When Ideas Exceed Needs Building in a sustainable way is a cultural problem. For example: "The idea of a tall building has existed since architecture’s beginnings and came to fruition in the Gothic era with the race towards the tallest nave and spire, and again in the United States during the early 20th century. Developing countries like Malaysia and China have now entered the global competition for the tallest building, indifferent to the building type’s ecological footprint and vying for the longest time holding the height record. The cultural footprint of a building of this kind then by far exceeds its ecological footprint. It is unlikely that rational argument will ever deter clients and architects from pursuing goals like the tallest buildings, goals that are deeply lodged in mental landscapes and reinforced by various media over decades or centuries. Similar forms of competition exist in other areas of architectural discourse." Harvard Design Magazine 03/03
The Objective Image - Is There Such A Thing? When it comes top journalism, facts are not just facts. A case in point - Americans are fascinated by pictures of the war, yet, "difficult" images of the war - dead bodies, for example - aren't being shown, as they are elsewhere. "At issue are several questions central to reporting and consuming news in the era of 24-hour television coverage and the burgeoning independent news media on the World Wide Web: Are images facts or illustrations? If a fact is ugly, should it be kept at a distance from readers and viewers? And what do news organizations do with the simple fact that there is both an eager appetite for, and a sincere disgust with, graphic images?" Washington Post 03/25/03
What Happens When The Definition Of "Classic" Changes Classic movies aren't what they used to be. That's not a judgment - more of an observation. "The canon has been changing over the last decade, and what makes a classic of cinema is now drastically different to discerning young moviegoers than it has been to their teachers or to the critics or to Leonard Maltin. The implications of the new canon are vast, much bigger than the specific films themselves, and they speak to the ways in which a new generation perceives history, reality, and even perception itself." Boston Globe 03/23/03
Try To Remember... "Trying to be important is a zero-sum game for artists," writes playwright Jon Robin Baitz. "To be a blocked artist is to have a disease: Almost blind, often numb, you don't stop wanting to make art. And you don't want to find yourself staring at others', riven with rage like Rumpelstiltskin tearing himself asunder. I have seen that loss of direction and rage imprinted into the visages of so many artists I admire; this strange admixture of terror and bluster, the need to be loved, in combination with the need to dominate." Los Angeles Times 03/23/03
ARTS ISSUES
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Culture Capital - Arts Mean Business There are six British finalists for the 2008 European Capital of Culture designation. But the honor seems to have less to do with actual culture than an economic shot in the arm. Why? Glasgow, 1990. "Cannily, the run-down Clydeside city used investment in culture as a major tool to revive its flagging economy. It proved, up to a point, that culture could be translated into tourism, business ventures and jobs as well as museums and concert halls." The Guardian (UK) 03/30/03
Ontario Flatlines Arts Budget Hopes had been high that Ontario's government would increase the province's $25 million arts budget this year. But when the budget was announced, there was nothing new for the arts. Arts leaders are disappointed - the amount has stayed the same for the past five years. "We had made some very strong arguments for the value of the arts and the contribution they make to life in Ontario. There appears to be nothing in it for the arts. The community is going to be very disappointed." Toronto Star 03/28/03
Banking On Building A Good Board One of the biggest challenges for arts organizations is finding good sound board leadership. "Tony Scotford, a Sydney lawyer and outspoken arts advocate, has an innovative solution - a board 'bank' where the best talent can be matched with the neediest companies - on the cards as part of the Australian Business and Arts Foundation's future projects. If it works like the health industry's sperm and blood banks, why not? So many of our boards are the result of mateship, or favours, or a reward for sponsorship." Sydney Morning Herald 03/28/03
Trying Harder As Money Gets Tighter As money gets tighter, American arts organizations are rethinking their operations. "To survive, cultural establishments nationwide are pooling resources, taking artistic risks, and stepping up outreach - rethinking everything from fundraising tactics to show times to get people back to the box office. In a time of financial famine, the arts are getting creative. 'These organizations are like farm animals in the 1930s dust belt. They have less and less to sustain them'." Christian Science Monitor 03/28/03
Nice Timing On the same day that Colorado arts advocates had scheduled a special day of lobbying on behalf of their profession, the joint budget committee the Colorado legislature voted to completely eliminate public funding for the arts. If the plan passes in the full legislature, Colorado would join Oregon and New Jersey in becoming the only states to zero out cultural funding. (None of those states has yet finalized its decision to kill the funding.) Colorado already ranks dead last in the nation in per capita arts spending. The proposed cuts would eliminate about $1.5 million in arts spending. Denver Post 03/26/03
Screen Play The Royal Opera House will set up screens around the country this summer and broadcast performances out on the streets. "Productions by the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet will be beamed to outside screens in Sheffield, Liverpool, Gateshead, Belfast and London's Canary Wharf. It is part of an initiative to reach people who would not normally watch ballet or opera." BBC 03/26/03
