Week
of February 25-March 3, 2002
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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LAST
DAYS OF THE BAMIYAN BUDDHAS: Here's a chilling,
detailed account of the Taliban's efforts last year to destroy the
giant stone Bamiyan Buddhas. "The destruction required an
extraordinary effort, so complex that foreign explosives experts
had to be brought in and local residents were forced to dangle on
ropes over a cliff face to chip out holes for explosives.
According to witnesses and participants, the Taliban struggled
with ropes and pulleys, rockets, iron rods, jackhammers, artillery
and tanks before a series of massive explosions finally toppled
the statues." Los Angeles Times
02/24/02
DOES
ART STILL MATTER AFTER? "In 1937, it took a couple of
days for Picasso to hear the news of Guernica; today, he
would have watched it unfolding live on television. This immediacy
and its accompanying glut of images and information is itself a
challenge to artists. One difficulty in making art about Sept. 11
is that it is hard to create anything that rivals in magnitude the
live images that so much of the world spent days obsessively
watching on television. In the face of this new reality, the
demand that art respond literally, directly and rapidly to crisis
contains an underlying note of panic: an urge to demonstrate to a
broader public, through a definitive statement on something of
great social moment, that art is indeed necessary, that art can
still make a difference, despite a growing fear that it is not and
cannot." The
New York Times 03/03/02
LEARNING
THROUGH POP CULTURE: Does "teaching" popular culture
dumb down education? Maybe not. "Getting our students to
'read' popular cultural critically may well become our task as
teachers in an age increasingly dominated by the mass media. If
students can learn to reflect on what they view in movies or on
television, the process may eventually make them better readers of
literature. The many critics of popular culture, who adamantly
oppose its inclusion in the college curriculum, fear that studying
it inevitably involves dragging what has traditionally been
regarded as high culture down to the same level. But that is not
to say that no embrace is possible. By being selective and
rigorously analytical, one may be able to lift popular culture up
to the level of high culture, or at least pull it in that
direction." Wilson
Quarterly 01/02
2.
DANCE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#dance
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A
CONTEMPORARY TRADITION: A dance festival in Limmerick, Ireland
draws dancers from all over the world, presenting a variety of
traditions. One of the pressing issues is the tension between
tradition and innovation - "We need to create a
contemporary culture out of tradition. What do I need from the
past and the present to make my future?"
Irish Times 03/02/02
EVERYONE
LOVES A GOOD STORY: Story ballets once ruled the dance stage.
Then came Balanchine and a long period of abstract dance. But
"the rising popularity of story ballets suggests the pendulum
of popular taste may be swinging back. The difference now is that
we live in an age dominated by film and television. Yesterday's
sets and costumes can't do the eye-seducing job they once
did." Toronto Star 03/02/02
DANCING
TO THE SINGING: A number of dance companies have recently
taken up operas as subjects for dance. "Given the
dramatic and musical vitality of great operas and the way the
performing arts can borrow from one another, it is no surprise
that choreographers venture into operatic subject matter. Yet
making ballets out of operas — turning dramas expressed through
song into dramas based on movement — requires solving
challenging theatrical problems." The
New York Times 03/03/02
RAGGED
LEGACY: The Kirov Ballet is one of the world's most-stories
dance companies. But "on the evidence of its recent season at
the Kennedy Center, though, the company is in a state of
confusion, rushing pell-mell in two different and opposite
directions at once." New York
Observer 02/26/02
HERE
THEY GO AGAIN IN BOSTON: "Mikko Nissinen won't arrive in
town for good until April, but the Boston Ballet's incoming
artistic director has let go of six of the company's 43 dancers
and decided not to renew contracts for three of its four
instructors. This is less turmoil than there was last year, when
15 dancers were laid off. Only a week later, Maina Gielgud, hired
to take over as artistic director, resigned abruptly, complaining
that cuts had been made without her involvement." Boston
Globe 02/26/02
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3. MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#media
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WHAT'S
WRONG WITH AN ALL-ARTS CHANNEL? This weekend the BBC launches
BBC4, its new arts channel. But not all arts lovers are cheering.
"BBC4, for all its cultural riches, is not a creative channel
in the way that BBC1 and BBC2 were at their best. Its philosophy
is alien to the creative risk that produces great television.
