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Week
of August 26-September 2, 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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ART
VS. PROFIT: When exactly did it become an incontrovertible
truth that arts organizations should be run like for-profit
businesses? Certainly no one would argue that a dose of fiscal
sanity and even occasional conservatism is no bad thing in the
service of art, but recently, there seems to be a general
assumption that art should pay its own way or hit the road. And
that, says Peter Dobrin, is a dangerous philosophy.
"Marketing teams are now part of the artistic planning
process from the inception of an idea, weighing in on whether
repertoire will win audiences. No surprise that programming has
grown conservative. The spirit of daring at the Opera Company of
Philadelphia can't be heard amid the din of a march from
Carmen." Philadelphia Inquirer
09/01/02
CLAP
TRAP: Does applause mean anything anymore? In some cities, any
performance, no matter how mediocre, is greeted with a standing
ovation. In other cities, applause is never more than polite.
There was a time when making a terrific noise after a
well-executed performance was a sign of an audience's engagement.
Is it anymore? Toronto Star 08/25/02
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2. DANCE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#dance
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WHO
OWNS A DANCE? "A federal judge has ruled that the
majority of dances that modern dance legend Martha Graham created
belong to the Martha Graham Dance Center, dealing the second blow
in as many months to Graham's heir. Ronald A. Protas had claimed
sole ownership to Graham's dances and their sets and costumes. But
U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum ruled that Protas
only has the rights to one dance, "Seraphic Dialogue," a
dramatic piece about Joan of Arc. The Martha Graham Center
dismissed Protas, who was a close companion of Graham, as artistic
director more than a year ago. Graham died in April 1991." Baltimore
Sun (AP) 08/27/02
GOOD
BEAT, BUT CAN YOU DANCE TO IT? Selecting music is one of the
hardest jobs a choreographer has. Audiences judge a performance
almost as much by what they hear as by what they see, and a score
which is grating, or too complex, or, heaven forbid, too
pop-based, can ruin a perfectly good dance for a large chunk of
the crowd. So when Christopher Wheeldon choreographed a trio of
dances to the music of noted atonal, arhythmic composer Gyorgi
Ligeti this year, eyebrows were raised all across the dance world.
The central question, of course, is what makes a piece of music
danceable? The New York Times 09/01/02
WHY
BILLY'S LEAVING: Long before William Forsythe announced this
week he would quit the Frankfurt Ballet, there had been rumors.
Rumors his contract might not be renewed. Rumors city funding was
to be cut. Critics have charged that Frankfurt's cultural policy
has been half-hearted, and that its commitment to excellence is
weak. "The short-sighted discussions on whether the
culturally derelict banking city wants to keep financing a
choreographer of world renown has been simmering for quite a
while." Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung 08/30/02
- CAN
YOU FIGURE OUT WHY HE'S LEAVING? Here's a resignation
speech for you. William Forsyth announcing he'll leave the
helm of Frankfurt Ballet (which he tuned into one of Europe's
most experimental contemporary companies) in 2004 after 20
years: "For the present, I feel strongly that my own
methodological evolution would be best served if conducted in
a context less integrated into a field of political practice
that is, understandably, challenged by the task of
establishing primary descriptive models of cultural policy
that can be accurately represented by numbers." The
New York Times 08/29/02
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3. MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#media
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RIGHT
TO EDIT: A video store chain that edits profanity, violence
and sex from films asked a judge Thursday to rule the practice is
legal, despite protests by such directors as Robert Redford and
Steven Spielberg. Nando Times (AP)
08/30/02
- WE
WANT OUR SEX AND VIOLENCE! Hollywood directors are looking
into the possibility of legal action against a handful of Utah
companies which specialize in distributing video tapes and
DVDs of popular movies with all the bad language, sex, and
graphic violence stripped out for family consumption. The
directors say that such edits amount to censorship and leave
the films devoid of meaning. Wired
08/28/02
THREAT
TO WEB RADIO: So the US government has decided that webcasters
will have to monitor and report any music they play over the
internet, and pay a small fee. But if the ruling goes into effect,
it will effectively push many small stations off the air.
