Week
of December 24-30, 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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE
YEAR IN ARTS: Publications around the world choose the best
and worst in arts in 2001. Here's our compilation of "Best
of/Worst of" lists. ArtsJournal.com
OLD
PROBLEM: "As any regular patron can tell you, the people
who turn out for music, dance and theater are more likely to be
concerned with Medicare than with student loans. It's a tricky
population twist for arts managers to navigate as they try to
accommodate their reliable, though aging, subscription base while
also pulling in new blood for the future. It's not a particularly
new problem - the core audience has always been those who have no
babies and some disposable income - but modern demographics and
economics have given a new urgency to the issue." Washington
Post 12/23/01
WHEN
ART IS ISOLATED: Eyes glaze over for most people encountering
issues of aesthetics. But maybe it's not their fault. "I
would say that western philosophy and western fine art are
designed to be irrelevant to the lives of most folks. They are
supposed to be incomprehensible to people like most of the
students I have taught. We’re working with a conception of art
in which most art is isolated in little cultural zones like the
museum, the concert hall, the poetry reading, where art is
supposed to function by sweeping us from our grubby little world
and into the exalted realm of the aesthetic."
Aesthetics-online 12/01
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2. DANCE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#dance
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE
DANCING SWAN: "Ever since Swan Lake got the
choreography and the attention it deserved, it has been one of
ballet's most frequently performed works. But in the course of its
travels it has been tarted up, dumbed down, made over and
psychologised more than any other ballet." The
Guardian (UK) 12/26/01
CLEMENT
TIME: Financial Times dance critic Clement Crisp is one of the
most respected critics in the UK. Crisp "commands English
like a maestro controlling a vast orchestra of thousands upon
thousands of instruments, some splendidly abstruse. Readers scurry
to their dictionaries. Ballet, which of all the performing arts
offers the highest challenge to any attempt to express it in
words, has produced a tiny handful of star writers able to match
the brilliance of the achievements they saw on stage with their
own verbal artistry." Ballet.co.uk
12/01
THE
POINT OF BALLET: Scottish Ballet's decision to move away from
traditional ballet meant there were no Nutcrackers this
year. But "one might ask what is the point of having a
Scottish ballet company if it doesn't plan to do the great
ballets. It is like the English Shakespeare Company saying it is
sick of doing Shakespeare. It would be much cheaper to do
something with a lot fewer actors that didn't require such a big
theatre." Glasgow Herald 12/29/01
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3. MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#media
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BOOKS
ON SCREEN: "The process of turning novels into movies is
an inexact science. When it happens, it happens. Getting there,
novelists and filmmakers said, can be delicate and
harrowing." Los Angeles Times
12/26/01
SUCCESS
ABROAD DOESN'T TRANSLATE AT HOME: India is the biggest
producer of movies in the world. But India's film industry is
trying to crack the world movie market outside India. Kabhi
Khushi Kabhi Ghum ("Sometimes Joy Sometimes Sorrow")
is the most expensive Indian film ever made. "The 400 million
rupee ($8.3 million) production made it to number three in Britain
in its first week, the highest position an Indian movie has ever
reached in the British top ten, and earned 450,000 pounds
($647,000) in the weekend ending Dec. 16." But at home the
movie is not faring well... Nando
Times (AP) 12/24/01
AT
ODDS WITH THE CRITICS: The Top 10 Movie lists of critics and
audiences are very different. "Comparing our Top 10 list with
theirs is like scanning the menus at McDonald's and Chez Panisse.
Both have potatoes. We loved Rush Hour 2. The critics
adored The Man Who Wasn't There. We dug The Mummy
Returns. They preferred Ghost World. Not a single
foreign word appears on our list." So what good are critics? Washington
Post 12/27/01
THE
EVIL THAT IS HOLLYWOOD: Is the Hollywood film industry "a
sort of Frankenstein that has high-concepted itself into a weird,
ugly blandness while stomping on fragile cinematic cultures
worldwide even as it attempts to befriend, co-opt, and sometimes
imitate them?" A new book charges corruption and coziness
between Hollywood and the American government, which encourages a
bland status quo. American Prospect
12/17/01
- CONSPIRACY
OR PLAIN INCOMPETENCE? So when exactly did
Hollywood go bad? The whole culture of big-budget filmmaking
is so generic and unadventurous that even as earth-shaking an
event as 9/11 failed to change anything in the long term. And
most films these days seem to be little more than
"sense-stimulating bombardments designed for pacification
and crude social programming." The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 12/28/01
THE
DIGITAL MARCH: Digital art flourished in 2001, even as the
Dot-bust gained momentum. Perhaps they were motivated by the
recognition that making digital art might yield greater, if less
tangible, rewards. 'We're past the initial glow of excitement
about a new medium. Now the challenge is to take this beyond a
small group of intrepid explorers and the gee-whiz of a new
technology and into an art form that can engage a larger audience
and sustain itself in the long run'." New
York Times 12/24/01 (one-time
registration required
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4.
MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#music
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPBEAT
TIMES FOR ORCHESTRAS: With all the bad news about the health
of symphony orchestras, it's easy to think the orchestra world is
on the ropes. But a closer look gives plenty of reason for
optimism. Plenty of new talented musicians, interesting young
conductors, and "the graying of the classical orchestra
audience is a myth." Los Angeles
Times 12/25/01
BRING
ON 2002: It would be overstating the case somewhat to say that
2001 was a dismal year for America's classical music industry. But
with multiple orchestras in a financial bind (with some actually
shutting down,) and some high-profile groups using September 11 as
an excuse to cancel performances of controversial and difficult
music, it's hard not to wonder whether the nation really values
its cultural heritage as much as it says is does. San
Jose Mercury News 12/27/01
A
DOWN YEAR: "After a banner 2000, sales of recorded music
are down for the first time in years. A souring economy caused
fans to think carefully before plunking down $125 to see Janet
Jackson, and tour interruptions following Sept. 11 dealt the
live-music industry another setback. To make matters worse, as
record labels struggled unsuccessfully to combat online
file-sharing of individual songs, sales of blank discs soared,
thanks to the growing popularity of home-computer CD burners able
to copy entire albums." St. Paul
Pioneer Press (KR) 12/30/01
BAD
BUT POPULAR? Promoter Raymond Gubbay's Christmas Festival is
the best-attended classical music event in Scotland. So why do
musicians and "serious" music fans disdain them?
"Executives and administrators of full-time classical
orchestras are usually contemptuous in their dismissal of the
whole Gubbay empire, whose populist musical extravaganzas range
across the calendar and throughout the UK. Many professional
classical musicians will have nothing to do with Gubbay concerts -
the phrase 'it's only a Gubbay gig' is usually delivered with a
snort of derision and the equivalent of a spit." Glasgow
Herald 12/28/01
MIAMI'S
ENDANGERED CLASSICAL MUSIC STATION: The new owners of South
Florida's classical music radio station says they're going to
abandon the format in favor of talk radio. So the previous owner
is launching a campaign to get the station back and save the
music. "But he probably won't know the results of his efforts
for 60 days or more, and should he prove unsuccessful, the future
of classical on our local airwaves looks bleak." Miami
Herald 12/23/01
SAVING
ST. LOUIS: The financially-endangered St. Louis Symphony has
seen a swell of support since it announced a cash emergency.
"The contributions ranged from a $5 check sent in by a school
bus driver to $3,000 raised by a student string quartet, from
$20,000 from a brand-new patron of the orchestra to $25,000 from
the mostly volunteer, 130-member St. Louis Symphony Chorus." St.
Louis Post-Dispatch 12/23/01
WHAT'S
HAPPENED TO AUSSIE MUSIC? "I've come to conclude that in
an important sense orchestras are museums and that it's right and
proper they fulfil this function. But just as they seem to be
doing a better job of new music than at any time since the 1960s,
there is room for improvement on the museum front. In particular,
in the wing of the museum marked 'Australia', someone appears to
have removed all the pieces for cleaning and then forgotten to put
them back again. A foreigner could attend symphony concerts all
around this country in 2002 and conclude that Australian music
began in about 1998." Sydney
Morning Herald 12/28/01
BORING
ME SILLY: More and more musicians are keeping online journals.
