IDEAS
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Examining The Face Of Evil We like to think of evil as an aberration. That's why it upsets some to examine the face of evil up close, as something more than an abstract. "Barely a year removed from the grisly, televised details of mass murder in the middle of New York City, evil has become tougher to pass off as a metaphysical bogeyman or a freakish glitch. And films including Max, The Pianist and Blind Spot are here to remind us that the Holocaust was suffered, perpetrated and even exploited by flesh-and-blood entities, not mythical embodiments of cruelty." Dallas Morning News 01/05/03
What Separates Humans From Other Animals? "Culture was once thought to be a particularly human trait. But careful observation of apes demonstrated that they have culture, too. Before culture, tool use was considered a distinctively human capacity. Again, merely watching other creatures shows that this is not the case. One of the last refuges of the species exceptionalist is language, and indeed, human language does seem to be unique. What remains controversial is this: Does our use of language stem from some innate mental capacity that only humans possess?" Boston Globe 01/05/03
What Is The Lure Of American Culture? American culture is everywhere. But why? Why would the world be interested in globalized American culture? "Due to its multi-ethnic and multi-cultural composition, especially in the formative years of modern entertainment culture around 1900, American popular culture was faced with the challenge of a market that anticipated the present global market on a smaller scale. This led to the development of broadly comprehensible, non-verbal forms of performance, relying preferably on visual and auditory forms of expression. Before Americanization of other societies could occur, American culture itself had to be 'Americanized'." Project Syndicate 02/01
Everything's Changed. Oh, Wait. No, It Hasn't. As 2002 began, art was supposed to be forevermore infused with the post-9/11 sensibility. Materialism and schlocky marketing were out, serious contemplation of the human condition was in. Riiiiight. So why does Frida Kahlo now have her own posthumous perfume, and why is the star of the year a shoplifting actress who hasn't made a good film since (arguably) Girl, Interrupted? "In a year where the world was too much with us, art could at least be bewildering." Toronto Star 12/31/02
Is Coherence So Much To Ask? The recent flap that ensued in Canada when a former First Nations activist went on a rambling, semi-coherent, anti-Semitic rant points up a larger problem among the nation's public figures, says John Gray. Why can't anyone in government speak with any degree of profundity or even a basic grasp of what makes for stirring oratory? "What I find not only boring but dangerous is not the lack of imagination, nor art, nor insight, nor even intelligence -- but the absence of specifics. When Canadian public figures speak, I literally do not know what the hell they are talking about." The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 12/31/02
Reconsidering Communism (Again) It's not like Communism wasn't given a chance. But even though most of the major governments that followed the ideology have failed, Marx isn't discredited. "Indeed, it is suggested, Marx was right about a good many things—about a lot of what is wrong with capitalism, for instance, about globalisation and international markets, about the business cycle, about the way economics shapes ideas. Marx was prescient; that word keeps coming up. By all means discard communism as practised in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (and China, North Korea, Cuba and in fact wherever it has been practised). But please don't discard Marx." The Economist 12/27/02
ARTS ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
50 Arts Events Not To Miss In 2003 What 50 arts/cultural events should you simply not miss in 2003? London's Observer does the rundown... The Observer (UK) 01/05/03
Looking For Insight - Artists Come To New York Last month a group of Vietnamese artists came to New York to get ideas and insights from the city's artists. "We're living in the twilight. It's not socialism, and it's not capitalism. Experimental artists like us have to do things for ourselves, but we have to do it quietly so no one will bother us." New York Times 01/05/03
Talking To The Funders Who Make The Decisions Toronto has a number of major arts projects currently looking for funding. In the current funding climate "is there enough money to go around and sustain all these projects? Or are at least some of them doomed to fail while others succeed? The answers to those questions will largely depend on two kinds of players — the arts philanthropists of Toronto and the professional fundraisers hired by various cultural organizations to lead their capital campaigns." Here's what they say... Toronto Star 01/05/03
Celebrating (And Saving) St. Petersburg St. Petersburg, Russia is a remarkable and historic city. It's listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it turns 300 years old this year. So the city is exporting the best of its culture to the rest of the world to celebrate. But "if musicians, dancers, historians, designers, poets, actors and more are reintroducing St. Petersburg to center stage, the attention comes in the nick of time. Buildings are crumbling. Population is declining. Tourism is stagnating. The cultural community is dispersing. And modernity - in the form of bold new architecture - is knocking aggressively at the door." Washington Post 01/05/03
Pressure To Perform As arts funding declines, ticket revenue becomes more important for arts organizations. But waht does that mean for the kinds of art they make? "We have to ask how are we going to be true to our artistic vision - the original reason nonprofit theaters were founded - and yet not be irresponsible to our community by going out of business. As funding sources become tighter and tighter, this is the conflict facing all artistic nonprofits." Philadelphia Inquirer 01/05/03
Building Brands, Building Audiences Getting the word out about your arts orgainzation is not just a matter of printing brochures, making banners and producing marketing spots. The modern arts organization is a brand, and that takes careful management. Too crassly commercial, you're thinking? Boston clients of one communications firm think not. "There are no contradiction between that kind of 'corporate' thinking and artistic risk-taking. Quite the contrary. If people get to recognize the organization, we will get to take more risks." Boston Globe 01/05/03