Rather, it stripmines other art forms and creates little that is
new." The Guardian (UK) 03/02/02
OUR
LIVES IN MOVIES: Film biographies rule the screen these days.
But "the biopic is more than a film 'based on a true story'
or a movie about historical events. In a secular society, biopics
can be the closest we get to lives of the saints - or the sinners.
They can be cautionary tales, inspirational stories, lenses
through which we view the past - cheery hagiographies or bitter
denunciations." The Age (Melbourne)
03/01/02
ILLUSIONS
OF QUALITY: Is Miramax "the world's most annoying"
film company? "Movies are all about illusion, and the
greatest illusion of them all is the illusion of quality. This is
Miramax's stock-in-trade. It takes stories that seem a bit classy
- Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Shakespeare in Love,
Chocolat - and turns them into cultureless mush, affected
little movies which are grand in their own way, and which win
Oscars, but which are actually meritless escapades fine-tuned to
dupe the public." The Telegraph
(UK) 03/01/02
HANDS
OFF OUR BUSINESS! With the US Congress threatening to write
legislation requiring copy protection technology in new digital
devices, tech companies pledge to come up with a standard of their
own. The movie industry is worried that new devices will allow
consumers to rip off their products. Wired
02/27/02
NPR
SCALING BACK ON CULTURE? "National Public Radio has begun
an extensive review of its musical programming, and is considering
overhauling or eliminating some of its venerable jazz and
classical offerings. A strategy paper written by NPR's top
programming executive says some of the network's live performance
and recorded music shows 'may disappear,' although officials
stress that nothing is final." Washington
Post 02/27/02
SYNERGY
OR MONOPOLY? When Congress changed the rules of the broadcast
industry back in the mid-90s, supporters claimed the new system
would spur greater competition and better content for consumers.
The exact opposite has been the case, as "old-fashioned,
bare-knuckled competition grudgingly gives way to attempted
"synergy," as companies that bring us news, information
and banal sitcoms keep getting bigger and more powerful, while
simultaneously trying to use their various assets to prop up and
support each other." Los Angeles
Times 02/27/02
AUSTRALIA
LURES FILMMAKERS: Australia is proud of its movie industry and
hopes to attract more Hollywood productions. So the government has
introduced a bill to give movie producers shooting in
Australia a 12.5 percent tax rebate, which could save producers
millions of dollars. Backers of the idea claim that "when
coupled with Australia's weak currency, state government
incentives and cheap labour costs, Australia becomes one of the
most viable places in the world to shoot a movie."
The Age (Melbourne) 02/25/02
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4.
MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#music
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DO-IT-YOURSELF
WINNER: "A live concert performance of Berlioz's
spectacular opera Les Troyens, released by the London
Symphony Orchestra on its own budget label, has trumped the major
labels by taking home the best classical and best opera
gold." Los
Angeles Times 02/28/02
LONDON'S
LAST ARTS CENTER? London's Barbican Centre is 20 years old
It's more appreciated now than when it opened, but "the
Barbican is the last great exemplar of how not to build a concert
hall. It is also the last arts centre we are likely to see. The
concept of a Gesamtkunstgebau - a building for all the traditional
arts - has outlived its time. It has been overtaken by a new
eclecticism, by our reluctance to be nose-led by curators and our
curiosity to seek culture from plural sources. The arts centre has
educational overtones that offend the educated mind."
The
Telegraph (UK) 02/27/02
REINVENTING
OPERA: How much liberty ought an opera director or producer
have in setting an opera. Updating and reinterpreting are popular
right now, and they can help an audience see a piece in a new way.
On the other hand, some rethinking distracts from the the work
itself. But how far is too far? Chicago
Tribune 02/28/02
THE
END OF MUSIC AS WE KNOW IT? Pop musicians are joining up to
break the "tyranny" of music industry contracts.