New York City To Cut City Cultural Spending? New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's preliminary 2004 budget calls for a cut of 17 percent from the proposed budget for the city's Department of Cultural Affairs. "The city's Independent Budget Office - in its March analysis of the mayor's preliminary budget - is comparing the proposed 2004 funding to the June 2002 financial plan, which had set the DCA budget at $123.4 million. The new budget would be $102.5 million. Backstage 03/26/03
Nothing From Nothing Leaves Nothing The recent slash in California's arts funding isn't worth all the hand-wringing, says Christopher Knight, simply because the state wasn't really doing anything helpful for actual artists even before the cuts. In the 1990s, artists learned that the way to get funding from an increasingly hostile set of lawmakers is to tie absolutely everything they do to education and social services, which results in mandates that funding be spent on repetitive and pointless programs rather than on the creation of actual art. "Why the inverted priority in the real world? No mystery: Artists don't have advocates in Sacramento. The arts bureaucracy does." Los Angeles Times 03/26/03
Pooling Resources In Massachusetts A unique conference in Boston has brought together arts organizations, cultural advocates, and state politicians in an effort to better educate the disparate artistic community in the more pragmatic aspects of financial survival in tough economic times. Participants shared fundraising and lobbying techniques, heard from high-ranking legislators concerning what tactics work best at the statehouse, and discussed methods for broadening the diversity of audiences. Boston Globe 03/26/03
Finneran's Wake Massachusetts House Speaker Thomas Finneran stepped into the lion's den this week, appearing at an arts conference to explain the legislature's decision to slash the state arts budget, and to advise activists on how to avoid future cuts. "He admitted most politicians still regard the arts as 'elitist' and added 'the two most compelling areas for us' are education and health care... Finneran also noted legislators break down budget appropriations into three levels of funding: 'essential,' which he said is 'in the eye of the beholder'; 'desirable'; and 'Nice, but...' This is not a good time to be part of that third group." Boston Herald 03/26/03
UK Artists Get Funding Boost Arts Council England has announced a large increase in arts funding. "Overall, the Arts Council - funded by government money and lottery receipts - will distribute £410 million by 2005/6, compared with £335 million in 2003/4. A host of new groups, which do not usually get funding from the Arts Council, will get £123 million. Individual artists will benefit from a £25 million fund for the next three years - double what is available to them now." BBC 03/25/03
NJ Arts Supporters Enlist Businesses To Lobby State For Arts Funding New Jersey Governor James McGreevey says he's reconsidering zeroing out the state's arts budget, but for now the budget line still reads empty. "Arts organizations in New Jersey feel they now have a better chance of persuading state officials to restore funding because business groups have added their backing. Some chambers of commerce have made an effort to rally businesses that have a direct interest in arts activities." Trenton Times 03/25/03
Why Do Artists Lean Left? Patrick Goldstein wonders: "Why have most artists, be they poets, playwrights, painters, writers, musicians, actors or filmmakers, historically been far more involved with causes on the left than the right? The simplest explanation for this tradition of left-wing politics is that artists identify with the underdog. They tend to be disaffected outsiders and mavericks, skeptical of institutions, often uncomfortable with mainstream values. They find inspiration in change; their affection is with the dispossessed, not the ruling order." Los Angeles Times 03/25/03
Independent Streak? Mason's New Face On The Royal Ballet Monica Mason, the Royal Ballet's new director, has a tough job, no matter how she does it. "A director has to juggle the old or 'heritage' repertoire with the new; maintain the 20th-century classics as well as the 19th-century ones; import foreign successes and support indigenous efforts; and of course share out space between Ashton and MacMillan. No matter how the portions are carved out, many people in many places will be seriously displeased. Mason looks likely to be the safe consolidator, the steadying hand after the squalls of the Stretton regime. After seeking to blow new air into the Royal Ballet by appointing Stretton, the ROH Board then did a frightened U-turn by scurrying back to the old guard with Mason." The Independent (UK) 03/26/03
Dance After Ballet "The audience today loves dancing, no doubt about that. What it doesn’t love is the aura of preciousness and affectation that clings to ballet. Classical ballet companies have yet to find convincing ways to erase these misconceptions and hook the permanent audience they need — and still preserve the idea of classicism. Meanwhile, other dance enterprises thrive by applying ballet’s components to performance that doesn’t intimidate." Boston Phoenix 03/25/03
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BBC And Arts - Got To Be More Than Rolf Eh? The BBC's arts coverage is constantly under attack. But the fixer can't be more down-market pop art, can it? Is the public broadcaster fixated on the large ratings for Rolf Harris's art odyssey? "What next? Will the Rolf Experience be followed by Cliff Richard on Beethoven? Will audiences of five to seven million become the benchmark - a favourite word of TV planners - by which other arts programmes are judged? Having won such audiences, can they settle for less?" London Evening Standard 03/28/03
The Best Case Against Media Consolidation When the CEO of the second largest chain of radio stations in America decided to ban the Dixie Chicks from his airwaves because of political remarks one of the group's mambers made, the Chicks' airplay vanished. "The downside of media consolidation is that we now allow a few people's overreaction to become policy. It opens up a very dangerous can of worms. In this case, one of the CEOs decided he wanted to make a statement. . . . But consolidation means that group ownership can do anything it wants . . . ."