But why are they so banal? "The common denominator of these
notebooks is their superficiality. They have none of the serenity
of Janet Baker's late journal, nor the energy of the young Kenneth
Branagh's. They serve, ostensibly, as a token of the artist's urge
to communicate. But since the artist has, in most cases, nothing
to say, they reduce art to mundanity and deflate our eagerness to
hear it." The Telegraph (UK)
12/26/01
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5. PEOPLE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#people
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DIETRICH
AT 100: "Marlene Dietrich's 100th birthday is being
celebrated in Berlin, the home city of the late Hollywood
star." Among many events celebrating Germany's dark diva,
"the Berlin Film Museum is staging a special exhibition and
showing never-before-seen private films of the late star."
BBC 12/27/01
SIR
NIGEL HAWTHORNE, 72: The actor died at home. "Sir Nigel
achieved world-wide fame as the bumbling yet suave civil servant
Sir Humphrey in the TV hit Yes Minister, but was a classical actor
with a wide repertoire ranging from Shakespearean leads to raw
comedy. It was once said that he spent the first 20 years of his
distinguished career being ignored and the rest of it being
discovered." The Guardian (UK)
12/26/01
THE
SINGING ICON: Julie Andrews is 66 and facing a career without
her famous singing voice. "Ms. Andrews is a rare version of
an icon. There is no great enigma that trails her, none of the
dark shadings of Judy Garland, or the smokiness of Frank Sinatra,
or Madonna's air of entitlement. This doesn't mean she will come
over to your house for lunch, but if she did, you would talk
easily with her, and she would listen closely."
The New York Times 12/23/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
THE
SCULPTING ICON: Sculptor Louise Bourgeois turned 90 Christmas
Day. "She has witnessed most of the art movements of the last
century and influenced her share. She is still innovating. She
puts demands on her viewers to go with her into a discomfiting
zone of trauma and endurance." The
New York Times 12/23/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
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6.
PUBLISHING
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#publishing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE
STORY WITHIN: "English-language writing about Hong Kong
and much of Asia has long been the province of Western expatriates
or writers passing through, but increasingly this work is being
done by Asian authors." The New
York Times 12/25/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
SADDAM
HUSSEIN, HUMBLE AUTHOR: Saddam Hussein has published a second
novel. "Al-Qala'ah al-Hasinah ("The Fortified
Castle") appeared this week in bookshops and all public
libraries in Baghdad and was hailed on state-run television and by
the newspaper al-Jumhouriya as a 'great artistic work.' The cover
gives no clue to the writer's identity, saying cryptically that it
is a 'novel by its author,' while a note inside explains that the
writer 'did not wish to put his name on it out of humility and
modesty'." CNN.com 12/20/01
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7. THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#theatre
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OFF-BROADWAY'S
BIG YEAR-END: From November to early March, Broadway is blah
as far as new productions opening. Why? It's all about jockeying
for Tonys. Off-Broadway, on the other hand, has had a very
productive end of the year... New York
Post 12/23/01
THE
ART OF SCIENCE: Time was the arts ignored the fields of
science and math. No longer. "The new math-sci drama cluster
has justifiably been hailed as a welcome trend. By investigating
this terrain, one can address all the standard passions — love,
competition, jealousy, benevolence, evil — while tackling issues
of philosophical and social importance. And maybe teaching us a
little something to boot." Seattle
Times 12/23/01
ROAD
SHOW: The Full Monty is a hit on Broadway. But plans
for a national tour took a dive. Now new producers for the tour
have been found, and everything from the ad campaign to the way
the show looks and loads and travels has been changed. Will it
work? Los Angeles Times 12/30/01
OUT
WITH A BANG? Several of London's top theatre directors are
stepping down from their institutions in 2002. "But what’s
the best way to say goodbye to a top job in the theatre itself?
With a bang, a whimper or something in between? Is there a
temptation, especially if one has been financially embattled, to
blow one’s annual grant on a self-indulgent splurge of
spectacularly improbable work?" The
Times (UK) 12/27/01
KAREDA
PASSES: Legendary Canadian theatre manager and critic Urjo
Kareda has died in Toronto at the age of 57. "Mr. Kareda was
a former theatre critic at The Toronto Star and literary manager
of the Stratford Festival as well as artistic director of the
Tarragon Theatre for the past 20 years." Toronto
Star 12/27/01
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8.
VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#visualarts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WAITING
FOR THE NEXT NEW THING: "The contemporary scene,
currently, is like a tide at still waters. Watchers are all
waiting to see which way the flow will run. As the Turner Prize
attests, the art world cannot churn out ground-breaking talents
every generation. Having shortlisted six dozen candidates since it
was established, its remit has recently seemed pretty sparse. And
after this year’s shenanigans it may have to fight harder for
attention in 2002. The public, like a wily old trout, may refuse
to take the bait." The Times (UK)
12/27/01
BANNING
TREASURE HUNTING: "According to estimates by commercial
salvors, there are some three million undiscovered shipwrecks
scattered across the world’s oceans." More and more of them
are becoming accessible because of improvements in diving
technology. So UNESCO has banned underwater treasure hunting, in
an effort to protect sunken artifacts from plunder. UNESCO
Sources 12/17/01
A
RIGGED AUCTION? After a John Glover painting sold on auction
last month at what experts say was an extraordinarily low price,
the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is
investigating to see if price collusion went on between bidders -
two Australian galleries. "The commission is investigating
the suggestion that art museums may have been discouraged from
bidding, or talked each other out of bidding for the picture, to
the detriment of the market-place and a fair price for the
vendor." The Age (Melbourne)
12/26/01
WHY
IS AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE SO BLAND? "Among practicing
architects here and abroad, it is axiomatic that there is much
more contemporary architecture of high quality to be found in
Europe than in the United States and that innovative, inspiring
architecture - as well as architecture that is well built and long
lasting - is constructed less frequently here than almost anywhere
in Europe. American architecture is, as a rule, conventional,
bland, and dull." American
Prospect 12/17/01
POP
GOES THE EASEL: As museums around the U.S. struggle with
attendance figures and constantly evolving competition from new
and exciting pop culture offerings, many are turning to pop art
exhibits to draw in the younger set. From the Guggenheim's
motorcycles, to SFMOMA's Reeboks, to a widely criticized display
of Jackie O's clothing at no less a gallery than New York's
Metropolitan Museum, it cannot be denied that museums are dumbing
down. But is this a failure of the arts, or a success for
marketing? The Plain Dealer
(Cleveland) (AP) 12/27/01
BEIJING'S
NEW CAPITAL MUSEUM: Construction has started on Beijing's new
Capital Museum. It will cost $94 million and be 60,000 square
metres large, reportedly the largest building built in the city
since 1949. It is expected to open in two years. China
Daily 12/26/01
CLEVELAND'S
NEW MUSEUM: The Cleveland Museum of Art is about to start
building a new home, designed by Rafael Vinoly. "With an
estimated construction cost of $170 million, the museum job will
cost nearly twice the $93 million it took to build the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. In dollars and square footage, the
art museum project qualifies as one of the biggest and most
complex cultural efforts in the city's history." The
Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 12/23/01
FEEBLE
NONSENSE? So David Hockney believes that great artists of the
past may have used lenses to aid them in their sketches. And he's
made his claims in a book that many critics are taking seriously.
But critic Brian Sewell does not: "This is a silly and
meretricious book, a demonstration of naive obsession, of remote
improbabilities presented as hard facts, of shifting ground for
every argument, self-indulgently subjective, a farrago of feeble
nonsense that should never have been published and, had it been
sent to Thames and Hudson by Uncle Tom Cobleigh or Jack Sprat,
would not have been." London
Evening Standard 12/26/01
ENRON'S
ART VENTURES: Enron had been making substantial investments in
art before its recent collapse. "Most of Enron's art-buying
was for its new building." In addition, the company supported
Texas arts groups. "Last year, the firm gave $12 million to
local charities, about one percent of its annual pre-tax revenues
of $110 billion. (By contrast, the firm spent a mere $2.1 million
on political lobbying in Washington.)." The
Art Newspaper 12/26/01
ANOTHER
WHACK AT THE TURNER: Prizes such as the Turner proclaim they
celebrate the new and experimental. "The trouble is that
contemporary art so often is not new. It seems that many artists
know nothing about even the most recent past, or if they do, have
no scruples about copying it." The
Art Newspaper 12/20/01
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9.
ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#issues
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NEA
KEEPS KEEPIN' ON: President Bush's nominee for chairman of the
National Endowment for the Arts was confirmed by the Senate last
week. It's been a tumultuous few decades for the NEA, though the
political turmoil has calmed a bit in the past few years. But the
government is not likely to pay the arts much heed until they get
new champions. "The arts are a strange part of American life.
Almost everybody loves them on some level, but they haven't been
educated to think about it as part of government."