Arts Building Boom - End Of An Era? There is a global 'rash' of new theatres and especially concert halls, but the fastest growth is in America, a conference of the International Society for the Performing Arts reported last month. Will the boom continue? Historically, "theatre-building is the sort of thing people do at the end of a golden era (as at the turn of the 20th century) when confidence is high and wealth is ample. Now, tax revenues are weak and wealthy donors less wealthy. The curtain may be about to fall, at least for an intermission." The Economist 01/02/03
Everything's Changed. Oh, Wait. No, It Hasn't. As 2002 began, art was supposed to be forevermore infused with the post-9/11 sensibility. Materialism and schlocky marketing were out, serious contemplation of the human condition was in. Riiiiight. So why does Frida Kahlo now have her own posthumous perfume, and why is the star of the year a shoplifting actress who hasn't made a good film since (arguably) Girl, Interrupted? "In a year where the world was too much with us, art could at least be bewildering." Toronto Star 12/31/02
A Bare-Bones Art Repatriation "The Canadian Museum of Civilization is preparing to return dozens -- perhaps hundreds -- of bones taken from native burial grounds to the Algonquin people whose ancestors inhabited the Ottawa area before white settlers arrived in the 19th century and began unearthing Indian graves. The proposed 'repatriation' of human remains... follows a series of [Ottawa] Citizen stories earlier this year revealing that a communal cemetery holding about 20 aboriginal skeletons was dug up 160 years ago on a point of land in Gatineau now occupied by the museum itself." Ottawa Citizen 12/31/02
Toronto's Unfinished Business The local and provincial governments serving Toronto have finally agreed to allocate a significant bit of cash for a grandiose set of architectural and cultural plans which aim to revitalize Canada's largest city. But even as art lovers rejoice over the influx of public money, observers are quietly noting that the government's CAN$232 million is a drop in the bucket compared with what's needed to stabilize the city's major cultural players. From the National Ballet to the Canadian Opera Company, Toronto's arts groups are still in need of nearly half a billion dollars of additional investment. National Post (Canada) 12/31/02
DANCE
http://www.artsjournal.com/dance
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Art Of Dance "More than half of the art Edgar Degas produced during his 60-plus years as an artist depicts dancers. For his late career, the percentage rises to about two-thirds. Degas not only produced a lot of dance art, he created Western art's most transcendent images of dancers and dance performance. It's difficult to imagine that their radiance and authority could ever be duplicated, let alone surpassed." Philadelphia Inquirer 01/05/03
All Moves, Few Words - Broadway's Surprise Dance Hit "One of the great surprises of the current Broadway season is that Twyla Tharp's 'Movin' On", which received mixed reviews and was in well-publicized trouble on the road, is such a hit. The only words uttered onstage are those of the songs and a drill sergeant's occasional bark. The rest is told in pure dance movement, from the smallest details of everyday life on Long Island in the 1960's to the savage roar of the battlefield. Still, it is all intensely believable to audiences, particularly Vietnam veterans. Most of the performers have come not from Broadway but from the relatively arcane worlds of classical ballet and mainstream modern dance." The New York Times 01/03/03
Where Are The New Stars? Where are dance's new stars? "A new century has come, but where are the new voices? Where is a Nijinsky, with his blocky new look, echoing the fresh perspectives that were also energizing Picasso, Braque and Stravinsky? Where are the new pairs of eyes, the new synergies, the new conversations? Granted, it is more difficult - and costly - to break through the static nowadays than when Duncan and Graham and the like were embarking on their exploratory ventures. Yet surely artists of 100 years ago were as bound by their constraints as we are by ours. It is up to the artists of today to overcome the constraints, to claim their place in the pantheon of the greats." Washington Post 12/29/02
MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/media
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pitiless TV Critiques From The Web Have Hollywood's Attention In an industry where ratings are everything, websites that hash over the latest series offerings have found big influence in Hollywood. One - a site called Television Without Pity - has attracted a regular following of people who run the shows - all who want to know what the fans on the site think of their work. TWoP tends to be merciless... The Observer (UK) 01/05/03
What Makes A Movie Star? Talent? Hard work? Not necessarily. "It's just a personality thing that has nothing to do with acting that most people who are successful have. It's a certain charisma, an energy you're attracted to. Established actors usually have it. Some people have it only under certain circumstances. But either you have it or you don't.
New York Daily News 01/05/03
BBC Chairman Renews Commitment To Arts Programming The BBC has been under attack for some time for shorting the arts in its schedule. Now BBC chairman Gavyn Davies says the critics are right: "We have accepted that the critics have a point and that we should do something to bring the arts back into the centre of the schedule." The Guardian (UK) 01/04/03
279 Movies Eligible for Academy Awards The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that 279 movies are eligible for this year's Academy Award nominations. "We will next week mail a complete list of those films along with nominations ballots to academy voters, allowing them to nominate these movies or their actors, actresses and directors for awards this year." The Globe & Mail (AFP) 01/05/03
Movie Locations As Tourism (And Branding) Opportunities "Movie tourism is perhaps as old as the movies themselves, but with the recent phenomenon of individual films bestriding the globe, it has intensified." All over the globe tourists are flocking to the "actual places" where this or that scene from their favorite movies were filmed. Some places are rushing to take advantage as a "rebranding" opportunity. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/04/03
Critic Society Chooses "The Pianist" As Top Film Critics of the 55-member National Society of Film Critics have named "The Pianist," the biography of a Polish-Jewish pianist and Holocaust survivor, as best picture of 2002. The movie also won best director, actor and screenplay awards from the society Saturday. Chicago Sun-Times (AP) 01/05/03