Boston Herald 03/28/03
The Hermitage In 90 Minutes Filmmaker Alexander Sokurov's film tribute to the Hermitage is unexpected and amazing. "Russian Ark was made in a single hour-and-a-half-long shot, unedited. It took that hour and a half to film (after two years of preparation) and takes the same time to watch. It is the first film to be made in this way, exploiting digital technology not to bend reality but to do justice to it - no film on celluloid could continue unbroken for this amount of time." The Guardian (UK) 03/28/03
How Do You Make The Arts Work On TV? "There is a recognition that the arts, especially on BBC1, have been underserved. Accordingly, the holy grail for the BBC seems to be programmes that bring in a mass audience while simultaneously appealing to aficionados." But how to accomplish it? "It means doing more and doing it bolder; it means resting tired formats, and indeed tired faces. Those involved in the live arts would attest to the fact that if you want to make an impact, if you want to transport and transform people, then you have to take real risks. And that's what art is all about." The Guardian (UK) 03/26/03
A History Of Hollywood Activism (Or Lack Thereof) Hollywood seems political (or at least some in Hollywood seem so). But Tinseltown has a long history of dancing around political controversy while trying to do business... Village Voice 03/25/03
Valenti Vs. The Pirates Several Hollywood unions are banding together to launch a major push aimed at curbing the spread of digital media piracy. The groups, led by MPAA president Jack Valenti, will lobby U.S. policymakers to crack down on piracy, and will "also [target] foreign countries with poor records on protecting copyrighted material." BBC 03/26/03
Hollywood Must Reinvent To Stay Viable "The champagne has been flowing all around Hollywood lately. Box-office receipts jumped 13.5%, to $9.5 billion, in 2002 - the biggest year-over-year increase in two decades. DVD sales grew 71%, to more than $11 billion. That doesn't even include DVD rental revenues, which grew from $1.4 billion to $2.9 billion, according to DVD Entertainment Group, an industry association. You can't blame Hollywood for not wanting to rock the boat." But big trouble is looming - and unless the movie business reinvents its distribution as download times shrink, a major case of heartburn awaits. BusinessWeek 03/24/03
War As Entertainment/Reality TV We watch war movies as entertainment in peacetime. But "with the new engagement in Iraq, however, the Pentagon and television news coverage are blurring the lines between movies and real life as never before, turning viewers into 24-hour couch voyeurs. The start of the war caused business at movie theaters to drop by 25 percent on Wednesday as people stayed home to watch the war, and snack-food sales and restaurant deliveries thrived. The opening salvos of the war had taken the place of prime-time entertainment, and television stations did their best to serve up gaudily produced coverage: the war in Iraq as the ultimate in reality television." The New York Times 03/25/03
Weekend Movie Box Office Dives Movie box office tanked this weekend with the war and the Oscars on. "The weekend's top 12 films sold an estimated $84 million worth of tickets, the lowest total since Super Bowl weekend and down 29% from the same weekend last year." New York Daily News 03/24/03
Lowest Oscar Ratings Ever TV ratings for Sunday night's Oscar telecast were down 20 percent from last year's all-time low. "The subdued 75th anniversary edition of the Academy Awards entered the record books on Monday as the least watched Oscar telecast ever." Yahoo! (Reuters) 03/24/03
Is "Guys & Dolls" The Next "Chicago"? So what's the next "Chicago"? How about "Guys and Dolls. "Chicago" studio Miramax has settled on G&D for its next musical project. "Nearly half a century after Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Jean Simmons starred in the original screen version, Nicole Kidman and Vin Diesel are being mentioned as possible contenders. Rumours are sweeping Hollywood that A-list actors are clamouring for parts even before the new script and score surface. 'Actors are emerging who we never knew had good voices or who were capable of dancing. They are saying to their agents, 'Hey, put me in a musical'." Sydney Morning Herald 03/24/03
How Many Operas Are There? (How Many Worth Listening To?) How many operas are there? a few hundred? A thousand? Fifteen hundred? We're aware of more and more from the past as the years progress. "Strange then that the part of the repertoire least certainly alive is the modern, the new, the freshly commissioned. But perhaps 50 years from now people will look back on us and pity us for our ignorance of our contemporaries, who are as obscure to us as Handel was to Dent." The Guardian (UK) 03/29/03
Have Band, Will Hire Want to hire the Rolling Stones for your party? It'll cost you $13 million. The Eagles will play for $7.8 million. Indeed, many famous bands will sign on for a private performance if the money's right. "Michael Jackson started the trend 10 years ago when he played for the Sultan of Brunei, who has also hired Diana Ross and Whitney Houston for family gatherings, and Bob Dylan has been known to do a gig or two." Sydney Morning Herald 03/30/03
A New House For Jazz America's best jazz clubs present great artists, but to small audiences. Lincoln Center's new jazz complex - a collaboration between architect Rafael Vinoly and acoustician Russell Johnson - now being built at Columbus Circle, will be a versatile institution meant to promote jazz in many forms. Chicago Tribune 03/28/03
How SF Opera Found Itself In Money Trouble So how did San Francisco Opera, one of the biggest in America, work itself into a $7 million debt? "In 1999, with 93 performances and $24 million ticket income, we had an optimal year. Last year it was $22.4, the previous two years, $21.2 and $23.7 and for the current year we are projecting $21.5. There is Iraq, and the tourists are not coming. We’re trying to cut costs as responsibly and as carefully as possible. Every dollar. It would be phenomenal to end with zero deficit." San Francisco Classical Voice 03/25/03
Union Files Complaint Against SF Opera The American Guild of Musical Artists has filed an unfair-labor-practice complaint against the San Francisco Opera. In February the companay, which is having big money problems, announced it was cutting its annual Western Opera Theater tour because "the costs, scope and purpose of the Western Opera Theater tour were no longer in line with the Opera Center's need for fiscal responsibility." The union says that the company violated the National Labor Relations Act "by taking such action without prior notice to or bargaining with the union." Backstage 03/27/03