"If this pop-star labour movement is able to overcome the
anarchy and dissension of music's fractious communities, it could
put an end to the music business as we know it. It is a
little-understood drama that is pummelling the giant music
conglomerates just as they are beginning to collapse under their
own weight. The next few years could mark the end of Big Music, an
institution that has promoted homogeneity and poor taste for
decades." The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/02/02
SAMPLE
THIS: It wasn't that long ago that musicians were railing
against rappers sampling their music to make new songs. The
practice is a staple of hip hop. Then the practice became highly
regulated (and lucrative). "Now more than ever, it's the
sellers who are actively trying to get established and
up-and-coming musicians interested in picking up a beat, a musical
fragment, or a snippet of lyrics. Yet the selling price of samples
has some artists saying they're not in the market to buy anymore.
''It's costing too much to get clearances, and sometimes it's
easier to just do your own music'.'' Boston
Globe 03/03/02
CITY
OPERA AT WTC? New York City Opera is talking to other New York
cultural institutions about building a major new arts center on
the site of the World Trade Center. "City Opera officials
caution that their planning is in its early stages and that they
have not made a decision to go forward. But they have attracted
interest from the Joyce Theater, the Chelsea-based home of
contemporary dance, in becoming involved in the project, which in
one configuration would include a 2,200- seat opera house for
itself, a 900-seat dance space and possibly a museum."
The New York Times 02/28/02
RATTLE
IN BERLIN: Simon Rattle takes over the Berlin Philharmonic
podium later this year. The Berlin Phil is possibly the world's
most prestigious orchestra. But is it possible the orchestra needs
Rattle more than he needs it? "Perhaps it will send a signal
that the times are indeed changing and that the symphonic music
business needs to get with the times in order to maintain some
relevance. It signals a dramatic shift in the mythology and
mystery surrounding the role of the conductor - from an
unapproachable, distantly enigmatic, eccentric figure to a
proactive, hands-on, engaging human being that musicians and the
public can relate to!" Christian
Science Monitor 03/01/02
THE
ART OF A CONCERT HALL: As the new Frank Gehry-designed home
for the Los Angeles Philharmonic rises, it's worth noting that
when the LA Phil's current home - the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion -
opened back in 1964, its acoustics were widely praised. Still, the
new Disney Hall will be a landmark building for the city, one of
its most distinctive structures.Financial
Times 02/27/02
BROOKLYN
MUSICIANS LOCKED OUT? The Brooklyn Philharmonic is on shaky
financial ground since September 11. Accordingly, the orchestra
replaced some planned concerts with solo piano recitals instead.
The musicians union - the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) -
has complained that the orchestra has "locked out" its
77 orchestra members by making the program change... Backstage
02/25/02
IN
SEARCH OF WOMEN: "Even now at the start of the 21st
century, decades after the dawn of the contemporary feminist
movement saw a rise in women's orchestras and gender-based
musicological studies and long after the inclusion of a single
piece by a female composer on a concert program has ceased to be
remarkable, a whole concert of music by women, performed by women,
still feels unusual. It remains an exception to the classical
music norm, which is a concert of music written entirely by
men." The New York Times 02/26/02
COOPERATING
THEIR WAY OUT OF DEBT: The St. Louis Symphony has been facing
major money problems. In response, the orchestra's musicians
have come forward as partners with managerment. Perhaps here is a
model for other orchestras. "It was clear right away that we
had to move from arguing over how to cut up the pie to how to keep
the boat from sinking. We all had to start bailing. We've already
decided it's not merely to show up and play the notes on the page.
But what is it? We're not fund-raisers, we don't plan the musical
program, but we can contribute in those areas and in many others.
I wasn't trained to do anything more than play the instrument, but
that's not enough anymore." The
New York Times 02/25/02
GRAMMY
BLUES: It's Grammy time again, but the recording industry
isn't really in a celebrating mood. "Music sales are sagging,
hundreds of layoffs have demoralized record company staffers and
superstar artists have united for a public revolt against the
industry's business practices. And, more troubling in the long
run, consumers are embracing new technologies that threaten to
scatter the industry's musical commodities like coins spilled on a
busy street. Last year, blank CDs outsold all music albums in the
U.S. for the first time, and, as the Napster saga showed, tens of
millions of fans are willing to grab their music online without
paying." Los
Angeles Times 02/24/02
PRODUCER
AS CREATIVE ARTIST: Music recording and editing software has
become so sophisticated that producers have become an
indespensible part of the musical creative process. "It's
sort of the same as the difference between a typewriter and a word
processor. The computer-based systems allow you to do the kind of
editing that you do with a word processor, but with sound."