Book Your Blockbuster Early Lead times for getting big movies into theatres are getting longer. "The familiar proclamation 'Coming soon!' no longer means what it once did. Indeed, the film biz is a long way from the comfortable days of picking a release date with a finished film in the can. The studios' battered parent companies, desperate for predictable revenue, find plenty of virtue in long lead times, but it isn't an easy adjustment for film execs accustomed to procrastination." Toronto Star 01/04/03
Artists Defends His Controversial Art The Chinese performance artist shown in a UK documentary seeming to eata stillborn baby, has defended his work: "An artist does not give answers, but possibilities. When facing an issue, we must try to allow people's debate of an issue to produce a deeper discussion. Only if people did not curse it, did not detest it, would there be something wrong. They are right to scold." Toronto Star 01/03/03
Controversial Documentary Beaten In Ratings A documentary aired in the UK that showed a Chinese performance artist "apparently eating a stillborn baby" sparked only 15 calls of protest to the TV station. "An estimated 900,000 tuned in to see the documentary, which went out at 2300 GMT on Thursday. It was beaten in the ratings by the 1997 movie Beverly Hills Cop II, which attracted 3.4 million viewers." BBC 01/03/03
Disney Sues Blockbuster Video "In a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Los Angeles, Disney alleges that starting in 1997, Blockbuster Inc. failed to account for missing videos, improperly charged the Burbank-based company for some promotional costs and prematurely sold videos before their rental life was finished." Los Angeles Times 01/03/03
Little Movies Played Big In '02 In a great and profitable year for Hollywood, it was a great (and profitable) year for small independent films. "Movies such as "Bowling for Columbine," "One Hour Photo," "Monsoon Wedding," "Empire," and even the obscure French film "Brotherhood of the Wolf," made 2002 one of the most successful years ever for specialized fare." Los Angeles Times 01/03/03
Can The Arts Find A Place On TV? "PBS has always held exclusive claim to being 'the arts channel,' of course, mainly because networks shrink from fine-arts programming as ratings poison. But even so, the marriage between public broadcasting and the arts has, at times, seemed a superficial one." An experiment at Maryland Public Television illustrates the problems, starting a debate "ranging from how producers can compellingly cover the arts, to whether anyone will watch it, and ultimately, if art and television can get along at all." Baltimore CityPaper 12/25/02
Redefining 'Hero' in Beijing Every nation has had its tyrants, and China had a doozy 2,200 years ago in the emperor Qin Shihuang, whom historians have compared to Stalin in his ruthlessness and diregard for his people. But a new film by acclaimed director Zhang Yimou is making waves in modern China for its sympathetic portrayal of the emperor. The film, Hero, "despite its complicated subject, has delighted Beijing's mandarins, who are submitting it as China's nominee for best foreign film at the Academy Awards. And it has infuriated some Chinese critics, who have panned Mr. Zhang's plot for promoting a philosophy of servitude." The New York Times 01/02/03
Movie Musicals That Never Went Away Many are touting the movie "Chicago" as a return to movie musicals. But in truth, the movie musical never really went away, it adapted. "Though Broadway adaptations have largely fallen on their dancing feet since 'Grease' became a $378 million hit in 1978, the spirit of the musical is alive and well on film, from 'Moulin Rogue' to 'Billy Eliot'." Denver Post 01/01/03
Death As A Plot Device A filmmaker is engaged in a court battle with three Hollywood studios over whether his documentary on Tinseltown's bizarre and undeniable obsession with death and killing will ever see the light of day, or the dark of a screening room. Peter Livingston's film uses clips from the 25 most-watched movies of all time, and notes that "only four had no humans killed at all, 16 showed dead people being resurrected, just two showed natural deaths, only one had a birth in which the baby survived, and some portrayed mass killing to such an extent the total came to nine-billion corpses." The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 12/31/02
Defending The Film Cleaners Not many in the film world have stepped forward to defend the companies being sued by Hollywood for marketing "clean" versions of movies with all the sex, violence, and foul language removed. But one critic thinks the Directors'Guild, which initiated the lawsuit, is being awfully hypocritical, since its members have been releasing edited versions of their work for decades: "Those alternates are used not just on airplanes, but also for broadcast television and overseas release. If the DGA is so concerned about artistic integrity, it should work to make those personally supervised versions available to families who want to see them." Chicago Tribune 12/31/02
TV Station Under Fire For Controversial Documentary Britain's Channel 4 is being criticized for its plans to air a controversial documentary on Chinese performance artists. Among the controversial scenes are one "showing a performance artist eating the flesh of a dead baby" and "a man drinking wine that has had an amputated penis marinaded in it." The station defends its plans: "The programme will be controversial and will shock some viewers but a warning will be given before it goes out on air." The Guardian (UK) 12/31/02
I'd Rather Eat News It seemed like an interesting experiment - a radio drama with an all-star cast broadcast daily for a week to a national American audience. But reaction to National Public Radio's radio play "I'd Rather Eat Pants" was swift - and negative. Of the 1,000 e-mails the network received, about 75 percent were negative, and execs are trying figure out why. Cast member Ed Asner is disappointed. "It's a shame that intellectual newshawks who occupy NPR - or think they are intellectual newshawks - have to be so grouchy."
Chicago Tribune 12/30/02
MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/music
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bootleg Nation (So What If It's Illegal) "With a minimum of online searching, fans of virtually any band from arena-filling superstars to cult-worshiped club acts, can find a Web site or electronic mailing list to feed a habit for live CD's. Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen? No problem. Illicit recordings, or bootlegs, of their concerts circulate soon after the last car leaves the parking lot. But a show by the singer-songwriter Dirk Hamilton or the electronica musician Luke Vibert? Also no sweat. In the music world, you're nobody until somebody loves you enough to want your bootlegs."