"While it sounds simple enough, the ruling would force
low-budget operations to add expensive hardware and software to
comply with the order. The stations that can afford the upgrades
face the task of training their unpaid volunteers to monitor and
run the systems." Wired 08/29/02
STAR
TURNS: Accountants and financiers have such a strong grip on
the British film industry that they dictate how movies get made.
And how they want them made is with recognizable big stars.
"If you're making your film for less than £2m, then you've
bought yourself a degree of freedom in casting. Much over that,
and the pressure from investors to use recognisable names becomes
intense." The Guardian (UK)
08/30/02
HOLLYWOOD'S
WAY OF SEEING THE WORLD: Hollywood makes movies to appeal to
demographic groups. Which groups? Simple. "The movie audience
has been reduced, for marketing purposes, to four identifiable
groups. They are: males under 25, males over 25, females under 25
and females over 25. That's it. You are a member of one of these
groups, whether you like it or not. No one can escape the
inevitability of being in one of these groups. Only death excludes
you from being in one of four quadrants, but give the marketing
geniuses in Hollywood a little time. They'll figure a way to make
movies for dead people." Hartford
Courant (OCR) 08/29/02
OSCAR
- PLEASE DON'T GO: New York officials asked the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to consider holding part of next
year's Oscars in New York - splitting the telecast between LA and
New York for one year only. But California State legislators are
considering a resolution asking Oscar to stay put.
"California, like New York and many other states, is
suffering an economic downturn and cannot afford the loss of the
Academy Awards to another location." Nando
Times (AP) 08/23/02
MAKING
THE CUT: Movie fans no longer have to sit through movies the
way directors shot them. Fans are taking digital copies of movies
they like and re-editing them to remove parts they didn't like or
to change the story line. Fan edits of movies like AI have
downloaded hundreds of thousands of time over the internet. And
about the copyright... Toronto Star
08/25/02
TAKING
ON HOLLYWOOD: Is a grassroots movement beginning to organize
over the internet to fight old-line media's grab to control
creative works? "The entertainment industry and its
supporters are threatening free speech and innovation in their
zeal to protect an outdated business model. A movement is
beginning to stir in America, an overdue reaction to the
predations of a cartel that is bidding to control how digital
information may be created and used." San
Jose Mercury-News 08/26/02
MONTREAL
TO BUILD WORLD'S LARGEST MOVIE STUDIO: Montreal investors are
set to announce they will build the "largest film studio in
the world" in Quebec. The project "will create 300
direct and indirect jobs in the short term and 1,200 in the long
term." Toronto Star 08/29/02
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4.
MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#music
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BAD
NEWS FOR CLASSICAL MUSIC: A new study of UK and US music
habits "found that concert attendances by British people
under 47 had plummeted since 1990. Young audiences 'distrusted'
cultural institutions, including orchestras, which they perceive
as 'authoritarian'. The report found that over one third of
British people had attended a classical concert, and only 12% did
so in the past year. This was a sharper fall-off rate than
theatre, visual arts or festivals, suggesting people who went into
a concert hall did not like what they found and did not go
back." The Guardian (UK) 08/28/02
AND
IN THIS CORNER... For a critic, reviewing a work of new music
presents unique challenges, not the least of which is that the
composer is still around to shoot back if s/he doesn't like what's
written. Two Pulitzer Prize-winners - one a composer, one a critic
- see the conflict from decidedly different angles, and the debate
ranges from whether critics are capable of recognizing a bad
performance of a good piece to whether composers drastically
overstate the impact of critical assessment. Andante
09/01/02
TOO
MUCH MUSIC: This year some 7,000 commercial recordings will be
released in the US. That's more than 140 new CDs a week. "Add
thousands of albums released through independent labels, thousands
from do-it-yourself acts, thousands of back catalogue re-issues
and thousands more singles, EPs and mini-albums and it's evident
we have entered the era of musical overload." How could
anyone make sense of it all. How to find what's good out of this
slush pile? Sydney Morning Herald
08/26/02
MUSIC
SALES DOWN: Sales of CDs are down 7 percent in the first half
of this year compared to last year says the Recording Industry
Association of America. That, says the RIAA is evidence that
internet filetrading is impacting music sales. "I would not
argue that downloading and copying are the only factors at work.
