Week
of December 3-9, 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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TEXT=50
SECONDS, ART=4 SECONDS: The Washington Post's Blake Gopnik
conducts a little research and observes that visitors to a gallery
spend far more time reading the explanatory texts on the walls
than they do looking at the art. "People are understandably
confused and threatened by the complexities of art. But when the
devices used to help them overcome discomfort end up standing in
for works on show, we have a major problem on our hands. Museums
are supposed to be about experiencing visual art, but they're in
danger of becoming nicely decorated reading rooms."
Washington Post 12/09/01
DISNEY
- AMERICA'S MOST FAMOUS ARCHITECT? "This may startle
some, because we think of him as a cartoonist, filmmaker, TV host
or theme park entrepreneur, not an architect. But that's the
point. Blessedly free of an architectural training, he was
brilliantly self-taught in the defining art form of the 20th
century - the movies. And he brought that mastery of the cinema
and the forces of popular mass entertainment to his architecture.
At his 1955 masterwork, Disneyland in Anaheim, and later on a
larger canvas at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., Disney
created the template for any number of major developments and
suburban centers ever since." San
Jose Mercury News 12/09/01
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2. DANCE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#dance
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AILEY'S
CHOROEOGRAPHY PROBLEM: While conceding that the Alvin Ailey
company has terrific dancers, New Yorker critic Joan Acocella
believes the company's choreography has never lived up to the
quality of its performers. That may be changing with the addition
of Ronald Brown's work; he comes out of a Garth Fagan tradition
rather than that of Ailey. The
New Yorker 12/10/01
THE
PREGNANT DANCER: "Ballet dancers are among the leanest,
fittest women on the planet. Their professional success is won by
exerting phenomenal control over their minds and bodies. They are
a completely different species from the gently swelling
mother-to-be, whose world is ruled by hormone rushes, heartburn,
bloated ankles and piles. While a few dancers embrace the mad
biology of motherhood with pleasure, most will confess that it's
hard to ditch the habits of a lifetime."
The Guardian (UK) 12/12/01
BIRTHING
A CLASSIC: A year ago Northeast Magazine held a contest to
come up with a new "holiday classic" set in
Connecticut. The winner features Elvis, dancing martini glasses,
The Jetsons and insurance elves. Hartford Ballet took up the
idea, and decided to produce it this Christmas. The story's
author followed the process of turning her work into dance... Hartford
Courant 12/16/01
SAN
JOSE A YEAR LATER: It's been a year since Cleveland San Jose
Ballet left the midwest to reform in Silicon Valley.
"Ballet San Jose now operates on a $6.5 million budget,
making it one of the 14 largest ballets in the United States.
Among the 40 dancers now listed on the Ballet San Jose roster,
only 14 performed in Cleveland. More than 20 members of the
former Cleveland troupe moved to California last year when the
company collapsed. But several departed at the end of the season
to pursue other careers or join ballet companies in less
expensive cities." The
Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 12/09/01
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3. MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#media
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NOT
OKAY TO BE SMART: "In Hollywood, you can never be too
rich or too thin, but you can be too smart. It's OK to have a
beautiful face. It's not OK to have a beautiful mind. Smart people
are socially inept, inward-looking and compulsive, bedeviled by
their obsession with whatever it is that they do, be it
mathematics, piano, painting, lexicography, chess, cryptography or
just general "Jeopardy!"-like knowledgeableness. Lurking
in the background is the computer nerd. There has been a frenzy of
projects featuring such characters recently, and there's more to
come." Los
Angeles Times 12/16/01
THE
PROBLEM WITH DIGITAL ART: "Galleries don't really show a
lot of new media - it's hard for them to present it. It's not like
a painting that they know how to hang. Another problem is
commercial: Many pieces aren't meant to be sold, and in any case,
the market for such works is small. Part of that is due to
newness; part is due to 'problems of the future' - like, is there
tech support for the art when things break down?" Los
Angeles Times 12/16/01
ARTS
ON AUSSIE TV - M.I.A.: For the first time in a decade, the
Australian Broadcasting Company doesn't have an arts magazine to
broadcast in prime time. "The ABC is now asking whether the
arts-magazine format has had its day and whether a more
cost-effective and successful way to cover the arts is through
documentaries and specials." The question is whether ABC is
living up to its charter obligation to provide arts programming. The
Age (Melbourne) 12/13/01
PENALTIES
FOR FILM SUBSIDIES? US filmworkers have filed a petition with
the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Trade Commission
"asking the government to examine the legality of Canada's
subsidies to U.S. filmmakers. It proposes tariffs be levelled
against U.S. filmmakers in the exact amount of the Canadian
subsidy they receive." Predictably, Hollywood studios oppose
the idea. Toronto Star 12/09/01
TECH
PERFORMANCE: Some internet art is evolving into performance
art. One project at the Brooklyn Academy of Music monitors
"the live activity in thousands of Internet chat rooms and
message boards, then converting these public conversations into a
computer-generated opera. The New York
Times 12/08/01
(one-time registration required for access)
FINALLY
- PEACE AT PACIFICA: The board of Pacifica Radio Network has
been at war with some of its long-time fans and supporters for two
years as the board tried to professionalize the operation while
listeners (and many staff) tried to preserve the network's
alternative community base. Now the factions have come to a
settlement that will return control of Pacifica's stations back to
local interests. San Francisco
Chronicle 12/13/01
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4.
MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#music
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
KIMMEL
CENTER OPENS: A night after Elton John opened Philadelphia's
new concert hall (in return for a fee said to be $2 million), the
Kimmel Center's real tenants moved in. "Rough edges in the
still-to-be-finished performing arts center were well-hidden; the
Philadelphia Orchestra's next music director, Christoph Eschenbach,
was helicoptered into Philadelphia after his 5:19 p.m. curtain at
New York's Metropolitan Opera; and guest cellist Yo-Yo Ma courted
disaster when his chair slipped off a raised platform while
performing (he was caught by orchestra violinist Nancy
Bean)." Philadelphia Inquirer
12/16/01
- FIRST
REVIEWS - NOT A RAVE: "On Saturday the Philadelphia
Orchestra played its first concert in its long-awaited home,
the 2,500-seat Verizon Hall in the new $265 million, two-hall
Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Alas, the first report
can't be called wildly enthusiastic. Finished in almost
unrelieved red mahogany, Verizon is a bit oppressive visually.
And, at least in its initial incarnation, it's seriously short
of sonic warmth." Dallas
Morning News 12/16/01
- SOMETHING
NEW IN CONCERT HALLS? Philadelphia's new Kimmel Center
concert hall is not your traditional shoe-box design.
"The Philadelphia Orchestra's new cello-shaped home, part
of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, is a uniquely
curvaceous, wood-lined concert room that may change the way
future generations think about concert halls, the role of the
arts in this city, and Philadelphia in general." Philadelphia
Inquirer 12/09/01
A
WINNER AT BAYREUTH? The battles in Bayreuth over who will
control the Wagner Festival may be settled. And it looks like
Wolfgang Wagner, the composer's grandson, has won his way after a
long, bitter and very public fight. Wagner, 82, "announced
that he had appointed Klaus Schultz, one of his steadfast
supporters and longtime confidants, as his artistic adviser,
starting in January." The
New York Times (AFP) 12/14/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
NOT
MUCH TO SING ABOUT: Chorus members rarely - if ever - make
money for their work; they get their rewards in other ways. But
"a deep gloom has settled over the volunteer sector of the
singing world - not the pros who bury Aida nightly at the
opera or tweet exquisite Messiaenisms for the 32-strong BBC
Singers, but the lawyers, plumbers and home-makers who, from time
immemorial, have given up three nights a week for rehearsal, no
expenses paid. The choral tradition is in trouble. Money is tight,
the music is monotonous and ensembles are turning sloppy."