The New York Times 01/06/03
UK Police Accuse Rappers Of Promoting Gun Violence Police have charged that British rap artists are promoting gun culture and creating a "backdrop of music" for influencing alienated young men. Police are calling for an emergency summit with the rap industry, after two teenage girls were killed over New Year's in crossfire between rival gangs. The Observer (UK) 01/05/03
Former KGB Spies Offer Anti-Piracy Plan A group of foermer KGB spies is offering recording companies a new "watermarking" technology to protect their music from music pirates. This month a music distrbutor "will introduce watermarking technology developed by former Russian spies in St Petersburg, in the hope of attracting more music companies on to the web. The Guardian (UK) 01/06/03
British Culture Minister Attacks Rap Music Fresh from condemning Turner Prize shortlisters, British culture minister Kim Howells has attacked British rappers. "For years I have been very worried about these hateful lyrics that these boasting macho idiot rappers come out with. It is a big cultural problem. Lyrics don't kill people but they don't half enhance the fare we get from videos and films. It has created a culture where killing is almost a fashion accessory." Th tirade, delivered on live radio, was quickly labeled "deeply racist" by the rap community. The Guardian (UK) 01/16/03
Readers Defend Baz Boheme Readers take New York Times critic Anthony Tomassini to task for his piece criticizing Baz Luhrmann's Broadway La Boheme. "Mr. Luhrmann has got me happy to stand in line again, and has made some of us (including all the twentysomethings who stood alongside me for three hours for tickets) excited about returning to the opera." The New York Times 01/05/03
Dutoit Speaks - Of Martha And Montreal On a visit to guest-conduct the Minnesota Orchestra, Charles Dutoit speaks for the first time about his tumultuous departure from the Montreal Symphony, and about his ex-wife, pianist Martha Argerich. "Basically, Martha doesn't play in America, except when I ask her to. Otherwise, she wouldn't play at all. I think there are only three pianists on this level," he said, also citing Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and Vladimir Horowitz. The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis) 01/05/03
Music As A Football Match Football's popular. So maybe classical music ought to be more like football, writes Julian Lloyd Webber. "In future, all concerts must be refereed. Points for performances will be awarded and performers' league tables established. Issues of promotion and relegation will be keenly watched by merciless, gum-chewing managers, who will have their chosen substitutes from the youth team eagerly waiting on the bench. Wrong notes will be severely penalised and performers adopting too slow tempi will be yellow-carded for time-wasting. String players using over-sentimental portamenti - and pianists who over-pedal - will be justly punished 'for bringing the music into disrepute'." The Telegraph (UK) 01/04/03
Kennedy Honors - Where Are The American Male Singers? So how is it that six male opera singers have won Kennedy Center Honors since the awards were started in 1978, but never an American male opera singer? Washington Post 01/05/03
From A Skeptic - What Explains The Glenn Gould Phenomenon? Twenty years after he died of a stroke, pianist Glenn Gould is still a star. David Patrick Stearns wonders why. "Philosophically, I admire Gould's irreverence: I believe that every performance should confront and challenge the listener. However, his insights often arose from obscure, perverse viewpoints. Once, he recorded Mozart piano sonatas to illustrate why the composer wasn't, to his mind, much good. These interpretive agendas often weren't presented with great regard for communication." Philadelphia Inquirer 01/05/03
A Tale Of Two Concertos To conductor James Levine's way of thinking, there is plenty of important American music from the 20th Century that never had fair hearing. So he looks upon his new appointment as director of the Boston Symphony as a way to do something about it. "One of the principal attractions for Levine is that he will finally have the opportunity to serve as an advocate for contemporary music, and American music in particular. For him, this has been a lifelong commitment, but none of his previous positions has enabled him to pursue it fully." Boston Globe 01/05/03
General Cluelessness - RIAA Gets Hacked Again The Recording Industry Association of America has taken the lead against digital copying of music, so it's not surprising the organization would be a target of hackers. The RIAA was hacked again Monday. "This time, the defacement resulted in bogus press releases on the front door, touting the joys of cheese and interspecies romantic relationships." This was the sixth time the site had been hacked in six months - the question is why the RIAA hasn't protected itself better... Wired 01/03/03
Country Time - Country Music CD Sales Surge CD sales might have been down 9 percent in 2002, but not all kinds of music sales declined. Sales of country music CD's increased 12 percent. "Along with hip-hop, country accounted for three-fifths of number one albums in the US... BBC 01/03/03
Please Release Me - Treasured 50s Recordings Entering Public Domain A treasure trove of recordings made in the 1950s is about to slip out of copyright. "Copyright protection lasts only 50 years in European Union countries, compared with 95 years in the United States, even if the recordings were originally made and released in America. So recordings made in the early- to mid-1950's — by figures like Maria Callas, Elvis Presley and Ella Fitzgerald — are entering the public domain in Europe, opening the way for any European recording company to release albums that had been owned exclusively by particular labels." The New York Times 01/03/03
How Civil Servants Sabotaged Edinburgh's Plans For An Opera House Back in 1971, after ten years of lobbying and planning, Edinburgh announced it would build a world class opera house. But newly released documents show why the hall was never built. It was sabotaged by civil servants who dubbed blueprints an "expensive fiasco" waiting to happen. "It had taken ten years for Edinburgh’s opera house plans to be accepted - and just a few months for government civil servants to sow the seeds of doubt which eventually led to the whole idea being scrapped." The Scotsman 01/02/03
Changing The Complexion Of Symphony Orchestras Symphony orchestras are overwhelmingly white. But a Detroit organization is trying encourage minority musicians with an annual competition "Since the Sphinx Organization was founded in 1996, its annual competition–the only nationwide classical music competition open exclusively to minority string players from junior high through college ages–has rewarded participants with cash prizes, scholarships, master classes, and instrument loans." Strings 01/03
Customizing Your Record Collection Vox Music Group has announced that it will burn individual CD copies of any part of its vast out-of-print catalog through a web site, eliminating the traditional process of a small repeat pressing, which often has been quite unprofitable. The announcement is exciting in part because it may signal a new wave of such 'individual' pressings by other companies, but also because Vox's old recordings are some of the most extensive and sought after in the business. Washington Post 01/02/03
Need A Job? Try Pittsburgh. When an orchestra is searching for a new music director or executive director, it can be difficult to maintain a cohesive sound and/or business strategy, since such searches take months to years, and generally involve a general reimagining of the whole organization. So imagine the current stress level at the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, where they are searching for a new managing director, a new board president, a new music director, a new resident conductor and a new vice president of development. Oh, and don't forget about that pesky deficit, either. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 01/01/03