But we have clear evidence that downloading and copying do not
have a favorable effect on record sales." Wired
08/26/02
- PROPPING
UP THE SKY: Recording companies have been whining for
decades that each new technology that comes along will put
them out of business. "Then they go about finding numbers
to back up the claim. But the industry weathered similar
downturns when the disco era came to an end - portable music
devices like the Sony Walkman were introduced, and video
arcades were competing for teenagers' limited cash
reserves." Wired 08/27/02
CITY
OPERA TO WTC SITE? New York City Opera, thwarted in its wish
to have a new home of its own at Lincoln Center, is seriously
considering a move to a site close to where the World Trade Center
once stood. "The project, still in the early stages of
formation, envisions City Opera as the anchor tenant of a cultural
complex that would include other arts groups. In one
configuration, the center would provide a 2,200-seat opera house
and a 900-seat dance space. The project has attracted interest
from the Joyce Theater, the Chelsea-based home of contemporary
dance." The New York Times
08/24/02
RATTLE
SOUNDS OFF: Conductor Simon Rattle has sounded off about
British culture in an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit.
"About to take up his post as director of the Berlin
Philharmonic, [Rattle] has had it with the caterwauling crudities
and street-trash vulgarities of British culture. He much prefers
the high cultural seriousness of Germany with its great,
well-funded orchestras and modernist-minded public. Finally he
will be free of those Hogarthian urchins and sluts he singles out
as the image of all that is philistine and glib in the arts in
Britain - the Britart generation, "artists such as Damien
Hirst, Tracey Emin and the others. I believe that much of this
English, very biographically oriented art is bullshit." The
Guardian (UK) 08/26/02
I
HEAR GHOSTS: TV show deadlines are so hectic, more and more
composers are delegating work to ghostwriters. "It's
definitely one of the dirty little secrets of the film and
television music industry." But what happens when royalties
are paid out? The composer listed on the credits gets paid, but
not the ghostwriter, who often doesn't have a contract. Now a
prolific ghost is suing, and the system of paying for TV music is
under attack. Detroit Free Press
08/27/02
TROMBONE
IN TROUBLE: So few students are taking up study of the
trombone (and a few other unpopular instruments) that some experts
say there will be a shortage of players in years to come. The
British "government's youth music advisers are so concerned
that they are preparing a national campaign to rescue the trombone
and other 'endangered' instruments such as the bassoon and double
bass, warning that British orchestras might soon have to look
abroad for players." The Guardian
(UK) 08/26/02
TROUBLE
IN TEXAS: For some orchestras, it just seems as if nothing
they do is ever enough. The Dallas Symphony Orchestra has risen to
national prominence in the last decade under the baton of a
popular young conductor; it has increased ticket sales; and in a
year when many orchestras lost tens of millions of dollars from
their endowments, the DSO actually increased its stockpile of
money by $4.3 million. And yet, as their new season opens, the
orchestra is staring down a massive deficit, and wondering what it
will take to sustain its recent success. Dallas
Morning News 09/01/02
DEAD
MAN TELLS A TALE: When Gerald Segalman died, the elite,
secretive world of violin dealers was salivating even before the
casket was in the ground. Segalman was known to be one of the
world's foremost collectors of priceless instruments, and his
estate promised to make millionaires of the dealer who managed to
oversee the sale of the valuable fiddles. What none of the dealers
foresaw was that Segalman's legacy would blow the lid off their
deceptive, underhanded fraternity, which for years has been over-
and under-valuing instruments based on their own desires, and
gouging the musicians who actually need them. The
Guardian (UK) 08/31/02
THE
LITTLE LABEL THAT COULD: "This year marks the fifteenth
anniversary of Naxos, the once dowdy little budget record company
that is now the biggest independent classical label in the world.
