as its predecessors have
been." New Zealand Herald
08/08/01
POETRY
AND THE SEX SCANDAL: England's poet laureate is usually a
pretty safe choice, a feel-good appointment to promote poetry and
not meant to push boundaries or provoke controversy. But then a
student accused the current poet laureate of sexual harassment and
- "oh dear. A sex scandal. Well, nearly a sex scandal. All
right, a scandal about sex but with no sex. Certainly no Blue
Dress. Please." Salon 08/07/01
RESEARCHING
THE OBVIOUS:As publishers have poured more and more money into
the development of what everyone hopes will eventually be the
lucrative e-book market, the public has reacted with marked
indifference. Publishers, naturally, would like to know why this
is. So far, the evidence seems to point to the good old-fashioned
comfort factor of holding a real, bound, pages-and-glue book in
one's hands, and knowing that it will never require a call to
technical support. Boston Globe
08/06/01
BE
CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR: The city of Chicago is launching a
program designed to get everyone in the city to read the same book
at the same time, in an effort to promote reading and literacy.
Mayor Richard Daley has selected his favorite book, Harper Lee's
classic To Kill A Mockingbird, for the program. Trouble is,
Mockingbird is not the sweet, syrupy days-of-yesteryear
tome that many adults choose to remember, and in today's
ultra-charged climate of racial politics, some are worried that
the book's language and style may offend. Chicago
Tribune 08/06/01
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7. THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#theatre
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THE
PURITY FACTOR: Directors reinterpreting plays in their own
conception (and sometimes contrary to a playwright's expressed
wishes) has become common on today's stages. Is a purist approach
better? Or does a play need to adapt to stay vital? Philadelphia
Inquirer 08/12/01
THE
LEADING MAN PROBLEM: "Finding charismatic, vocally secure
leading men for musicals is one of the toughest jobs in show
business. Just ask the Broadway casting directors who have to
scour the earth for candidates. 'The problem is that when you're
dealing with leading men in their 30's and 40's who are talented,
they can work in television and film all the time. Why should they
commit to a year on Broadway'?" The
New York Times 08/12/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
CAN'T
GET PAST THE P WORD: The Australian show Puppetry of the
Penis is attracting enthusiastic crowds in Toronto, and the
show has sold so many tickets its run has been extended. But there
are no corporate sponsors for the show - perhaps because of the
subject? Toronto Star 08/09/01
THE
DOWNSIDE OF STARS: A famous Hollywood name on the marquee can
draw crowds to Broadway. However, "adding movie stars tends
to be a recipe for mediocre theater. Even with microphones,
which compensate for a lack of vocal training, and an audience
that may not know real stage acting when it sees it, movie stars
on stage rarely rise above the gently damning reviews they tend to
receive, which often say that they 'acquit' themselves or are
'credible'." Slate 08/07/01
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8.
VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#visualarts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CAN'T
RESTRICT ART: A US federal judge has ruled that New York mayor
Rudy Giuliani's administration can't force street artists to get
permits to show their work on city streets. City attorneys say
they will appeal. The
New York Times 08/11/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
SELLING
GERMAN TREASURES: The sale of a rare map, made in 1507, to the
American Library of Congress for $10 million, violated German laws
on the export of national treasures. The map "was the first
to map the continent of America, erroneously naming it after the
Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci," and the German
government okayed the sale as a "token of friendship."