Los Angeles Times 02/24/02
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5. PEOPLE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#people
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ROCKWELL
OUT AT NYT: "John Rockwell, editor of The New York Times'
Sunday Arts & Leisure section for the past four years, steps
down from the influential post today. He will move into the newly
created position of senior cultural correspondent, writing cultural
news stories and criticism... Under Rockwell's guidance, it has
developed into perhaps the country's most prominent source of
performing arts commentary, with coverage of everything from movies
to the performing arts, from the mainstream to the fringe." Andante
03/01/02
GOODWIN
OFF NEWSHOUR: Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has acknowledged
using other writers' work "without sufficient
attribution." She's left - or been dropped from - the PBS
newshour program. The University of Delaware has cancelled an
invitation to speak at commencement. Isn't that enough punishment?
Maybe not. Boston Globe 02/28/02
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6.
PUBLISHING
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#publishing
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READING
ALONG: American book sales were flat in 2001. "Following
a year that benefited from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,
sales in the children's hardcover segment fell 22.7% in 2001 to
$928.6 million. Paperback sales, however, had a second consecutive
solid year with sales ahead 17.9% to $887.6 million. In addition
to paperback editions of Potter books, segment sales were boosted
by tie-ins to the Lord of the Rings movie."
Publishers Weekly 02/26/02
PRESSURE
TO PLAGIARIZE: Why are respected historians plagiarizing other
people's work? "There is some truth to the claim that trade
publishing has become a harried, assembly-line operation with its
head on the block. Only serial blockbusters can stay the ax man's
hand. Thus many books have become as formulaic and shoddy as the
flicks that Hollywood churns out. Publishers and writers are
desperate to cash in on the latest craze, be it baseball, the
founding fathers or jihad. Their livelihoods depend on it."
Los Angeles Times 02/28/02
- WHY
PLAGIARISM MATTERS: Why is so much attention being paid to
the plagiarism by historians Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns
Goodwin? "No one would care about this if Goodwin and
Ambrose were obscure assistant professors laboring in some
academic backwater. Both, however, are best-selling authors
and TV pundits, which is why this literary scandal has
generated so many headlines during the past two months. The
controversy has touched off a national debate about what
constitutes ethical behavior among writers and researchers,
especially now that the Internet has made it so easy to copy
passages electronically and insert them into a text."
Forbes.com 02/28/02
- AN
EXPLANATION (BARELY), NOT AN EXCUSE: "Books are the
products of artisans and artists, and this doesn't allow for
them to be mass-produced at their creation like toasters that
some assembly line puts together out of these and those parts
gathered from here and there. If writers do want to try to run
a factory, fine: just as long as they use their own raw
materials." The New York
Times 02/28/02
POETRY
IN THE PASSING LANE: Editorial writers like to claim, without
a lot of evidence, that 'poetry is on the move.' They rejoice that
Beowulf is a best seller at last. Does this mean that poetry and
democracy have come face to face? That poetry is no longer stuck
under the thumb of the learned or even the literate? It might.
With recent developments in technology; with poems traveling
around the world on the Internet without price, tariff, or tax;
with cyberwatchers able to encounter a fresh poem every day of the
year, selected from new books and magazines, at poems.com, poetry
may be gaining lots of customers." The
Atlantic 03/02
E-BOOKS
- NOT QUITE AS DEAD AS WE THOUGHT: "The theme at this
year's annual meeting of the Association of American Publishers
seems left over from the dot-com boom: "Protecting
Intellectual Property in the Digital Age." The recent
shutdown of electronic imprints at Random House and AOL Time
Warner Inc. makes e-books look like a dying fashion. The e-market
continues to expand, nevertheless. While annual numbers for
individual publishers remain small - in the tens of thousands of
copies sold - Simon & Schuster, St. Martin's Press,
HarperCollins and others report double-digit growth over the past
year." Milwaukee
Journal-Sentinel (AP) 02/27/02
CENSORSHIP
OR EDITING? When a prominent Oxford professor was asked
to write a piece on Tony Blair by the London Review of Books, he
turned in a piece praising the Prime Minister for his conduct
since September 11. Did the magazine kill the piece
because editors didn't like the politics? The
Guardian 03/02/02
TOUGH
READ: Who knew choosing a book for all New Yorkers to read at
the same time would be so tough? "It was working in Seattle,
Milwaukee, and California. So why couldn't it work in New York?