Back in 1987, Naxos’s founder and CEO Klaus Heymann decided to
record 100 popular classical music titles as a sideline to his
main business of distributing sound systems in Asia. From that
humble beginning Naxos grew into an international conglomerate
with 250 employees and a catalogue of over 2400 CDs... Today Naxos
dominates classical music sales in the UK, Germany, and
Scandinavia with 30%-80% of the per unit classical market."
La Scena Musicale 09/01/02
WHO
FORGOT TO STROKE THE MONEY GUY? Opera patron Alberto Vilar,
whose fiscal generosity may be exceeded only by his considerable
ego, is pitching a rather public fit at the British government,
which he accuses of ignoring him and forgetting "to say the
two most important words - thank you." Vilar says his support
of London's Covent Garden will continue, but also promised that
the UK would "regret" its treatment of him. BBC
09/01/02
BETTER
- BUT AT WHAT COST? What's that? A new music format? So good
it'll revolutionize the way you listen? "To many people, word
that the music industry is launching a newer, shinier music disc
when they have only just mastered opening a double-CD jewel case
without the contents braining the cat, is not a cause of unalloyed
joy. The sound is 3D, thrilling and — of course — thoroughly
depressing." The Times (UK)
08/30/02
TONE
DEAF REMEMBRANCE: Songwriters so far haven't been very
eloquent around the subject of 9/11. Many have tried, and
"it's understandable that successful songwriters (as well as
scores of aspiring ones) feel compelled to express themselves in a
time of trauma. They have been blessed with the ability to
communicate and feel it is their duty to make music, the same way
a firefighter feels it's his or her duty to go into a burning
building. In the process, it is easy to lose artistic discipline
and judgment. The biggest mistake is trying to write an anthem
that addresses the topic head-on rather than with a poetic
distance." Los Angeles Times
08/28/02
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5. PEOPLE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#people
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LIONEL
HAMPTON, 94: It's a good bet that, absent Lionel Hampton, the
world would never have come to think of vibraphone as a great jazz
instrument. But Hampton, who "until recently continued to
tour the world with his own immensely popular big band, was an
extremely important figure in American music, not only as an
entertainer and an improvising musician in jazz, but also because
his band helped usher in rock 'n' roll." Hampton died in a
New York hospital this weekend. The
New York Times 09/01/02
BACK
AND NO LESS PASSIONATE: Playwright Harold Pinter is 71 and has
just come through a fight with esophageal cancer. "I found
myself in a very dark world which was impossible to interpret. I
could not work it out. I was somewhere else, another place
altogether, not very pleasant. It is like being plunged into an
ocean in which you can't swim. You have no idea how to get out of
it. You simply float about, bob about, hit terrible waves. It is
all very dark, really. The thing is: here I am." The
Guardian (UK) 08/26/02
WILLIAM
WARFIELD, 82: Bass-baritone William Warfield, best known for
his stirring performances of Porgy in Porgy and Bess, has
died in Chicago, after complications due to a broken neck suffered
last month. He was 82. The New York
Times 08/27/02
DOROTHY
HEWETT, 79: Yesterday morning, Australian literature lost, if
not one of its saints, than one of its most cherished and
authentic larrikins, when Hewett, poet, playwright and novelist,
died, aged 79. The Age (Melbourne)
08/26/02
- A
GREAT AUSTRALIAN: "Dorothy was one of the most
inspirational women I know. A great writer and poet with a
lifelong commitment to her craft, she never lost her passion
for social justice or her courage in supporting left-wing
causes. Her sardonic irreverence, intellect, honesty, warm
heart, her encyclopedic knowledge of Australian literature and
history were some of the qualities that made her a formidable
friend, a wonderfully talented writer and a great
Australian." Sydney Morning
Herald 08/26/02
GANGING
UP ON JK ROWLING (AND OTHER STORIES): Author JK Rowling is
celebrated for her rags-to-riches story - that she wrote the first
Harry Potter book in a coffee shop while on welfare. It's a
classic tale - "too good, it turns out. Yes, Rowling was a
single mother with a bad marriage behind her, and yes, she was
briefly on the dole. But the coffee shop was owned by her
brother-in-law and Rowling was never far from her middle-class
origins." The Age (Melbourne)
08/28/02
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6.