Here's Your Trophy, Now Hit The Road The musicians who win the top prizes at major international competitions are, of course, some of the best players in the world. You would think that such prizewinning talents would immediately find themselves with a full schedule of recital dates and solo appearances in the world's top venues. But in fact, most prizewinners quickly find that their careers get only a minimal boost from even the most celebrated competitions. Case in point: Van Cliburn gold medalists Olga Kern and Stanislav Ioudenitch, currently touring such classical music meccas as, um, Kansas City. Kansas City Star 03/23/03
Musicians Avoiding America Cancellations are coming in from European musicians and ensembles wary of performing in America in the midst of a globally unpopular invasion of Iraq. Last week, Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu cancelled an appearance at the Met Opera, and this week, the Rotterdam Philharmonic called off a major U.S. tour, which would have included a stop at Carnegie Hall. Some of the performers have cited security concerns - others have merely said that they don't wish to be in America while the war is going on. The New York Times (first item) 03/27/03
Scotland - Jazz Incubator? Scotland has long made a contribution to jazz out of all proportion to its size. The list of famous players runs across generations and genres. But the 1990s were a particularly invigorating period for Scottish jazz. 'This is a small scene. It doesn't have the economic power to keep buying American tours. What's been appreciated here in recent years, and what is becoming apparent inside and outside Scotland now, is that we're growing our own stars'." The Guardian (UK) 03/26/03
Covent Garden To Stage Its First Musical London's Royal Opera House, out to prove it is more populist than in the past, has scheduled its first musical for the main stage: Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. Music director Antonio Pappano "said he wanted to open the windows ... 'I am not interested in this old argument about what is opera and what is musical theatre. Often it's so intense and serious here, but it is OK for this opera house to have fun too'." The Guardian (UK) 03/27/03
Dream Team Orchestra Many conductors, as they travel 'round the world, play games of Dream Team - picking the best players from top orchestras and imagining how the all-star orchestra would sound. Mostly, it's an excercise of imagination. But Claudio Abbado, "presiding at this summer's Lucerne Festival, has cherry-picked players from symphony and chamber orchestras, string quartets and solo rosters to form an ensemble that will be the envy of Salzburg and a thumb in the eye for the Berlin Philharmonic, from whom Abbado parted company last year. Such dreams can come true only at festival time. In permanent orchestras, maestros get along with tenured musicians of uneven temperament and with the human clay thrown up at auditions." London Evening Standard 0326/03
A New Opera Masterpiece? John Rockwell heads off to New York City Opera for Mark Adamo's "Little Women" with low expectations and comes away believing he's heard "some sort of masterpiece." Almost everything in the production work, from the libretto to the music and cast. "The two styles blend effectively, the modernism not rigorously alienating and the lyricism genuine and heartfelt. Nearly all the big moments in the opera work." The New York Times 03/26/03
British Radio Restricts Songs During The War British radio stations are restricting the songs they play. " 'We do not want to upset listeners by playing anything which is inappropriate in the current climate. We continue to monitor our output on a daily basis in light of the war to ensure we are sensitive to the expectations of our listeners'. Producers have been asked to play music with a 'light, melodic' feel before and after news bulletins, especially if the reports contained distressing news." The Guardian (UK) 03/25/03
Bringing Jazz To Rock Trying to win fans, jazz tried hard to incorporate pop music into its bones. "But as each new attempt to bring jazz to rock failed loudly, a new generation of jazz musicians has quietly been bringing rock to jazz. In this reverse fusion, instead of applying rock's rhythms and amplified dynamics to jazz forms, they've brought jazz sophistication and swing to rock tunes. The range of material being drawn from is as broad as pop itself." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/25/03
Is Salsa Dying? "To put it mildly, salsa music is in a slump. The once-vibrant genre that has captivated audiences around the world for decades has suddenly become a backwater business, with a declining market share and extremely uncertain prospects." Los Angeles Times 03/25/03
Reality Music - In Search Of The Blues Congress has declared 2003 as the Year of the Blues, commemorating the 100th anniversary of an encounter that may have produced the first written account of blues music. And the blues is enjoying something of a resurgence in popularity. But some worry that the authenticity of the music is being compromised... The New York Times 03/25/03
The Hermit Who Wrote A Hit Opera Not for years has a new opera wowed the critics and enthralled the public as Danish composer Poul Ruders’s opera of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid’s Tale" has done. "Premiered three years ago in Copenhagen in a staging by Phyllida Lloyd, the Dane’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1986 bestseller was acclaimed as a modern masterpiece: savage, satirical, yet lyrical, evoking both a brutal totalitarianism and private tragedy. 'The Handmaid’s Tale' looks like it may be one of the most popular operas of our time. Productions are planned in Washington, Minneapolis and Toronto. And next week it gets its British premiere when Lloyd’s staging comes to English National Opera." The Times (UK) 03/24/03
The Man Who Saved The Kirov "In 1988, conductor Valery Gergiev emerged as a "poster-boy for Gorbachev's perestroika, an intense young man chosen at the tender age of 34 to lead Leningrad's Kirov Opera. Today, everything has changed: Leningrad is once again St. Petersburg, and the Kirov Theatre has reverted to its czarist name, the Mariinsky (although its ensembles - the opera, the ballet, the orchestra and chorus -- still tour under the name Kirov). The one factor that has remained constant is Gergiev. He's no longer quite so young - his shaggy hairstyle disguises a combed-over bald spot - yet he has lost none of his intensity." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/24/03
Houston Mayor To Get Involved In Symphony Strike It worked in New York with the Broadway musicians strike. Now Houston mayor Lee Brown has decided to get involved in the Houston Symphony musicians strike. He's appointed a special representative to work with the two sides and "said his action is aimed at helping the parties come to an agreement and return the Symphony to the Jones Hall stage, since a prolonged dispute is not only detrimental to the orchestra, but also to the entire city of Houston." Houston Mayor's Office 03/24/03