How anyone could ever have thought it would work in New York seems
a more pertinent question now, as the plan to select a single
novel to embody the spirit of the most spectacularly diverse city
in America degenerates into arguments and recrimination."
The Guardian (UK) 02/27/02
HIGH
COST RETURNS: The Beardstown Ladies investment club claimed
high returns and parlayed the club's wisdom into a publishing
juggernaut, selling millions of books. "But claims of a 23.4
percent return on their investments over the 10-year period
between 1984-93 turned out to be false. The club revised that
number to 9.1 percent — still well below the 15 percent annual
return of the overall stock market, with dividends reinvested,
over the same period." Now the first reader lawsuits have
been settled, and anyone who can prove they bought the books will
get $25 vouchers from the publishers. Yahoo!
(AP) 02/26/02
THE
CURSE OF THE VANITY PRESS: Universal publishing might seem to
be a good idea, but really... have you seen what people really
want to have published? "All that stands between us and this
nightmare vision of total authorship is the publishing industry
itself, especially the major houses, trading on their power not to
publish. By not publishing a lot of tat each year, these giants
keep the storytelling hordes at bay." The
Observer (UK) 02/24/02
BURIED
IN SLUSH: "Some publishers consider reading slush a waste
of resources and no longer accept it; some bribe their assistants
to read it by throwing slush-and-pizza parties (presumably
figuring that nothing makes cheesy fiction go down easier than a
little cheese and pepperoni). My publisher welcomed all slush and
handed me the reins. Thus for two years, in addition to fulfilling
my normal editorial duties, I hired freelance readers, generated
form rejection slips, evaluated the rare promising submission and
fielded phone calls from every would-be Frank McCourt with a
manuscript in his drawer and an Oprah's Book Club Pick in his
dreams. I wish I could say that serving as a conduit between the
publishing elite and the uncorrupted masses taught me valuable
lessons in compassion and grace. Instead, it convinced me that the
world is full of lunatics." Salon
02/25/02
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7. THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#theatre
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TRY-OUT
BLACKOUT: Time was when theatre productions regularly came to
Connecticut for try-outs before moving to Broadway. The
Connecticut stop happens much less frequently these days, but when
they do come, some producers try to discourage critics from reviewing
their efforts. Do they have something to hide?
Hartford Courant 02/24/02
WHAT
HAPPENED TO THE ORCHESTRA? "For decades and for economic
reasons, more and more shows have played Broadway or gone
a-touring with increasingly thin pit orchestras. In recent years,
secondary touring editions of everything from Ragtime to Titanic
have thrown a sparse handful of live musicians on top of what's
known as a 'virtual orchestra,' a computerized whatzit (there's
more than one brand) designed to sound like a bigger and grander
and more fabulous orchestra than the one at hand." Even the
experts can't always tell...so is there anything wrong with this?
Chicago Tribune 03/03/02
ODE
TO THE GLOBE: Shakespeare purists may scoff at the rebuilt
Globe Theatre in London, but after five years, the Globe has sold
more than a million tickets and filled 80 percent of its seats.
And the actors? "I've played in all sorts of places, but I
think this is the most exciting building to act in in the world.
You feel the audience is so there. The feeling onstage is almost
as if you are part of them and they are part of you. The reaction
of the audience is from the gut, unconditioned by all the stuff
you get at the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theater.
People react as they want to." The
New York Times 03/03/02
MILLER
TO GUTHRIE: Playwright Arthur Miller has decided to produce
his new play Resurrection Blues, at the Guthrie Theatre in the
Twin Cities this fall. "I have to decide where to do it
first, away from the big time. (New York) is not an atmosphere
conducive to creation. The tension is high because there's so much
money resting on a poor little play." St.
Paul Pioneer Press 03/01/02
NEW
THEATRE IN TOWN: Four years ago two men came to Greensboro,
North Carolina with dreams of starting a new theatre.