How To Start A Piano Tuner Riot "Don A. Gilmore, an amateur piano player and professional engineer from Kansas City, Mo, has developed an electronic system that he says could allow pianists to tune their own instruments at the touch of a button." The system relies on heated strings, electricity, and an elaborate computer program which 'remembers' an initial tuning and can replicate it under almost any circumstances. The self-tuning models won't be cheap, but then, neither are piano tuners. The New York Times 01/02/03
Bang On A Can The latest fad being embraced by the type of folks who rented tae-bo tapes by the case back in the late '90s, and swore by their carrot juice in the '80s is "taiko, one of the biggest crazes to hit the boomer generation since pilates and green tea." It's not a new idea, really: taiko combines the idea of music as personal therapy with the undeniable truth that it's fun to make a lot of noise and bang on stuff. But this is more than a new-age experiment in self-esteem. Taiko ensembles are springing up all over, and the noise they make is real music, taken very seriously by those who create it. The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis) 01/02/03
No Strads for New Jersey? "New Jersey philanthropist Herbert Axelrod's 2-for-1 challenge grant, issued last Monday to help the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra buy 30 of his rare, 17th- and 18th-century Italian string instruments, has so far only netted a few thousand dollars for the NJSO. For every dollar contributed to the orchestra by today, Axelrod offered to take two dollars off the purchase price of $25 million, to a maximum of a $10 million drop in cost. Yesterday, though, it appeared that only a few thousand would be coming off the price tag," and the orchestra will likely not be able to complete the sale. Newark Star-Ledger 12/31/02
Life After The Moscow Conservatory Fire The fire that damaged the venerable Moscow Conservatory has crippled one of the city's great cultural institutions. "As aspiring performers and composers took final exams last week, there was no electricity, limited telephone service and a trickle of heat from an emergency system. A week after the Dec. 17 blaze, 16 precious concert grand pianos sat damaged or destroyed. Bundles of canvas hoses still dangled from the stairwells, and the air stank of soot." San Francisco Chronicle (Baltimore Sun) 01/01/03
SF Opera - Taking the Bold Road San Francisco Opera has an almost $8 million deficit. But the company doesn't seem particularly worried. Rather than sit back and play it safe, Pamela Rosenberg, the company's general director, has ambitious plans. "We are not going to get through this economic downturn and come out the other end by replacing quality with mediocrity," Ms. Rosenberg, who has set the company on course to becoming America's most adventurous opera house, said in a recent telephone interview." The New York Times 01/01/02
Homeless Choir Packs It In After 1000 Performances A homeless choir formed in Montreal in a men's shelter in 1996 to sing Christmas carols for spare change in the city's subway, has finally disbanded, a thousand performances later. "The group achieved international recognition, including an invitation to sing at Paris's busiest subway stations in 1998. The choir also released two CDs, was the subject of a book and a TV program and performed at the Just for Laughs comedy festival as a free street act." Why quit? Many of the singers found jobs and their lives became more stable. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/01/03
The Man Who's Building A Concert Hall Glenn KnicKrehm is builing a performing arts complex in Boston. He's putting $20 million of his own into the project, is raising the rest, and is steeping himself in acoustic theory. "He was a transplanted Californian who loved the Boston area but believed there was a hole in the cultural scene. There weren't many prime spots for performance. And those that did exist, Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall, were run by massive cultural institutions. Smaller arts groups scrambled for open dates in second-tier spaces." Boston Globe 01/01/03
Songs Of Protest "The venerable tradition of American protest music still generates heat on the rally circuit, as Dylan's constant reinvocation proves. Still, political music is marked by the same tension that always feeds pop music: the desire to connect to a legacy versus the impulse to try something new. The activist songbook includes major contributions from punk and hip-hop as well as folk-rock. Benefit concerts and albums have become part of the star-making machinery." The Nation 12/23/02
Penalties For Success The 7-year-old New West Symphony, which calls an LA suburb home, has an unusual problem - one fanned by its success. The orchestra has a budget of $2 million, and has run every year in the black. Its musicians are part-timers, professionals who for the most part make their livings playing in LA's recording studios. The problem? If the orchestra gets bigger, it'll lose its part-timers, and the quality of the players might decline. And yet, there is pressure to grow... Los Angeles Times 12/30/02
Disney Hall - Opening Times Three Los Angeles' dramatic new Disney Hall, scheduled to open next October, is opening in a flurry of gala fundraising benefits expected to earn $3 million for the LA Philharmonic. "On the first night they'll hear the tried-and-true classics. On the second, the new music of the 21st century. And on the third, we'll honor the European composers who fled Nazi Germany to come to Hollywood and were hired by the film industry." Los Angeles Times 12/30/02
Tune Smith San Francisco's Davies Hall is "tuned" for every performance. The computer-controlled acoustical canopy that dangles over the stage looks like some huge constructivist sculpture and reflects sound back to the musicians and out to the audience. It's composed of 59 slightly bowed 6-foot squares of Plexiglas - they collectively cover 3,400 square feet - whose height and angle are adjusted according to the size of the ensemble or to the piece being performed." San Francisco Chronicle 12/30/02
PEOPLE
http://www.artsjournal.com/people
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Greatest Actor Of His Generation? Is Simon Russell Beale the best English actor of his generation? "Ask London theatergoers, critics and his fellow actors, and they will say that he is the finest stage actor of his generation. (He turns 42 next Sunday). In role after role, he has shown a virtuosic range with a depth of feeling that few actors can match, playing kings and common men, Restoration fops and Shakespearean clowns, characters from Chekhov and Ibsen, and even singing in the Leonard Bernstein musical Candide." The New York Times 01/05/03
Don't Break Up Andre Breton A network of latter-day surrealophiles is objecting to the impending sale of surrealist Andre Breton's collections at auction. "While the collection will be preserved on a CD-ROM, the signers of the petition insist that the contents of Breton's jumbled anti-museum make sense "together and only together." They call upon France to establish a permanent place to house this collection which, represents 'the history of a powerful mind, whose creativity, imagination, and moral indignation" were directed toward "the singular possibility of changing life and transforming the world according to the life-affirming movement of desire." Boston Globe 01/05/03
House Of Glass - A New Director Takes Over Smithsonian History Museum This week Brent Glass took over as director of "the third most popular museum in the world - the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. It is not an altogether happy place. But in his 55 years, Glass has developed a well-honed vision of what history is and what that museum can be." Washington Post 01/03/03