San Francisco Opera Cuts Staff, Budget Struggling to solve its financial situation, San Francisco Opera has cut $5.2 million from its budget. Six jobs were cut, and production cutbacks were made. "In addition to the $2.8 million in savings projected from the staff cuts, SF Opera director Pamela Rosenberg has approved $1.8 million in savings in production expenses, including travel, material and construction costs." San Francisco Chronicle 03/22/03
The Sound Inside Your Head HyperSonic Sound is something entirely new in sound reproduction. It sounds like it's coming from inside your head. "It is no exaggeration to say that HSS represents the first revolution in acoustics since the loudspeaker was invented 78 years ago - and perhaps only the second since pilgrims used 'whispering tubes' to convey their dour messages." The New York Times 03/23/03
Saatchi's Big New Show At the age of 60, Charles Saatchi is embarking on his most ambitious project yet. "Halfway between Tates Britain and Modern, he is opening a new gallery. At 40,000 sq ft, it is larger than any venue he has managed before. In it he will showcase his major trophies - Damien Hirst's shark, Tracey Emin's bed, Jake and Dinos Chapman's vision of hell - and lots more. If he gets only a tenth of the 12 million people who walk along that stretch of river each year he will have increased his audience by 100 per cent. And, with an £8 a head entrance fee, the new gallery, which he has leased from a Japanese property company, could pay handsome dividends." The Telegraph (UK) 03/30/03
Why Approval For Polanski The Child Molester? Beth Gillin wonders why Hollywood was applauding Roman Polanski last week when he won an Oscar. "Wait a minute. Did they just give the Academy Award to a child molester? And why are the beautiful people giving him a standing ovation? For many watching the Oscars Sunday, it was an icky moment, marked by obscenely excessive applause. Polanski could not be there to pick up his gold statuette for directing The Pianist, because if he sets foot in this country, he'll be handcuffed and hauled off to prison for up to 50 years." Philadelphia Inquirer 03/30/03
Detective Fiction By Day, Opera By Night By day Donna Leon writes detective novels - 12 so far - and succesful thrillers at that. Successful enough, anyway, to fund her true passion, running a baroque opera company. By night she runs an opera company, largely funded from her life of crime. Not many of her readers know this, but it won't surprise them. Opera seeps into her books - their plots, their atmosphere - like dripping blood. Each one comes prefaced by a few lines of Mozartian libretto - usually from Cosi fan tutte, which for some reason seems to lend itself to the mechanics of murder-mystery even though it's an opera in which no one actually dies." The Telegraph (UK) 03/27/03
A Philanthropist On The Ropes Alberto Vilar, the philanthropist and opera-lover who has donated more than $300 million to arts organizations around the world, has missed mortgage payments on three vacation homes in Colorado, and local banks are foreclosing. Vilar, who was one of the first investors on the high-tech bandwagon of the 1990s, appears not to have gotten off in time to avoid heavy investment losses. In recent months, he has missed payments to several arts organizations to which he had pledges outstanding, and the current overdue mortgage payments reportedly total $2.74 million. Vilar is said to be furious with the banks' decision to foreclose. Denver Post 03/25/03
Top Programmer Leaves CBC Adrian Mills, who was brought in last year to revamp the CBC's programming, has resigned from the public broadcaster. "Mills' departure was described by one observer as 'reassuring,' and it will certainly be applauded by those listeners who became disgruntled with CBC Radio's dramatic changes under his leadership." Mills had said his mandate was to go after a "younger, more diverse, audience. 'Canada is changing, and society has changed, so CBC Radio needs to make sure it is as relevant to future generations as it was to previous ones." National Post (Canada) 03/25/03
What And How We Read How do Britons read? And what? A survey asks the questions. "Those who study the bestseller lists with bewilderment each week can take comfort from the fact that the sales of new books don't necessarily reflect what the nation is reading. Seventy-three per cent of people buy new books, but 41 per cent borrow library books, 42 per cent borrow books from friends and family, and 41 per cent buy from secondhand shops." The Telegraph (UK) 03/23/03
Griffin Prize (Poetry's Richest) Shortlist Announced The three nominees for the Griffin Prize's Canadian short list and the four nominees in its international competition were announced yesterday in Toronto by the prize's founder, Scott Griffin. The $40,000 prize - the richest in poetry - attracted 320 entries... National Post 03/29/03
Saving Afghan Books "New York University has just begun an ambitious project to digitize all the books printed in Afghanistan from 1871 to 1930, the earliest period of publishing there, and to catalog them and make them available electronically. The effort to preserve and widely disseminate the rare Afghan books is a counterpoint to decades of destruction of the country's art, books and monuments. In the early 1990's alone, tens of thousands of books in both the Kabul Public Library and the Kabul University Library were destroyed under Taliban rule." The New York Times 03/30/03
A Poetry Award With Narrow Scope So the organizers of the new $10,000 Trillium Prize for a first book of poetry by an Ontario resident couldn't find enough entrants to even mount a shortlist. Can we really be surprised? wonders Alex Good. How many good new debut poetry books by an Ontario resident are there in a given year. Who are the people running this award? A check of the group's website reveals an intimidating corporate "mission statement": "Our focus is to build capacity and competitiveness of Ontario's cultural media industry, individually and across the sectors and to provide opportunities that encourage business alliances across the cultural industries." GoodReports 03/30/03
Driven To Read "There is a natural symbiosis between long-distance truckers and the audio book business. Just about anyone who has taken a road trip knows the boredom of the long empty stretches. For truckers who have the interstate system memorized, a story well told can make miles go by faster. Truck drivers have a critical underground that passes judgment mercilessly on recorded books. They swap tapes and book advice at freight terminals and at truck stops, where taped books are often available to rent. Reviews of audio books are a feature of trucking magazines and Web sites. Drivers tend to disdain abridged versions." The New York Times 03/28/03