PUBLISHING
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#publishing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SMUGGLED
TREASURE FOR SALE: A set of scrolls known as Buddhism's
"Dead Sea Scrolls" are about to be sold for £70
million. But there's a moral issue about the sale. The scrolls are
owned by a Norwegian collector, who bought them after they were
smuggled out of Afghanistan during the Taliban regime. They are
believed to come from the Bamiyan area, and at least one expert
believes that "this cache of manuscripts, although obviously
very different, is of 'comparable importance' to the Buddha
statues, which were destroyed by the Taliban last year." The
Art Newspaper 08/23/02
REMIND
YOU OF ANYONE? Books no longer stand by themselves - they're
all planned and marketed to make the potential reader relate them
to successful books which have come before. It's "harder all
the time, however, to distinguish the descendants from the
ancestor, and at some stage, when the proliferation of similar
titles—with their sometimes intentionally confusing similarity
of cover designs and jacket copy—reaches a true saturation
point, it ceases to matter. How many long-dead statesmen can the
market bear? How many fatal voyages, doomed expeditions, valiant
racehorses, Tuscan reveries, and tales of botanical
obsession?" Speakeasy 08/02
BOOK
SALES UP: This is turning out to be a pretty good year for
book sales. Revenues for America's three largest bookstore chains
increased 3.9%, to $1.73 billion in the second quarter. "The
increase was slower than the 4.8% increase recorded by the
booksellers in the first quarter." Publishers
Weekly 08/26/02
PESSIMISTIC
ABOUT BOOK SALES: Publishing industry stocks have been
falling, and sales projections for the rest of this year are down.
"A fragile economy, the stock market meltdown, the lack of
job growth, huge government deficits, fears of war and the
dampening affect of the anniversary of the September 11 attacks
are working together to make analysts pessimistic about retail
sales for much of the rest of the year." Publishers
Weekly 08/28/02
THEY'LL
NEVER RUN OUT OF SUBJECTS: "It is a sort of writers'
colony for the mind." The Lucy Daniels Foundation is running
a study of the effect of psychotherapy on the creative mind, and
has enlisted the help of eight writers, described as
"successful but neurotic," as test subjects. The program
pays the bulk of the cost of their therapy, and the foundation,
which is named for a successful novelist who was forced to undergo
electroshock and other torturous methods of 'therapy' in her
youth, uses the information it gathers as fodder for its main
mission: to reestablish psychotherapy as a respected branch of the
analytical sciences. The New York
Times 08/31/02
MISSING
THE MOB: Simon & Schuster is suing a Hollywood talent
agency for misrepresenting the identity of a writer. S&S paid
$500,000 to the author of The Honored Society, who was
represented as " the highest ranking mob member ever
to record the innermost workings" of the Mafia. The writer
was said to be the grandson of mobster Carlo Gambino, but is not. Nando
Times (AP) 08/29/02
SCOTLAND
IS FOR WRITERS: Scotland is attracting writers - particularly
women writers - from abroad. "Scotland has the most fantastic
opportunities for first time writers. In Edinburgh, not only are
there some brilliant publishing houses like Canongate, but with
the city being so compact there is a real writing community that
is facilitated by the Scottish Art Council which is fantastically
supportive in the way of grants and advice for first time
writers." The Scotsman 08/29/02
POETIC
PORTRAIT OF A CITY: Really - do your run-of-the-mill postcards
capture the sense of a city? Doubtful. So along comes a new
project that puts poetry of postcards. "Chosen in an open
competition, with winners recently selected, poetic likenesses of
L.A. will begin appearing on thousands of free postcards around
the city in November." Los
Angeles Times 08/28/02
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7. THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#theatre
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IMPORTED
ACTING: The British theatre union is protesting the number of
American actors hired by London theatres. The protests may lead to
debate about reciprocal agreements about US and UK theatres
employing each other's actors. "The answer is not to make it
harder for foreign actors to work here, but to make it easier for
British actors to work in America. The British theater community
has been open to Americans. There's been interchange between the
two, but it's a long way from being reciprocated abroad." Los
Angeles Times 08/26/02
NOBODY'S
GETTING RICH: There's a lot of money swirling around the
Edinburgh Festival. But no one seems to have any money or make any
money. So where does it go? "It is clear that the army of
theatrical agents, promoters and managers in Edinburgh tend, at
least, to cover their own backs. But do they actually make money?