More Than Just The 'Wrapping Artist' A new exhibit at a private estate in Florida is providing a unique look into the process and development of one of the world's best-known and most controversial artists. Christo, the large-scale installation artist who is reportedly in talks to mount a massive work in New York's Central Park, may be best-known for wrapping the Reichstag, but he and his collaborator insist that they are neither one-trick ponies nor cultural commentators. They believe in letting art just be art, even if their work occasionally causes political firestorms. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 01/02/03
Who Was Shakespeare? The debate over who wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare has spawned a cottage industry of conspiracy theorists, with Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and Queen Elizabeth I all contenders as the ultimate pretender. But some Shakespeare devotees think there's some pretty shoddy detective work behind the drive to discredit the Bard. "For example, elaborate scenarios have to be concocted for the lives of Marlowe, Rutland, Oxford, and Elizabeth I because they all died many years before the final play was written." Boston Globe 01/02/03
Trapnell Quits As Guthrie Managing Director Susan Trapnell, who came to Minneapolis' Guthrie Theatre a year ago as managing director, has quit the theatre, citing personal reasons. "By the time the announcement was made Tuesday, Trapnell already had returned to Seattle, where she was executive director of the Seattle Arts Commission and managing director of the nonprofit playhouse A Contemporary Theatre." The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis) 01/01/03
Spiegelman Leaving New Yorker. Yes, Again. Cartoonist-and-so-much-more Art Spiegelman is leaving The New Yorker, as he has several times before, citing differences with the direction the venerable magazine has taken since 9/11. Spiegelman, who has never hesitated to express unpopular ideas in his work, praises editor David Remnick, but says that "the place I'm coming from is just much more agitated than The New Yorker's tone. The assumptions and attitudes [I have] are not part of The Times Op-Ed page of acceptable discourse." New York Observer 12/31/02
PUBLISHING
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Granta's List Of Britain's Best Young Novelists Granta's one-a-decade list of Britain's best young novelists always creates a stir. "The list, like all literary prizes, is an attempt to bypass market imperfections, and is loved and loathed by publishers, who are inclined to dismiss it as irrelevant when they aren't included, and to applaud its detachment and authority when they are." This year's list has its critics and defenders. "So were there any shoo-ins? Several judges mentioned, unsurprisingly, Zadie Smith." The Observer (UK) 01/05/03
20 Years Later - What Does A List Mean? A list's still a list. Yes there are stars from the previous Granta lists. But "the somewhat sadder message conveyed by the yellowing old photos of 1983 and 1993 is that many of these writers, while in middle age still going through the motions of publishing a novel every few years, are not what they were." The Telegraph (UK) 01/06/03
Struggle Behind The Publishing Of A Lost Tolkien Manuscript The medieval studies professor who discovered and edited a lost manuscript by JRR Tolkien, says dealing with Tolkien's fans was arduous over the six years it took to prepare the manuscript. "It was unfortunate that there were some obsessive fans who "whose attention one attracts by working on anything related to Tolkien. The sheer number of people who were trying to profit from Tolkien's work was astonishing, and the problems with copyright violation and outright theft were like nothing I had ever encountered in medieval studies." BBC 01/05/03
What Paperbacks Sold Last Year What were 2002's hottest UK paperback sellers? John Grisham leads the list, as expected. And there were an awful lot of manufactured celebrity books. Some 30 million paperbacks were sold in the UK in 2002, about the same as in 2001, but nearly three million down on 2001 (there was a new Harry Potter that year). Still, it's estimated that fewer than 50 percent of Britons ever buy a book. Here's the list of paperbacks most sold... The Observer (UK) 01/05/03
Book Jacket Portraying WWII Nazi Ties Upsets Swiss A new book by a Clinton administration official who led negotiations with Switzerland, Germany, France and Austria to "get nearly $8 billion in reparations for art, unpaid insurance policies and confiscated bank accounts taken from Jews during World War II" is angering the Swiss. The objections are not so much about the content, as the cover, which "has a swastika made of gold ingots spread over the red Swiss national flag." But author Stuart E. Eizenstat and his publisher say the design "accurately reflects what he learned during the negotiations in the late 1990s." Washington Post 01/05/03
The New Biographers "The old style of Canadian biography was written mainly by academic historians and characterized by a slavish devotion to the facts, and nothing but the facts, about the subject at hand." Boring. But a new generation of biographers has taken more of the novelist approach to their work. "Virginia Woolf said every biography should be written twice - once as fiction and once as fact. Fact is accessible but interpretation is not, and fact won't tell you much about character and thought." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/03/03
Tolkien Manuscript Found An unpublished manuscript by JRR Tolkien has been found in a box at Oxford. "The 2000 handwritten pages include Tolkien's translation and appraisal of 'Beowulf', the epic 8th century Anglo-Saxon poem of bravery, friendship and monster-slaying that is thought to have inspired 'The Lord of the Rings'." The Australian 12/30/02
Hmong - Forging A New Literary Tradition Hmong society has no literary tradition. "The first Hmong writing system was developed by Catholic missionaries in the 1950s. Until then, all storytelling was spoken." So a new book collecting young Hmong writers' work is something extraordinary. Sacramento Bee 01/02/03
A "20 Best" List To Watch For Given Its Track Record Granta is naming its "20 Best of Young British Novelists," an exercise it indulges in every ten years. So what's the Grant track record? "When you look at the names on the original 1983 and follow-up 1993 lists, the hit-rate was impressive: Amis, Barker, Barnes, Boyd, McEwan, Rushdie, Swift, Tremain on the former; Banks, de Bernières, AL Kennedy, Kureishi, Phillips, Self and Winterson on the latter; with Ishiguro and Mars-Jones, by virtue of their early-flowering promise, on both." The Guardian (UK) 01/01/03
Speak This - Controversy of the Spoken Word "So what if Vancouver has become one of the hottest venues on the North American spoken-word circuit? Is there any correlation between the groundswell of so-called 'street poetry' in Vancouver and the West Coast's domination of all those august literary prizes?" Perhaps... but perhaps not. Even those who practice the art can't agree. Some of them don't even like one another. And they don't like the publicity. Or even necessarily the artform. "To treat poetry as performance is crude and extremely revolting." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/01/03
Spiegelman Leaving New Yorker. Yes, Again. Cartoonist-and-so-much-more Art Spiegelman is leaving The New Yorker, as he has several times before, citing differences with the direction the venerable magazine has taken since 9/11. Spiegelman, who has never hesitated to express unpopular ideas in his work, praises editor David Remnick, but says that "the place I'm coming from is just much more agitated than The New Yorker's tone. The assumptions and attitudes [I have] are not part of The Times Op-Ed page of acceptable discourse." New York Observer 12/31/02
Protesting The Patriot Act Two thirds of Vermont's independent bookstore owners have signed a letter protesting the Patriot Act. "The Patriot Act gives the government the power to seize bookstore and library records to check customers' and patrons' reading lists. A gag order in the legislation prevents bookstore owners and librarians from telling anyone about the seizure." Publishers Weekly 12/30/02