War Pushes book Promotion Out Of Spotlight Publishers rushing to promote war-relevant books, are abandoning other books as TV promotion concentrates on the war on Iraq. "Books, perhaps even more than movies or music, depend on the news media for publicity. And for now, TV news is all war, all the time. That means some authors are being unceremoniously bumped, while others who had trouble attracting publishers a few years ago suddenly are welcomed as experts." USAToday 03/27/03
Poetry Jury Fails To Field Shortlist - Poetry Fans Protest Poetry fans are protesting that the jury for the new $10,000 Trillium Prize for poetry in Canada were unable to come up with a shortlist for the prize. "There were very few titles published in 2002 that met the criteria of a first book of poetry by a poet resident in Ontario for three of the last five years." Only ten books were submitted, but protesters want a new jury to be chosen and the deadline to be extended. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/27/03
Library Workers File Complaint About Porn Access Some employees at the Minneapolis Public Library have filed a complaint against the library for allowing free access to porn sites on public computers. The say that "the library's policies have attracted hard-core pornography users who monopolize the library's computers and 'would react angrily and at times violently if any effort was made to interfere (with) or halt their access to pornographic materials'," in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis. St. Paul Pioneer-Press 03/27/03
Dante - Burn Baby Burn "We're living in a golden age of Dante translation. Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky touched it off when he published an excellent, widely acclaimed verse translation of the Inferno in 1995. In just the last year, five new editions of the Inferno have appeared, including a reprint of Longfellow's landmark version. Still more surprising, there are three new translations of the much less popular Purgatorio, the second of the Comedy's three 'canticles.' And the torrent doesn't stop there." Slate 03/26/03
Dumb And Dumber - Just How Do These Books Get Published? It's supposed to be really difficult to get a book published, right? So how to account for all the really dumb books out there? "What were they thinking? I'm not talking here about bad books. Though they exist, books that are just plain and irredeemably awful are too sad to waste time thinking about. No: the books I'm presently pondering aren't necessarily bad - though some of them are - they're just so... well... dumb and unplaceable, it's difficult to imagine book store owners knowing what to do with them, let alone book buyers." January Magazine 03/03
Are Your Passports In Order? Why is it that some books travel well and others can't at all? There seems to be no pattern, no formula that predicts books with an international appeal. Indeed, some books seem to do better abroad than they do at home... The Observer (UK) 03/23/03
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http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre
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Room For Politics In Theatre? Why does the idea of political theatre scare off so many people? "Perhaps the problem is the very term 'political': most often it is used to mean theatre with a left-wing axe to grind. So, among other things, the question carries with it a hackle-raising, almost indiscernible whiff of red-baiting: 'Are you now or have you ever been a member of the...?' Added to this, there is the fairly mainstream notion that ideas and political theory are limiting for writers, if not downright hostile to talent and the 'real', and that truth springs from the individual, unencumbered by the blinkers of politicking." The Guardian (UK) 03/29/03
Theatre - Putting Conflict In Perspective "The bracing, dizzying state of the world lately has given rise to several plays about politics, and even more articles about plays about politics. The great virtue of plays about political history like 'Midnight’s Children' and 'Golda’s Balcony' is that they take the seemingly intractable problems out of the realm of finality and return them to contingency, where they belong. They remind us that, although the conflicts in the Middle East and on the Indian subcontinent owe much to ancient grudges and religious rivalries, they are also a product of individual leaders and the discrete decisions that they made." New York Sun 03/29/03
Broadway Box Office Steady During The War During the 1991 Gulf War, business on Broadway faltered as people stayed home. That hasn't happened so far with the Iraq war. Last week "business climbed primarily for musicals, with two of the most popular, 'Hairspray' and 'The Lion King,' selling out and grossing over $1 million each. There were sturdy ticket sales for such shows as 'The Producers,' 'Mamma Mia!' and 'Chicago'. Although overall ticket sales were off from a year ago, $12.9 million compared to $14.2 million in 2002, there were more shows playing last year - 31 shows compared to 27 productions last week." Nando Times (AP) 03/26/03
West End Theatre - It Really Was The Good Old Days Michael Billington wonders if West End theatre is at its lowest ebb ever. So he does a little research on what was offered decades ago compared to today. "After comparing what is on offer today with the same week over the past four decades, I have come to the melancholy conclusion that the West End is dwindling into neon-lit irrelevance. What seems to have gone out of the window is the idea that the commercial sector should offer a kaleidoscope of possibilities: musicals, comedies, farces, thrillers, straight plays and classic revivals. The irony is that it is probably better run than at any time in recent memory." The Guardian (UK) 03/26/03
Opportunity Through Shakespeare Is Shakespeare the new opportunity for female actors? "From solo plays to plays using music, dance, and original monologues and dialogues, women are freely appropriating almost anything relating to the Bard - his plays, his sonnets, even his biography - to forge highly original works that showcase female sensibilities, perspectives, and talent." Backstage 03/25/03
Mid-Size Squeeze It is a truism that in tough economic times large theatres cut back and small theatres continue doing what they do because their expenses are low. But mid-size theatres - they're the ones that really get hurt. "With little in the way of economic cushions and small staffs that already have employees doing two and three jobs apiece, these theaters are struggling to economize without having to cannibalize." St. Paul Pioneer Press 03/25/03