The Telegraph (UK) 12/12/01
MR
CHRISTMAS CAROL: "In the world of music, John Rutter is
Mr Christmas: the most celebrated and commercially successful
carol-composer alive. Given the state of world affairs it's hard
to predict the supply of peace and goodwill among the nations in
the next few weeks, but one thing you can guarantee is that
Rutter's choral packaging of those sentiments will be on the lips
of countless millions in cathedrals, churches, chapels and mud-hut
missions, from Nebraska to Nairobi." The
Telegraph (UK) 12/14/01
ANOTHER
ORCHESTRA LOCKOUT: "The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra has
locked out its musicians for the first time in its 54-year
history. The move followed a unanimous vote by the players
yesterday afternoon to reject binding arbitration with conditions
that would recoup a projected $400,000 loss at the musicians'
expense." Winnipeg Free Press
12/14/01
THE
MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN: Is the sun finally setting on the aging
gods of rock music? Elton John announced last week he'd made his
last album. And "new releases from rock's other fifty-somethings,
such as Rod Stewart (56), Mick Jagger (58) or Sir Paul McCartney
(59), have bombed with younger audiences. Jagger limped into the
British top 75 last week with his new album Goddess in the
Doorway. It sold sold an unimpressive 954 copies on its first
day, and just about managed to sell 12,000-odd to reach No
44." New
Zealand Herald 12/10/01
MORTIER
TO TAKE PARIS OPERA: Outgoing Salzburg Festival director
Gerard Mortier has been named director of the Paris National Opera
beginning in 2004. "Mortier, 58, earned a reputation at
Salzburg both for sponsoring offbeat productions and for clashing
noisily with conservative Austrian politicians.
The New York Times 12/08/01
(one-time registration required for access)
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5. PEOPLE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#people
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PATRIOTIC
FOG: "Because of the events of September 11, John Adams
finds himself accused of being an 'anti-American' composer, a
label with uncomfortable echoes of the McCarthy era of the
1950s." In the New York Times, musicologist Richard Taruskin
charged Adams with "romanticising terrorists" in his
1991 opera The Death of Klinghoffer - and, by implication,
with romanticising the perpetrators of the attacks on the World
Trade Centre, too. Taruskin's article provides some flavour of the
atmosphere in the US today. "If terrorism is to be
defeated," he wrote, "world public opinion has to be
turned decisively against it." That means "no longer
romanticising terrorists as Robin Hoods and no longer idealising
their deeds as rough poetic justice". The creators of The
Death of Klinghoffer - Adams, librettist Alice Goodman and
director Peter Sellers - have done just that, he argued. The opera
was "anti-American, anti-semitic and anti-bourgeois. Why
should we want to hear this music now?" The
Guardian (UK) 12/15/01
MASUR
GETS TRANSPLANT: New York Philharmonic music director Kurt
Masur is recovering from a kidney transplant operation. "The
74-year-old conductor suffered no complications during the
operation, which was done Nov. 29 in Liepzig." Andante
(AP) 12/10/01
SIR
JIMMY: Flutist James Galway is to be knighted this week by
Queen Elizabeth. "After his knighthood for services to music
was announced, in June, in the Queen's birthday honours list, he
said he was unsure whether to call himself Sir James or Sir Jimmy.
The Queen is also presenting a CBE to academic Simon Schama, whose
television series A History of Britain has been an enormous
success for the BBC." BBC 12/12/01
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6.
PUBLISHING
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#publishing
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HOW
THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN: Eighteen months ago, e-publisher
MightyWords was the hottest thing in digital online publishing.
Stephen King wrote a novella that the company sold for download
over the internet, and hundreds of thousands of buyers jammed the
site. But the market for e-books never developed and the company
is closing. Toronto Star 12/14/01
BOOK
SALES REBOUNDING: In the weeks right after September 11, sales
of books collapsed. Booksellers were pessimistic for the usually
lucrative holiday season. "A key reason for that anxiety was
the lack of attention that new books and authors had received from
radio, television and other news media that were focusing their
coverage, almost exclusively, on terrorism But
higher-than-expected sales in the days after Thanksgiving have
raised hopes throughout the book-selling world." Chicago
Tribune 12/14/01
THE
DARKER SIDE OF POOH: Winnie the Pooh is 75 years old and never
bigger: "The spiritually minded can read The Tao of Pooh and
The Te of Piglet while logicians have to choose between
Winnie-the-Pooh on Problem Solving and Pooh and the Philosopher.