In Print We Trust In this day of instant information on the internet, is there still a place for the printed encyclopedia? Surprisingly, yes. "Publishers are rediscovering how to reach the customer who thinks a printed book is still the best source of knowledge. After a four-year hiatus, Encyclopaedia Britannica, based in Chicago, has almost sold out the new edition it released this year and is planning a revision for next year. Libraries remain the best customers, but there is still a core of people who want that row of books at home." Boston Globe 12/30/02
THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Broadway Comes To Disney "Disney wants to replicate in the theme parks a formula that has paid dividends for another division: Disney Theatricals, which produces the company's Broadway shows. Take a beloved Disney property ("The Lion King"), turn it over to an accomplished avant-garde stage artist with a distinctive visual flair (director Julie Taymor), and reap critical kudos and huge profits." Los Angeles Times 01/05/03
What's A Young Theatre Artist To Do? When the UK's repertory theatre system collapsed in the 1970s "visionary artists ran to the fringe and reinvented their art form from scratch." But how did those artists support themselves? They went on the dole. And some of today's best-known artists got their starts that way. Today the dole has been replaced by a system that requires full-time availability for paid work. "To bend the rules and do creative work while 'signing on', as we all did in the mad years of early Thatcherism, is no longer possible." The Guardian (UK) 01/05/03
The Royal Shakespeare's London Misadventures Part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's plan to reinvent includes being a major player in London's West End. But that plan is faltering after the company's last five plays there have taken in only 20 percent of what they needed to at the box office. "The plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries have been rapturously received by critics, and sold out when they were premiered at Stratford-upon-Avon, but London audiences have been staying away." The Guardian (UK) 01/05/03
Curiously Refreshing - A Small Theatre's Fight For Rights In 1999 Denver's fledgling Curious Theatre tried to get rights to a Paula Vogel play it wanted. But the big Denver Center had first-refusal rights. So as consolation the rights-administrator granted Curious rights to another Vogel play - "How I Learned to Drive," which the DCTC had passed on, and which then won a Pulitzer Prize. Now Vogel is working with Curious again: "To me, that's why we are doing theater, to disturb the air; to offend people. There is such a need for these smaller companies that will take risks, that will read new plays."
Denver Post 01/05/03
More Adventures With Disney - "Destination" Theatre Admissions at Disney's theme parks are down 25 percent since 2001. What to do? How about theatre? Disney has hired some A-list creators to come up with "a new era in theme-park entertainment." It's theatre presented continuously in 40-minute loops. First up: "a 40-minute version of the 'Aladdin' story, using the score from Disney's animated film. It will run continuously in the brand new 'Broadway-style' Hyperion theater in Disney's ailing California Adventure Park. 'We've coined a new phrase - destination entertainment'." Christian Science Monitor 01/03/03
Building Shakespeare's Dream A group of Americans is hoping to build the theatre Shakespeare imagined his plays being performed in. "If all goes well, western Massachusetts will become home to the world's first historically accurate reconstruction of the Rose Playhouse. But if all goes well, western Massachusetts will become home to the world's first historically accurate reconstruction of the Rose Playhouse." Christian Science Monitor 01/03/03
Broadway's Newfound Success Historically, Broadway's success as a national theatre district has come from the tremendous number of tourists it draws to its glitzy, glittering shows. But new figures show that Broadway has rebounded from its post-9/11 largely by targeting New York audiences - in fact, New Yorkers accounted for a majority of tickets sold for the first time in recent years. BBC 01/02/03
Crystal Ball gazing On Broadway Which hit show will fold this year without returning its investment? Who's the next big star on Broadway? Michael Riedel makes his predictions about the bright lights of Broadway... New York Post 01/01/03
Practice Makes Perfect? (Or Is It A Myth?) How long does it take to produce good work in the theatre? "Cash-strapped Canadian theatres have often complained that they can't afford enough time to do their best work, but this long-held grievance got a particularly vigorous airing in 2002 as directors hotly debated whether they were facing a crisis - or a myth." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/01/03
You've Got To Spend It To Make It A respected figure in British theatre, Peter Longman is imploring the government to invest more than £1 billion in the country's theatre companies, in order to correct what most in the business have viewed as a long and dangerous slide in public monetary support. Longman is not alone in his call for increased public investment, but the word "billion" has the theatre world talking, and government officials stunned. BBC 12/31/02
London Theatres Falling Down "The physical condition of London's theatreland, a unique treasury of mainly Victorian and Edwardian theatres, is beginning to cause anguish among the people who earn their living there. One estimate is that the buildings need well over £200m spent to bring them up to the modern standards that audiences increasingly expect, and to faintly humane working conditions for staff." The Guardian (UK) 12/31/02
Broadway Perks Up For much of 2002, Broadway seemed caught in a downdraft. But "for the fall and winter, Broadway ticket sales have been running 15% ahead of last year's levels, says Jed Bernstein, president of the League of American Theatres & Producers. Sales could even surpass 2000's record-setting figures. Thanksgiving week alone racked up $18.6 million, vs. $16 million for the same week in 2000. Now, with 33 shows on the boards, Broadway is wrapping up its holiday season, traditionally the strongest time of the year. What happened?" BusinessWeek 12/27/02
VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/visualarts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Salle Forth - David's Back But Evasive As Ever David Salle is back with a new show in New York, back at Mary Boone's gallery, where he came to prominence in the 1980s. "Salle is right up there with Jasper Johns as one of contemporary art's all-time great question dodgers. Although he was initially viewed as a cynical provocateur, that characterization is no longer useful or even accurate. With the gift of hindsight, he seems more like an art Sphinx. His pictures feed at least partly off Mr. Johns's use of pop images, and their work is similarly confounding, a box of puzzle pieces that you keep trying to put together only to realize that six pieces are missing on the floor of your hall closet. The New York Times 01/05/03
Gehry Weighs In On The WTC Why wasn't Frank Gehry among the architects submitting plans for the World Trade Center site? He tells Deborah Solomon: "I was invited to be on one of the teams, but I found it demeaning that the agency paid only $40,000 for all that work. I can understand why the kids did it, but why would people my age do it?" The New York Times 01/05/03
Computer-assisted Art How is the computer changing the ways artists make art? We don't mean digital artists, but those traditional artists who have begun using the computer as a tool in their artmaking... Detroit Free Press 01/05/03
Picture Hunting - On The Hunt For Chicago's WPA Murals An effort to find and restore WPA murals in Chicago's public schools has turned up hundreds of them - many painted over or tagged with graffiti. "Others had tears and severe water damage. And all of them were covered with up to 70 years' worth of dirt and grime." So far the project has resulted in restoration of 400 heavily damaged and hidden murals, painted during the WPA (1933-1943) and Progressive Era (1904-1933). Many of the works are by prominent artists.