Denver Center Cancels Premiere The Denver Center Theatre cancelled its opening show of next season - "Diner Stories" - with book, music and lyrics by Nancy Shayne. "It would have been the only musical in the new season and, more important, the only world premiere. Apparently, the author withdrew the show, and it's unlikely she will take it to another company. Denver Center, which has eliminated its literary department, has few resources for discovering new works by new talent" for a replacement. Rocky Mountain News (Denver) 03/23/03
VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/visualarts
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Michelangelo "Doodles" being Restored For six weeks in 1530, Michelangelo hid in a little cell-like room while the Medicis wanted him dead. While there, he drew on the walls. "The collection of around 50 'doodles', first discovered by Paolo dal Poggetto in 1975, include a self-portrait, a life-size risen Christ and some sketches experts believe are copies of figures the artist had painted earlier on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel." The drawings are being restored after having badly deteriorated. The Guardian (UK) 03/29/03
Moshie Safdie And The "Anti-Bilbao" Since the Bilbao Guggenheim opened, no museum can afford to be blase about getting bigger. "Today, no museum Web site worth its salt is without a section on its imminent, or just completed, 'expansion,' 'renovation,' 'renaissance' or 'transformation.' The rhetoric is eerie in its uniformity: The new building will display the museum collection in a 'fundamentally new way.' It will provide the public with a 'richer and deeper experience.' It will be an 'exciting new public space.' And, of course, the café and bookstore will be expanded." Architect Moshe Safdie has come along with a kind of "anti-Bilbao" approach to museum-building. National Post (Canada) 03/30/03
Trading Up - Boston's MFA Sells Art To Buy Art Boston's Museum of Fine Arts is selling a Renoir and two Degas pastels, hoping to raise $12-17 million so the museum can buy an [unnamed] 19th Century painting it wants to acquire. "It will be by far the most money raised through a sale in the MFA's history. It will also mark the museum's highest profile deaccession since 1984. That's when the MFA traded two Renoir pastels and a Monet painting - plus $600,000 - to a New York dealer for a Jackson Pollock painting. It was a controversial move, and an assistant curator resigned in protest. But this week, MFA officials stressed that support for the deaccession was unanimous from the five curators in the art of Europe department, the 27-person collections committee, and the 70-member board of trustees." Boston Globe 03/28/03
Crowds Change The Art Experience Epic lines at New York's major museum shows make going to see some art a confusing and difficult experience. "You either have to get in the very front, in which case you get pushed, or in the very back, in which case you can't see. It's not like you can stand in front of a painting and wait. You'll get trampled." The New York Times 03/28/03
Wales, Scotland, Striking Out On Their Own At Biennale Scotland and Wales are jumping ship at the Vennice Biennale this year - both countries are pulling out of the British pavilion to set up their own shows. "As if to underline their secessionist tendencies, the Welsh have bagged a bigger venue - the Ex-Birreria brewery on Giudecca - and they are throwing a party for the art glitterati while sobriety will be observed in the British pavilion. The Welsh deny that they harbour historical resentments, but do point out that the British council has not honoured a Welsh artist at the biennale for 40 years." The Guardian (UK) 03/28/03
Collapse Of Art Investment Co. Hurts Artists, Investors The collapse of art investment company Taylor Jardine has left a lot of artists and investors owed money. "Investors were told that once they had bought the paintings, Taylor Jardine would arrange for them to be leased to companies in London. They were assured this would generate an annual income of about 15 per cent on top of any increase in the value of the paintings. But, by the time the company folded, just 300 of the 2,000 paintings had been leased. This was a company that banked at Harrods and stored its art at Christie's. Its brochures were glossy, its website was slick and its salesmen had public school accents. But despite the swanky exterior, investors have lost £6.4m and struggling artists have been told they may have lost the works they offered for sale." The Telegraph (UK) 03/28/03
The New Saatchi Museum...Er, Gallery So is Charles Saatchi's new gallery in competition with the big London museums? "The press has made so much of the supposed rivalry. I'm looking forward to working with the two Tates and the Hayward. Where we differ is that we will always be able to remain at the cutting edge of new art because we can buy and sell, and we're not answerable to taxpayers or to the idea of a national collection. We're about contemporary art - that's to say of the past 20 or so years - not modern art. Our job is to showcase new British art, and to act as a springboard between art colleges and major museums. We'll always be changing the collection, sometimes gradually, at others quickly. And we don't plan ahead. Only once a show is up will we think about what the next one might be." London Evening Standard 03/28/03
UK - Finding All The Public Art Britain is initiating a national campaign to catalogue all the oil paintings in all the public collections in England, "down to the last dusty alderman hanging in a council waiting room." The Guardian (UK) 03/28/03
Russian Prosecutor Threatens Culture Minister Over Plan To Return Art The Russian Prosecutor's office has informed the Russian Culture Minister that he will face criminal charges if he goes ahead with a plan to return an art collection stolen from Germany after World War II. "The prosecutor's office, which has been investigating the matter over the past few weeks, said the Culture Ministry does not have the authority to decide to hand over the 362 drawings and two paintings that once belonged to the Bremen Kunsthalle." Moscow Times 03/26/03
Is Saddam Holding Historical Treasures Hostage? "Millennia ago, Iraq was the cradle of civilization, hence the concern about its cultural and archaeological sites. Is the U.S. taking sufficient care to spare Iraq's treasures? The laws of warfare make clear that while combatants may not target such sites, if they are used for military purposes they lose their protection." Unfortunately, say US commanders, the Iraqis have are putting military targets next to important archaeological sites. Recently Iraq "placed military equipment and communications equipment next to the 2,000-year-old brick arch of Ctesiphon on the banks of the Tigris River, the world's largest surviving arch from ancient times and the widest single-span arch in the world." OpinionJournal.com 03/27/03