The answer seems to be: a little." The
Guardian (UK) 08/26/02
RAPPIN'
TO THE BARD: "Most people would run a mile from a
production that, in the US, was billed as 'an 'ad-rap-tation' of
Willy Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors'. In the wrong
hands, an attempt to mould Shakespeare's comedy of mistaken
identities to the rhythms of hip-hop would be disastrous - as
embarrassing as a teacher wearing a baseball cap backwards and
bigging up Shake to the Speare." Instead it ended up the hit
of the just-concluded Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The
Guardian (UK) 08/28/02
MILLER
TAKES ON THE CRITICS: Arthur Miller isn't fazed by the bad
reviews his angry new play Resurrection Blues has received.
"Most of my plays have been rejected to start with. The
Crucible was destroyed first time out. It was the same with All
My Sons. Every other critic condemned it. Why? I rather
imagine that it is because they are attuned to entertainment.
That's part of the culture we are dealing with: entertainment for
profit. When society and its ills are brought onto the stage, they
don't know what to do about it. Until they see the aesthetic in
the play, that it is not just a political tract, they are at a
loss. And that takes time." The
Telegraph (UK) 08/29/02
STRATFORD
STRUGGLES: Stratford's 50th anniversary season may have been a
public success, but one critic says it felt awfully derivative.
"It's sad to think that after 49 years, Stratford still has
to look to Britain to see how it's done. But if the company is
going to rise out of the artistic mire, it needs to build ongoing
relationships with such talents, just as Toronto's Soulpepper
troupe and the Shaw Festival regularly bring back European
directors to challenge their actors. Trouble is, introducing guest
artists into the Stratford machine is often difficult: The
logistics of running a dozen large productions in repertory
creates a tumbling schedule that can leave directors with
insufficient or interrupted rehearsal time." The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 08/31/02
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8.
VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#visualarts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIANT
COMMEMORATION: In one of the larger scale commemorations of
9/11, "thousands of volunteers will unfurl a 5-mile-long silk
banner with 3,000 American flags under the Golden Gate Bridge and
wrap it along San Francisco's coastline on Sept. 8 in a massive
red-white-and-blue commemoration of the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks. The memorial artwork is the product of Chinese American
artist Pop Zhao, who stretched the world's longest artwork on the
Great Wall of China last year." San
Francisco Chronicle 08/27/02
FURTHER
BAMIYAN PERIL: The hollowed-our niches that once protected the
Bamiyan Buddhas before they were destroyed by the Taliban last
year are in danger of being destroyed themselves. An expert who
has examined the site says that "explosions caused by the
Taliban have perilously weakened the cliff face. Cracks have
appeared, allowing rain water to percolate into the decorated
caves. The water then freezes at night, enlarging the
cracks." Unless emergency conservation is undertaken, the
niches will "disappear within a decade." The
Art Newspaper 08/23/02
WILL
THERE BE ANY NEED TO LOOK AT THE ACTUAL ART? The Tate Museum
is experimenting with giving visitors handheld computers on which
they can wirelessly access multimedia guides to the exhibition
they are visiting. "If the trial, being offered free to
enthusiastic visitors, is a success, the multimedia tours could be
offered alongside the existing audio tours." BBC
08/30/02
- LISTENING
TO ART: "The desire of galleries to make art
accessible is subtly altering the way the work itself is
presented. Visitors are being invited not just to contemplate,
but to engage in a more active experience. Not just to look,
but also to learn. Hence the growing popularity of audio
guides. Rough estimates from their producers suggest that,
whereas five years ago just two per cent of visitors to major
exhibitions would use one, now 40 per cent will." The
Telegraph (UK) 08/28/02
COME
TO BOSTONLAND! The city of Boston is about to have a big chunk
of open land, once the major traffic artery through the city is
shifted underground. And this week, a city councilor proposed that
a parcel of the land be used to create a sort of colonial theme
park, an idea which Robert Campbell calls "stupid... Hey, why
not turn the Artery into Venetian canals? How about a bullfight
arena? Maybe a giant balloon launcher for tourists? The problem
isn't dreaming up ideas. The problem is that there's nobody in
charge of sifting those ideas and figuring out what will really
work, what will really make a better city." Boston
Globe 09/01/02
ART-AS-COMMODITY
REPORT: The art market has been good the past few years. But
will the good times continue? "Simply looking at beguiling
prices realised and touted by auction houses might lead one to
think that the art market has defied gravity and has, and can,
continue, oblivious of the wider economic slowdown. While such a
scenario would be lovely, the truth is it is impossible to
imagine. But the slowdown of 2003 is not going to be a repeat of
the crash of 1990. Times have indeed been good, but an economic
shakeout is not a collapse: the underlying global economy remains
healthy: so too with the art market." The
Art Newspaper 08/30/02
- WHERE'S
THE ART? The amount of quality art for sale has been
declining over the past decade. "The sellers have simply
fled. The art market gets back to business for the 2002-03
season next week with one auction at Sotheby’s in September
and six at Christie’s. September sales, ten years ago, were
around 15 in each house; now, the great rooms in Mayfair and
St James’s echo with inactivity. You can’t walk the London
art suburbs without hearing the choral sadness of the art
trade that yes, wallets are bulging, buyers are everywhere,
but no, we’ve nothing of quality to sell." The
Times (UK) 08/28/02
THE
'HOLD-BACK' ROOM: Starting in the mid-18th Century, museums
began holding back items in their collections deemed too...shall
we say...startling...for visitors of refinement. "By the
1830s the British Museum, too, had started hiving off items
considered potentially too corrupting to be perused by ordinary
mortals — particularly women and the lower classes. Such
material, it was felt, would lead to moral degeneracy, which in
turn would lead to the collapse of social and economic values and
— who knows? — the decline and fall of the Empire
itself." The Times (UK) 08/30/02
OF
SUNFLOWERS AND DONKEYS AND ELEPHANTS (OH MY!): The
Animals-on-Parade public art project has been adopted (without
incident) by dozens of cities around the world. But Washington DC
has found itself in court this summer over that city's version of
the painted animals. First, the Green Party sued to get its party
symbol (a sunflower) included alongside the elephants and donkeys.
Then "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals convinced
another judge that the city violated their 1st Amendment right to
protest the treatment of circus animals when it rejected the
group's portrayal of a weeping, shackled elephant." Chicago
Tribune 08/29/02
BUY
ONE, GET ONE FREE: London's National Gallery is putting a
series of Renaissance paintings on display which were painted over
top other paintings. "Any painting is a lesson in chemistry
and optics: white reflects all colours, black absorbs all colours;
some chemicals absorb everything except red or yellow or blue
light and so become natural pigments. Humans have a limited visual
range, from red to violet, but paintings are still 'visible' at
other wavelengths. Owls and foxes can see in the near infra-red.