They quickly raised $5 million, bought the old Montgomery Ward
department store building and transformed it into a handsome new
home. "In a large metropolitan area, it would not be unusual
for an arts group to raise $5 million (or a lot more) in a few
years." But in medium-size Greensboro, the feat has
tuned heads. Winston-Salem
Journal 02/24/03
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8.
VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#visualarts
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PHILLIPS'
NEW OWNERS: The No. 3 auction house has been bought, and many
changes are in store. But some auction watchers are dubious:
"Unless they have some new and exotic weapon, I cannot
imagine how they will succeed against Sotheby's and Christie's. I
can't understand how someone would put money into Phillips. They
don't have the space or the broad reach to compete." The
New York Times 02/28/02
WHAT'S
A BIENNIAL TO DO? Art biennials are everywhere. "Just
this year, one could biennial-hop through 17 cities in 15
countries." Some wonder what the point is? To promote
artists? Cities? Egos? "As mega-events, however, biennials
may be a troubled form. Last month, the Venice Biennale approached
bureaucratic meltdown as it was announced that the entire biennial
committee and chairman had resigned amid wrangling over political
and artistic control. In fact, some professionals see down-
scaling — call it a countermovement against globalism — and
events held outside Europe or the United States as the real
trend." The New York Times
03/03/02
- ANOTHER
OFFBEAT BIENNIAL: This year's Whitney Biennial is being
curated by the museum's Larry Rinder. His "unabashed
enthusiasm for stuff that’s way outside the fine-arts box
mean that this year's Biennial promises to be one of its
strangest manifestations ever, and perhaps a watershed moment
in American art." So what might it look like?
"There’ll probably be a lot more of what might be
called youth culture or even skateboard culture. I’m really
interested in that stuff.” Newsweek
03/04/02
NEW
TAX FOR BRITISH MUSEUMS? British national museums face a new
"capital charge" by the government on the value of their
assets (excluding their collections). The rate is six percent -
for the British Museum, this means a charge of £14 million
a year. The museums are protesting the plan, hoping to get the
idea killed before it "devastates" their finances.
The Art Newspaper 02/22/02
TURNER.COM:
When landscape artist JMW Turner died in 1851, a collection of
tens of thousands of his paintings, sketches, and drawings was
left to the United Kingdom. Since then, they have rarely been
seen, and are in fact currently housed in closed vaults at the
Tate Britain. Now, the Tate has announced a plan to display the
works online. BBC 03/01/02
BRAND
NEW RUBENS: "Sotheby's auction house said Thursday it has
identified a previously unknown painting by Flemish master Peter
Paul Rubens, a find it says is one of the greatest Old Masters to
be offered at auction in decades... The painting, "The
Massacre of the Innocents," from between 1609 and 1611, is
expected to sell for anywhere from $5.7 million to $8.5 million
when it is auctioned on July 11, the auction house said." Nando
Times (AP) 02/28/02
WARHOL
THE PACKRAT: An exhibition celebrating the legacy of Andy
Warhol doesn't sound like anything new. Next to Norman Rockwell,
Warhol may just be the most overexposed American artist of the
last century. But at Pittsburgh's Warhol Museum, the latest
tribute to Mr. Fifteen Minutes focuses not on his art, but on his
obsession with collecting. Says the museum's curator,
"Collecting itself was a form of artistic practice for Warhol."
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 03/01/02
OBJECTING
ON PRINCIPLE: A group in San Francisco has filed suit against
the DeYoung Museum's plans for a new building, designed by Swiss
architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. "The lawsuit
filed by People for a New de Young contends that the new museum
will urbanize Golden Gate Park, hurt its historical value,
increase traffic and cast shadows on a nearby children's play
area. The suit alleges that the project violates the California
Environmental Quality Act, the Golden Gate Park master plan and
the city's general plan." San
Francisco Chronicle 02/15/02
LIBESKIND
TO DESIGN ROYAL ONTARIO: "A design by the
Berlin-based architect Daniel Libeskind, 56, was the winner of a
much-scrutinized international competition to revamp the Royal
Ontario Museum, at a cost, initially, of $150-million. Museum
officials hope the plan, called Renaissance ROM, will increase
attendance to 1.6 million a year from 950,000." The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/27/02
- WHAT'S
WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? Well, even though the plans sound
terrific, the project doesn't have a hope of being built if
the federal government doesn't kick in with major support. And
so far that hasn't happened. Toronto
Star 02/27/02
- FLASH
OR FUNCTION? Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum is to pick the
winning design this week for a major $200 million expansion of
the museum. Who will win the commission? Observers expect
Daniel Libeskind's entry will be chosen because of its
theatricality and big statement and potential to draw in the
crowds. But some of the museum's senior staff favor another
design they believe would better show the collection. Problem
is, the public presentation of that entry was poorly done, and
failed to fire up anyone's imagination... The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/25/02
CANADIAN
RECORD: The record price for a painting was set Monday night,
when Scene in the Northwest - Portrait, an oil painting
of Captain Henry LeFroy by artist Paul Kane, "was sold at
auction in Toronto for $4.6-million - more than double the
previous record for a Canadian painting."