Injunctions, Donations, And Auctions, Omai! London's Tate museum has been given a surprise £12.5 million gift in order for it to purchase a valuable British painting at risk of leaving the country. Sir Joshua Reynolds "Portrait of Omai" was sold at auction for £10.3 million last year, and a concerted effort was launched by the government to insure that the portrait stayed in the UK. An injunction was put in place barring the work's export temporarily, while a UK buyer was sought. The Tate had previously tried to purchase the work in 2001, but its offer was turned down. BBC 03/26/03
We're Watching You - The Eye Project British artist Antony Gormley travelled to China and enlisted the help of 300 villagers to create thousands of small figures with only eyes for features. "He and the villagers got stuck in to 100 tonnes of clay. He hoped for 120,000 figures but in five days 192,000 were produced." Now they're all arranged to fill up a room - 384,000 eyes all staring at whoever comes to see them. The Guardian (UK) 03/25/03
India's National Museum To Expand India's National Museum in New Delhi has got the go-ahead for a major expansion. "Pending for more than a decade now, this ambitious project will not only provide the museum with much needed space but also result in the headquarters of the Archaeological Survey of India being shifted to a new location." The Hindu 03/25/03
Art - The New (Old) Investment "In a year when many business investments have suffered, the value of art has kept rising. Over recent decades, everyone from Madonna to the Queen Mother discovered that if you invested in a Monet, you could end up making a lot of money. Collecting art today is perhaps more widespread than it has ever been. Once the prerogative of those with inherited wealth, auction houses are enjoying a new and varied clientele, including millionaire rock musicians and actors. Professional collectors will tell you it is addictive: there is always another - better - acquisition on the next horizon. Part of the thrill is the chase." The Scotsman 03/25/03
Art Sales Scandals - Broken Trust Recent tax scandals with art sales, and the auction houses' price fixing trials damage all of the art world, writes ex-dealer Andre Emmerich. "Art dealing is a business based on trust. People who buy and sell art - whether or not they consider themselves collectors - must have confidence in the person they are doing business with. When one dealer is seen to be dishonest, the public is likely to conclude that most dealers are shady, just as the recent scandals surrounding Enron, Tyco and a few other corporations have affected investor confidence across the board." OpinionJournal.com 03/25/03
Breaking Up Andre Breton's Treasure "Why are some scholars aghast at the idea of breaking up Andre Breton's art collection? "The surrealist wizard was an outstanding art critic as well as a classic prose writer, a major poet, and a perceptive commentator on more general intellectual history. Because of his commitment to the work of leading painters and sculptors, Breton's art collection ranged from André Derain to Man Ray and Joan Miró, from Giacometti to James Rosenquist, a Pop artist he admired. But he was also a connoisseur of the indigenous arts of the Pacific, especially New Guinea and its neighboring islands, as well as of the Hopi and other Pueblo Indians and the pre-Columbian cultures of Mexico. What's more, his personal friendships extended from the outstanding Parisian poets and artists of his time to such figures as Sigmund Freud and Leon Trotsky--all of whom presented him with signed books and manuscripts." Weekly Standard 03/31/03
Destroying The Cradle Of Civilization? Archaeologists fear that George Bush's war on Iraq and its aftermath could "obliterate much of humanity's earliest heritage. Heavily looted in the last 10 years, Iraq's archaeological treasure remains as precarious as the rest of the country's post-war future. 'What's really at stake here is our past. What happened here was the establishment of civilization as we know it - codified religion, bureaucracy, cities, writing. What developed there was modern life - urban existence." Philadelphia Inquirer 03/24/03
Preservation Hall - Those 60s Buildings As Art London's Royal College of Art needs to expand in the worst way. The college held a design competition, and everything seemed set to go, until preservationists got wind of the plan to demolish some of the RCA's current 60s-vintage building. "Hold on a sec, says the Twentieth Century Society. Isn’t the RCA listed? You can’t just knock it about willy-nilly..." The Times (UK) 03/245/03
America's Asia Connection Asian art is everywhere in the US these days. "This week 10 or more sizable exhibitions devoted to Asian art are under way or about to open in American museums. The Puritans, who saw the devil’s hand in almost anything foreign, would have run for their torches. But if they saw the U.S. museum calendar these days, they would not have known where to run next. Immigration has produced larger Asian-American communities all over the U.S., which have not only heightened the demand for their cultural patrimony but also produced the prosperous donors and collectors who slap the money down for the shows." Time Canada 03/24/03
Looking at What Matters In Art Art magazines are full of stories about how communication between artists, the art establishment and the public have broken down. That leads to lots of bristling opinions, often without much thought. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel invited a group of "artists, curators, critics, a museum director and his visiting farmer friend, art students and art teachers - one Saturday morning to tackle some tough but fundamental questions about contemporary art. Why does art even matter? What's 'good' or 'relevant' anyway? Who gets to say so? Should art be beautiful, expressive, dense with ideas, easily understood, a perfect match for the sofa?" Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 03/24/03
Art & Auction Magazine Sold Louise Blouin MacBain, former CEO of auction house Phillips has bought struggling "Art & Auction" magazine from LVMH Moët Hennessey Louis Vuitton, with plans to "redesign the 25-year-old magazine and develop a sister newsletter on art market data and investment trends. She plans to nearly double the magazine's circulation of 22,000 over the next three months by expanding into Germany, France and England." Crains New York Business 03/23/03
The New Irish Architects "Paradoxically, despite the fact that architecture now seems more than ever to be dominated by that flying circus of the perpetually jet- lagged who get to build everything, architecture is one of those areas in which, given the right circumstances, the differences between the metropolitan and the provincial count for much less than they do in most other cultural forms. The new names that are beginning to attract international attention in architecture are as likely to be from Croatia, Iran or China and Ireland as they are from America or Japan." And now Irish architects are making their move. The Observer (UK) 03/23/03