For literary critics there is The Pooh Perplex and The Postmodern
Pooh while businessmen take lessons from Winnie-the-Pooh on
Management. There is even a book for urban hipsters looking for
the grungy side of the Hundred Acre Woods; Karen Finley's Pooh
Unplugged." And yet, a case can be made for the insidious
side of the Way of the Pooh. National
Post 12/11/01
PRIZE
MESS: Literary awards are good for encouraging and promoting
new books. But the ill-fated Chapters Prize, launched three years
ago by the Canadian book superstore, forgot one crucial rule -
administration counts. The Prize's three year history (it was
canceled in mid-contest this year) is an example of everything
that can go wrong. The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/15/01
TRENDSETTING:
Some trends are easy to trace - it makes sense that a successful
book about embroidery will spawn a cluster of imitators. But what
drives the myriad boomlets of books about arcane things - like a
wave of books with the color red in the title or the word
"honeymoon"? Surely there's some cosmic order to it
all... Mobylives 12/09/01
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7. THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#theatre
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WHAT
OTHER PEOPLE THINK: "Actors come in two types - those who
read reviews and those who read them but tell you they don't.
Whether your notice appears in the Uttoxeter Bugle or the London
Evening Standard, the possibility that you're being heralded as
the next Lawrence Olivier is simply too much to resist."
The Guardian (UK) 12/12/01
A
FUTURE FULL OF $480 TICKETS? So is anyone buying those $480
tickets to The Producers on Broadway? Evidently - "so
far, the primary target audiences for these tickets are
corporations that want to entertain clients or hotel
concierges." And the idea has been successful enough that a
company wants to expand the super-premium idea to other hot shows.
Los Angeles Times 12/14/01
ACTING
AS ARCHAIC ART: What's it like being an actor in Canada?
"Being a stage actor is kind of like pursuing an archaic art,
in the way people perceive it. Sometimes it feels as if you're a
member of a medieval guild still making horseshoes. Here it does
feel a bit odd at times to be an actor, especially a stage actor,
because people don't really get what that is. People always have
to say, 'Well, have you done any commercials?' so they can place
you somehow." The Globe &
Mail (Canada) 12/16/01
TV'S
ERODING INFLUENCE: So much post-war drama owes its roots to
live stage forms. "But today music hall, variety and revue
are all virtually extinct, which means that writers have no
popular bank on which to draw. TV, with its endless dreary round
of soaps, quizzes and celebrity-led self-improvement shows, is our
inherited common culture, giving dramatists little to work
on." The Guardian (UK) 12/16/01
WHEN
DIRECTORS STEP ON PLAYWRIGHTS: Playwright David Grimm was
looking forward to seeing his play produced at Washington's Studio
Theatre's Secondstage three weeks ago. But he walked out at
intermission, angry at the wholesale changes the director had made
in his script. Soon rights for producing the play were withdrawn,
and the production has closed down. "The reason it is
copyrighted is that it is the property of that author. You can't
make changes to the play without the author's permission. It's as
simple as that. And theaters violate that all the time."
Washington Post 12/09/01
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8.
VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#visualarts
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CREED
WINS TURNER IN ODD CEREMONY: Martin Creed has won this year's
Turner Prize. "Having said earlier he regarded Turner as 'just
a stupid prize', he said of his installation: 'It doesn't make it a
better piece of work just because it wins a prize'." Presenter
Madonna also took some swipes at the award, calling awards
"silly" and asking: "Does the artist who wins the
award become a better artist? Is it nice to win 20 grand? Definitely
- but after spending time in this city, I can tell you that it won't
last very long." BBC
12/10/01
- IT'S
OFFICIAL - NATIONAL POST DECLARES 'END OF ART': The
editorial page writers for Canada's National Post play art
critic, weighing in with a judgment on Martin Creed's winning
artwork for this year's Turner Prize: "Mr. Creed
literally made nothing. He has achieved the logical end of
art, for if anything and everything may be regarded as art -
even a room devoid of anything except a light bulb - then
nothing is art. This is obviously all to the good. The
practitioners of contemporary art can all go home - and we can
all ignore them." National
Post (Canada) 12/12/01
- OTHER
CRITICS DISAGREE: "It’s a very profound thing.