National Post (Canada) 02/26/02
POLITICIANS
PROTEST ART SHOW: A Birmingham, England city council member
has protested a show at a local gallery that "includes work
from Santiago Sierra in which the artist pays a standard wage to
groups of workers, including prostitutes, to perform 'repetitive
and obtrusive' acts. Birmingham councillor Deidre Alden described
the video as more like pornography than art and is consulting the
police to find out if the exhibition can be stopped."
BBC 02/25/02
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
9.
ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#issues
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EVEN
TOUGHER COPYRIGHT LAWS: The World Intellectual Property
Organization, an international body of government representatives
that globalizes laws, has announced new guidelines to crack down
on digital piracy. The WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO
Performance and Phonograms Treaty, which go into effect over the
next three months, extend copyright protection to computer
programs, movies and music." Wired
02/26/02
THE
ART OF GLASS AND BODIES: Surprised researchers have discovered
that "the cells that make up the heart, lungs, and many other
organs in the body display glasslike properties, according to a
report in the October Physical Review Letters." They
conjecture that "just as heat can turn an apparently solid
champagne glass into liquid, cells are made more fluid - and
therefore able to contract, crawl, and divide - by internal
jostlings within the cell, what is called noise temperature."
Harvard Focus 11/01
INTO
THE SUBURBS: Artists have traditionally worked in cities. But
more and more urban arts groups are realizing that a major part of
their audiences come from the suburbs. And that in turn is
bringing artists out to the 'burbs'. "There's a real pent-up
demand for culture in the suburbs." Minneapolis
Star-Tribune 03/03/02
DON'T
PICK ON THE ARTS: The Atlanta City Council, facing budget
shortfalls, proposed cutting funding for arts groups. But after a
spirited council meeting at which arts supporters rallied to speak
against the cuts, funding restored almost to 2001 levels. Atlanta
Journal-Constitution 02/27/02
NEW
YORK'S NEW CULTURE CZAR: New York City has a new culture czar.
Cultural affairs commissioner Kate D. Levin "inherits a
department many arts professionals describe as in need of serious
reinvigoration. Even as Rudolph W. Giuliani poured an
unprecedented amount of city money into cultural building projects
and became known for his love of opera, the agency charged with
promoting the interests of New York's arts institutions quietly
but steadily diminished in size and influence amid years of
budgetary ups and downs." The
New York Times 02/26/02
MESSING
WITH THE CLASSICS: Why do critics get so upset by resettings
of classic works? Okay, maybe dance gets away with some updating,
but play Verdi "with a line of men sitting on the loo,"
and throw in "midget devils and gang rape" and
everyone's screaming. "What's in operation is an artistic
dress-code in which we believe that old stories should be told in
the old way even though the artists who are now the beloveds of
cultural conservatives - Shakespeare, Mozart, Bach - told old
stories in a new way." The Guardian
(UK) 02/23/02
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10. FOR FUN
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#forfun
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A
REAL LOOK AT OSCAR? "Two women's groups, the Guerilla
Girls and Alice Locas, have mounted a giant billboard in the heart
of Hollywood depicting an 'anatomically correct oscar' in the
ungainly shape of a pudgy, middle-aged man. 'We decided it was
time for a little realism in Hollywood," they said in an
statement yesterday. So we redesigned the old boy so he more
closely resembles the white males who take him home each
year'." Sydney Morning Herald (AFP)
03/03/02
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