New York Times 12/24/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
THE
START OF... Fifty years ago, Canadian Governor General Vincent
Massey produced a report on culture whose "recommendations
led eventually to the creation of the Canada Council and the
National Library. But the report exerted other influences that
were less obvious and less beneficial. What seems clear now is its
political bias. It framed support of the arts in essentially
political terms, and we have been burdened by those terms ever
since." National Post (Canada)
12/24/01
SMART
AS A MACHINE: Machines don't have the intelligence
"imagined by Stanley Kubrick in 1968, when he released the
movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. This year, we can now say at
the safety of its end, did not bring us a Hal, or anything like
it. Computers can play a pretty good game of chess, transliterate
speech and recognise handwriting and faces. But their intelligence
does not touch our own, and the prevailing scientific wisdom seems
to be that it never will." The
Economist 12/22/01
ARE
PACS ALL THEY'RE CRACKED UP TO BE? "PACs have become the
hot new urban fix, following the festival market, the convention
center, the baseball stadium, the sports arena, the aquarium, and
the museum... Yet it took Lincoln Center 25 years to become a
destination instead of merely a venue. That's one of its forgotten
lessons. Without the simultaneous development of shops, cafes,
housing, and hotels, performing arts centers quickly become
marooned by their own lofty intentions." Dallas
Morning News 12/28/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
LANGUAGE
VS. TECHNOLOGY? The education ministry of a prosperous Indian
state is under fire from self-styled guardians of culture,
following a proposal to allow high school students to study
Information Technology (IT) as a second language. Opponents fear
that, since students are only permitted to pick one language to
study, IT will quickly become the course of choice, replacing
Marathi, the local language which is in danger of dying out. Wired
12/25/01
COMING
TO TERMS WITH ART'S RESPONSIBILITIES: It has become almost
cliched to point out the importance of art's survival in a culture
so shaken by the trauma of 9/11. But for artists themselves, who
are now expected to have something relevant to say on the subject,
the journey from horror to productive creation is not an easy one,
and the decision of how to address the grieving of a nation
without seeming trite or preachy is not an easy one. Christian
Science Monitor 12/28/01
OLD
PROBLEM: "As any regular patron can tell you, the people
who turn out for music, dance and theater are more likely to be
concerned with Medicare than with student loans. It's a tricky
population twist for arts managers to navigate as they try to
accommodate their reliable, though aging, subscription base while
also pulling in new blood for the future. It's not a particularly
new problem - the core audience has always been those who have no
babies and some disposable income - but modern demographics and
economics have given a new urgency to the issue." Washington
Post 12/23/01
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
10. FOR FUN
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#forfun
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WHAT
IF ARTS AND SPORTS TRADED PLACES? "There are sports
people and arts people, the two alien civilizations whose
populations are greater than all others combined. Throughout
history, sports people have had little tolerance for the artsy-fartsy
types, just as arts people have looked down their noses at the
beer-swilling lunkheads." But "how would things be
different if the arts were sports, and if sports were the
arts?" St.
Louis Post-Dispatch 12/23/01
SO
WHO NEEDS COMPOSERS? At a conference in Germany, an inventor
shows off his robotic/computer composer. "On six strings
tuned to one chord, and with connected equipment producing a
rock-like effect without human involvement, the contraption really
did play something that sounded like the blues. With distortions
and overdrives, the resulting sound was somewhat weird, gruff and
expressive, resembling Jimi Hendrix's live version of Voodoo
Child. The artist claimed that the digital computer taught
itself to play, in the best tradition of a basement band, as it
were. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
12/27/01
REBUTTING
THE NYT: Earlier this month, The New York Times dissed the
Milwaukee Art Museum and its new Calatrava-designed building.
Deborah Solomon wrote: "The museum has only a B-level art
collection - it does not own a Fauve Matisse painting, a Cubist
Gris painting or a Surrealist Magritte or Dali - but has
nevertheless managed to become a cultural landmark. As city
planners everywhere have clearly realized, a museum can become a
global attraction along the lines of the Tower of Pisa - and if
the outside is good (and slanty) enough, it really doesn't matter
what is inside." In defense, the MAM's director has written
to the Times: "Perhaps Ms. Solomon's piece comes under the
issue's 'conceptual leaps' category, since she neither visited the
institution nor saw the collection." Milwaukee
Journal-Sentinel 12/26/01
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