Very weak infrared light shone on a painting can penetrate thin
layers of paint, to be stopped by something impenetrable
underneath." The Guardian (UK)
08/26/02
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
9.
ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#issues
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ENTRY
DENIED: American arts festivals have had a bad time this
summer getting international artists into the country to perform.
Visas have been denied, and entry refused for numerous artists,
leaving arts organizations scrambling to find replacement
performers at the last minute for top artists who have been denied
entry. "I think it must be the worst summer for festivals in
decades, if not the worst ever. There is some irony in shutting
down the arts at a time when we should be encouraging
international cultural exchanges with the long view of
understanding other countries." Denver
Post 08/29/02
EMPTY
WORDS: Last week the head of the Scottish Arts Council spoke a
lot of good words about supporting the arts, increasing funding,
and making Scotland a place where the arts flourish. But it was
all a smokescreen, writes Keith Bruce. Even a cursory glance at
what the Council is doing shows a profound lack of ideas and
originality. And then there are those funding cuts... The
Herald (Glasgow) 08/30/02
PRECARIOUS
PROMOTION: This year's Edinburgh Festival featured a
late-night series of top performers, with tickets going for £5.
It was a big success at attracting new audiences. But the
experiment won't be repeated because of the cost. So how do you
get people to try the arts? "In Britain - in Scotland - we
live in a society where classical music and the arts in general
are not an integral part of our lives. They are an add-on, seen by
the bulk of our people and our politicians as an over-expensive
luxury, and one that most people don't want. That fact is rooted
in our education system. It's not that the government devalues the
arts - to say so might suggest the possibility of a presumption on
their part of value in the first instance." The
Herald (Glasgow) 08/30/02
BUSINESS
AS USUAL: Has art and popular culture changed since 9/11?
"You think about the atmosphere in the immediate aftermath.
It was a chorus of voices declaring, 'Irony is dead,' 'We'll never
laugh again,' 'No one is ever going to want to see another violent
action movie.' Well, all those forecasts proved to be wrong."
Dallas Morning News 08/28/02
THE
INTERNET TICKET SCAM: Some internet ticket-buyers for opera,
theatre and ballet shows are being scammed by high tech thieves.
"The thieves copy official Web sites of premier venues to
almost every detail, including theatre layouts and restaurant
information, and constantly update shows. The crucial difference
is the scam site has its own credit card booking set-up, so your
money goes directly into their account." Sydney
Morning Herald 08/28/02
RAISED
PROFILE: The Kennedy Center has long had a high profile. But
it has generally been more of a presenter for local residents than
a cultural destination for out-of-towners. That may be changing.
When Michael Kaiser became president of the Kennedy Center, with
its $125 million annual budget, he set a goal of making "the
31-year-old center a cultural destination for people from all over
the world rather than merely a place for local residents, and to
accomplish this by staging its own productions rather than
presenting someone else's." The
New York Times 08/26/02
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
10. FOR FUN
http://www.artsjournal.com/Arts%20beat.htm#forfun
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NAME
AUCTION: An e-author auctions off the names of dogs in her new
novel as a way of raising money for rescued greyhounds. "More
than 4,000 greyhound lovers unleashed online bids to name canine
characters in best-selling author Cyn Mobley's first
self-published novel, Greyhound Dancing." The book has
already sold enough to cover its production costs. Wired
08/27/02
MAY
THE FORCE BE IN YOU: Australia's census-takers are perplexed
that on last year's census, "0.37 percent of the nation's
population of 19 million, or 70,509 people, had written 'Jedi' or
a related response to an optional question about their faith when
the head count was taken last August." As Star Wars
fans know, "Jedi is a mystical faith followed by some of the
central characters in the Star Wars films. The prank began
early last year when Star Wars fans circulated an e-mail
across Australia saying the government would be forced to
recognize Jedi as an official religion if at least 10,000 people
named it on the census." CNN.com
08/28/02
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