He’s trying to make art with nothing - with the most
ordinary, denigrated, degraded, run-of-the-mill materials like
Blu-Tak or Sellotape. He is an up-to-date version of the
conceptual artist. The art is a concept made momentarily
transitory. He was asking the final question, which is about
the spectator. He made the people going into the room look at
the room and ask a question about what was the room doing.
Rooms in galleries are beautifully lit; you don’t expect
them to be suddenly in darkness." The
Scotsman 12/12/01
- SOME
FIND A MIDDLE GROUND: There is no doubt that Creed's work
is minimalist. But much of the fascination of his stuff is the
sense that such conceptual pieces are "the product of an
artist engaged in a kamikaze game of chicken with the
critics." Like it or hate it, you've got to give points
for the brashness. The Globe &
Mail (Toronto) 12/13/01
- AND
THEN THERE ARE PROTESTERS (NATURALLY):
A 52-year-old grandmother has been banned for life from the
Tate after she went into Creed's room and threw eggs at the
walls. "What I object to fiercely is that we've got this
cartel who control the top echelons of the art world in this
country and leave no access for painters and sculptors with
real creative talent." BBC
12/13/01
ART
INSTITUTE ALLEGES FRAUD: The Chicago Art Institute has accused
a Dallas financial firm of maybe defrauding the museum of millions
of dollars. "As much as $43 million in museum endowment funds
placed with the firm appear to be at risk, the Art Institute said.
One fund containing $23 million from the museum is said to have
lost as much as 90 percent of its value, according to the
complaint." The firm promised "protection from any
plunge in financial markets." Chicago
Tribune 12/11/01
CHEATER
CHEATER PUMPKIN EATER: So great artists might have used an
optical device to help them draw. "Allusions to deception (or
cheating) have now emerged in the reception to artist David
Hockney's new book, Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost
Techniques of the Old Masters. But whatever the optical device
(including a modern camera) and whatever the time period, one
thing remains the same: Using an optical device does not make art
easier; it makes art look different. That's a point easily
lost." Los
Angeles Times 12/12/01
LET'S
GET RID OF ANYONE WHO KNOWS ABOUT ART: Madrid's Prado is one
of the world's great museums. But a series of scandals and
missteps in the past decade has made it the object of ridicule.
Recently, the museum's latest director was removed and replaced by
a bureaucrat with no art experience. The "putsch has
scandalised Madrid's cultural elite. Is he qualified to go
shopping for new Goyas? Madrid's art world thinks not, but Eduardo
Serra has the support of the conservative prime minister, Jose
Maria Aznar, who no longer trusts anyone from the art elite to run
the museum." The Guardian (UK)
12/15/01
L.A.'S
NEW LANDMARK: In Los Angeles, Frank Gehry's new Disney Concert
Hall is taking shape. It's sure to alter the cultural architecture
of the city. "The crazily curved building - which evokes the
hallucinatory shapes of Disney's more fantastic cartoons - will
surely be another milestone in the architect's long career. Now
71, for much of his life he was underappreciated in his adopted
city." The
Age (Melbourne) 12/13/01
HMNNN
- IS IT REALLY A VAN GOGH? The recent attribution of a
heretofore anonymous painting as have been painted by Van Gogh is
a bit of a mystery. Not only is it now said to be by the Dutch
master, but it's also supposed to be a portrait of Gauguin.
"Why should this extraordinary find, which its supporters now
claim is worth an estimated £5 million, have been dismissed for
so long? The answer lies in the fact that Man in Red Hat is
a crudely executed work. Modest in size and hastily painted, the
supposed Gauguin portrait is far from a masterpiece." The
Times (UK) 12/12/01
BANFF
CENTER APOLOGIZES FOR ARTWORK: Canada's Banff Center has
publicly apologized for art one of its residents created. Artist
Israel Mora masturbated into seven vials, "placed the vials
into a cooler and wheeled it around Banff on a cart. He then hung
the cooler between two trees. A message on the exterior explained
the nature of the contents. Mora has said the vials represent
seven members of his family." The Center said: "There
are some differences in public taste. We're a publicly funded
institution and we need to be cognizant of those things." The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/14/01
ANOTHER
VIEW OF ART HISTORY: University of Chicago art historian
Michael Camille has caused a stir with his challenges to
conventional readings of art history. "His reading of early
Western art as an enforcement of power has provoked mixed
responses, reflecting broad disagreements among commentators over
the notion, as detractors put it, that culture is a
conspiracy." Chronicle
of Higher Education 12/10/01
MODERN
SICKNESS: It's only been open three years but Stockholm's
modern art museum Moderna Museet, is "being forced to close
next month because of what is known as "sick-building
syndrome," a series of seemingly unrelated construction
defects believed responsible for health problems reported by
numerous staff members." The New
York Times 12/10/01 (one-time registration required for
access)
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9.
ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#issues
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GETTING
INVOLVED: "In recent years, the term 'activist' has
tentatively resurfaced at art panels. Participants have voiced a
mix of renewed interest in addressing social and cultural
problems, frustration that so many of those issues remain little
changed after decades of awareness, and reluctance to adopt the
last generation's model because, in retrospect, it was too
absolutist." Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette 12/16/01
RUSTY
HINGE: England's "Arts Council is no more than the hinge
on the door that should lead the public to the arts, and artists
to their public. But has there been a creakier, dodgier hinge in
the history of metaphorical carpentry? Has there been a single
year out of the past 20 when the Arts Council has not been going
through some 'upheaval' or 'crisis' — usually entirely of its
own making?" Another "reorganization" isn't
helping. The Times (UK) 12/11/01
ART
IN ECONOMIC TERMS: "No doubt about it, the arts today are
a hard sell. This is a problem because, despite all protestations
against commercialism and 'selling out,' art has always had a
tendency to follow the money. To an extent still far greater than
many critics are willing to concede, all of the arts are
economically determined, and their failure can be described in
simple economic terms. There has been no problem with the supply
of art (leaving aside arguments over its quality), what has been
lacking is the demand." GoodReports
12/11/01
ALL
IN ALL - A GOOD YEAR: The Australia Council released figures
measuring last year's artistic output in Australia. All, in all,
it was a pretty good year - "new Australian works increased
by 41 per cent compared with 1999, with new dance and chamber
music works accounting for the increase. Audience numbers reached
record levels in 2000. Audiences increased 4.5 per cent between
2000 and 1999. The Age (Melbourne)
12/11/01
DIGITAL
DIVIDE: "Artists have been exploring digital art since
the 1960s, but only in the past few years has it become widely
practical because of better technology and prices." Cell
phone symphonies, digital graphics, interactive art..."it's
evolved to the point where artists are getting better at taking
advantage of the tools and making better art. We've reached the
level of seeing more museum-quality work." Chicago
Tribune 12/11/01
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10. FOR FUN
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#forfun
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CONDUCTING
A BID: A 25-year-old from Arizona was browsing on eBay when he
spotted an offer to conduct the Sydney Philharmonia Choir in a
performance of Handel's Messiah. So he anted up his life
savings of $7,500 and won the bidding, which was part of a
fund-raiser for the chorus. "The funny thing was, no-one had
bid on it when I saw it. So I thought, 'OK, I'm game'. And I won.
It was as simple as that." Sydney
Morning Herald 12/14/01
NEW
FORM BEGGING: The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden is trying
out a new way to raise money, saying it urgently needs new funds.
The company is asking donors to "sponsor" props for
performances - "£150 to pay for Macbeth's gold crown, £250
for Othello's sword, £500 for a wig in the production of Queen of
Spades, £750 for a rifle in Il Trovatore, £1,500 for a sedan
chair in Don Giovanni and £4,500 for a Madonna in the same
opera." The Telegraph (UK)
12/12/01
A
STRONG OPINION IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE SHOW: Actor David Soul
(from Starsky and Hutch) wins a case in British court
against a critic who claimed that Soul's play was 'without doubt
the worst West End show' he had seen." Turns out, the critic
actually had never seen the show... The
Independent (UK) 12/12/01
TRADITIONAL
TREE: The Tate Museum surprises everyone by putting up a
traditional Christmas tree. "After years when the traditional
tree sculpture in the London gallery's foyer was either hung
upside down from the ceiling or dumped in a skip to protest
against consumerism, the artist Yinka Shonibare was determined to
do something really controversial and make a jolly one. 'Christmas
is a happy time. This is happy tree'." The
Guardian (UK) 12/14/01
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