Washington Post 01/05/03
What The Parthenon Marbles Would Look Like In Greece The campaign to put pressure on the British Museum to return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece is intensifying. The Greek goervnemtn is building a new museum to display the marbles should Britain return them. Now a high-tech exhibition in the British House of Parliament shows what the marbles would look like in the new museum. "The display includes a computer-simulated walk through the museum showing the reunited marbles displayed in glass cases." SkyNews 01/02/03
The Online Museum - Five That Get It Right The wrold's great museums are the world's great museums. But the online museum is a recent development. Here are Joseph Phelan's picks as the most interesting online art museum presentations... Artcyclopedia 01/03
Virtual Marbles The British Museum still doesn't plan to return the Elgin marbles to Greece anytime soon, despite growing support for such a transfer, but a new exhibit in the UK shows what the marbles would look like were both pieces to be reunited in Athens. The exhibit uses virtual reality technology to simulate the joining. BBC 01/02/03
WTC Glare - Too Much Publicity? The glare of publicity focused on choosing a building plan for the World Trade Center site is probably greater than on any other project in recent memory. But not all the architects involved are happy about it. "Many have privately expressed reservations about the designs' details, the handling of the competition and even the spotlight in which the contestants now stand." The New York Times 01/01/03
Peripheral Matters - Art Of Frames Many artists spend a lot of time agonizing over how their work will be framed. But frames get no respect. "The market in images has no room for frames. Magazines, newspapers, exhibition catalogues and art books act as if they don't exist, cropping them out of reproductions even when the painters saw them as integral parts of their work." The Guardian (UK) 01/01/03
V&A Attendance Up 111% In 2002 - Free Admission Has UK Museum Visits Soaring In the first year since admission charges at major British museums were dropped, attendance has soared. "The most dramatic increase has been at the V&A, which has seen a 111% increase, helped by the opening of its beautiful £31m British galleries. The effect at the other museums in South Kensington, west London, where a family visit would have cost around £30 in charging days, has been almost as spectacular. Numbers at the Science Museum and Natural History Museum have gone up 100% and 83% respectively." The Guardian (UK) 01/01/03
Shock Of The Old What's the next big thing in British art? "Prepare yourself to be truly shocked. For the next big thing in modern British art is the New Gentleness. And it involves lots of that supposedly endangered species, the painter. Massed watercolourists are not about to storm Tate Britain and ransack the Turner prize show, but something is stirring, though no one dares to use the word movement." The Guardian (UK) 01/01/03
The Problems With Museums Christine Temin believes American museums need help. "Museums in this country desperately need not just financial help but help in defining their mission, their audience, their ethics. Over the past couple of decades they've made considerable noise about trading elitism for accessibility, and that's certainly backed up by, among other things, a steep increase in education programs, some more effective than others. But $20 tickets to special exhibitions and $15 general admission - the current fees at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston - don't exactly make the museum more accessible." Boston Globe 01/01/03
A Bare-Bones Art Repatriation "The Canadian Museum of Civilization is preparing to return dozens -- perhaps hundreds -- of bones taken from native burial grounds to the Algonquin people whose ancestors inhabited the Ottawa area before white settlers arrived in the 19th century and began unearthing Indian graves. The proposed 'repatriation' of human remains... follows a series of [Ottawa] Citizen stories earlier this year revealing that a communal cemetery holding about 20 aboriginal skeletons was dug up 160 years ago on a point of land in Gatineau now occupied by the museum itself." Ottawa Citizen 12/31/02
Guggenheim Drops Lower Manhattan Plan In a three-paragraph e-mail message, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation announced that it had withdrawn its proposal to build a polymorphous, 400-foot-tall building designed by Frank Gehry on Piers 9, 13 and 14, south of the Brooklyn Bridge in Lower Manhattan." The plan would have cost $950 million, and the museum admits that was an unrealistic goal. The New York Times 12/31/02
British Museum Puzzled Over Missing Goblet "Archivists at the British Museum are scratching their heads after learning that the biggest hoard of Roman treasure ever found in Britain comprised 35 pieces - not 34, as has been believed for the past 60 years - and that the goblet that is missing could be worth more than £1 million." The discovery was made when a 94-year-old man who had worked on cleaning one of the goblets came to visit the museum and discovered it was missing. The Guardian (UK) 12/31/02