But what does this say about the state of German culture? Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 08/10/01
LAS
VEGAS - CITY OF CULTURE? “The Venetian Guggenheim and
Hermitage represent a quantum leap forward in the development of
Las Vegas as a place that has redefined the meaning of
entertainment.” The Economist
08/09/01
WHAT
ROLE MUSEUMS? The wave of new museums featuring splashy
architecture misunderstands the environment in which art wants to
be. "Museums should not be built. They should be places which
already exist, established by proclamation, chosen by
acclamation." The Art Newspaper
08/08/01
FRANCE
ON THE RISE: Reforms in French auction law should propel the
country to the top of the auction world. "It [France] sits on
a hoard of works of art that, unlike Britain's, has notbeen bled
dry. It retains a vast constituency of passionate collectors in
every field, at every financial level, who represent a force as
essential to the successful outcome of an auction as a supportive
public is to a football team's victory." International
Herald Tribune 08/11/01
TEAMWORK
OR COMPETITION? Baltimore has two large museums - the Walters
and the Baltimore Museum of Art. But the city is shrinking - fewer
people, less resources. So there's a proposal to combine
operations of both in an attempt to give them both greater
prominence. But is the city better served by the "genteel
rivalry that traditionally has existed between the two
museums?" Baltimore Sun 08/12/01
HERITAGE
SELLING: "Today's Aboriginal art has little to do with
the ethnological image of atavistic tribal culture. Besides
representing the creation myth of the Australian natives, the
so-called 'Dreamings,' it has begun to rewrite colonial and
postcolonial history." Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 08/12/01
SPANISH
THIEVES MAKE A MAJOR HAUL: More than 20 important works of art
have been reported stolen from a home in Madrid. The works include
"The Donkey's Fall" and "The Swing" by Goya,
"Eragny Landscape" by Pisarro, and "St. Anthony's
Temptations" by Brueghel. BBC
09/09/01
BUILDING
BIND: Critics might be raving about the new Gehry-designed
Disney concert hall in Los Angeles, but the workers building it
hate it. "Forget about that construction site standard, the
blueprint. Forget about anything that covers a trifling two
dimensions - the way construction documents do in more standard
buildings. In Frank Gehry's world, everything is 3-D, and the
construction workers are swept along - or left behind." Los
Angeles Times 08/07/01
A
"FOR-PROFIT" PRADO? The Spanish parliament is
considering whether to turn over control of the Prado - one of the
world's great museums - to a commercial company, following the
recommendation of an American consulting group. "Virtually
every curator in the Prado has signed a letter objecting to the
Boston Consulting Group's report, the basis of the proposed
law." The Art Newspaper 08/06/01
ART
SEIZURE: The French government has seized the archives of the
Giacometti Foundation (the collection is worth £90 million). The
seizure is the latest move in a legal dispute between the
government and Giacometti heirs about whether the foundation was
set up for the purpose of avoiding taxes. The
Art Newspaper 08/06/01
PILING
ON THE TATE: As Britain's Tate Modern continues to search for
someone to take on the increasingly thankless task of
"recommending" new works for its collection, critics of
the museum's reliance on "conceptual" arts are becoming
louder. "Allegations of cronyism and insider dealing abound.
At stake is nothing less than the future of art in 21st-century
Britain, and the war has become most focused in the power struggle
between figurative and conceptual art." The
Herald (Glasgow) 08/04/01
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9.
ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#issues
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BRIDGING
THE GAP: Art and science would appear to require totally
different mindsets, the one being fairly abstract and subjective,
and the other being concrete and fairly absolute. "But now,
more than 500 years after da Vinci combined artistic and
scientific thought in a creative relationship, a group of Canadian
academics, artists and scientists are saying it's time to follow
his example. They want to encourage Canadian da Vincis to spread
their wings by tearing down the artificial boundaries that
separate science and art." The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 08/07/01
NEW
SUPPORT FOR ARTISTS: The Australian government proposes new
taxes on entertainment products to benefit less commercially
viable artists. The government also proposes enacting a resale
royalty for artists and extending copyright on artwork from 50 to
70 years after the creator's death. Sydney
Morning Herald 08/07/01
ADELAIDE
TURMOIL: The Adelaide Festival is in disarray after its chief
executive and several senior managers resigned. Last month it was
revealed that the festival's managers had considered dumping
artistic director Peter Sellars' programming after the most recent
festival lost $1.2 million. Sydney
Morning Herald 08/07/01
THE
COST OF FREEBIES: It's opening night - a scene of the hip, the
famous, and the free. Arts organizations give away thousands of
dollars worth of free tickets to encourage high-profile people to
come. After-performance parties can be lavish. Just what do the
arts groups get out of such freebies? The
Age (Melbourne) 08/09/01
ANGRY
INVESTORS: Two hundred Australian investors in theatre, film
and entertainment projects are taking the promoters of those
projects to court after the government ruled that investing in the
projects was a tax ruse designed to avoid taxes. Sydney
Morning Herald 08/09/01
THE
YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY: The "Year of the Artist"
just came to an end in the UK. Never heard of it? Hmnnn. A project
of numerous arts boards and the Arts Council, it cost millions of
pounds and "its premise was to increase support for
individual artists, which meant sending out a lot of expensive
blue-and-green press releases, flinging some cash around and
encouraging companies to employ jugglers to keep the staff
amused." Sunday Times (UK)
08/12/01
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10. FOR FUN
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#forfun
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TAKING
IT PERSONALLY: Wall Street Journal Pulitzer Prize-winning
opera critic Manuela Hoelterhoff is every bit as outspoken in her
personal life as she is in her reviews. Now she's in court
defending herself from a lawsuit brought by one of her most
powerful New York suburban neighbors. Seems she made a cutting
remark about part of his anatomy and he took it personally...
New York Magazine 08/07/01
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