IDEAS
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas
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The Inevitable Tragedy of Urban Memory Lapse It happens in every city, particularly in North America: things disappear. They become other things, or sometimes they become nothing. But they disappear, either because no one wanted them, or they were dated, or dilapidated, or just plain ugly. Eventually, you walk past something that was once something else, and you can't even remember what it used to be. And that moment, says Geoff Pevere, is one of the saddest aspects of modern urban existence. Toronto Star 04/18/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas/redir/20030418-21301.html
Email Patterns Show Who Counts In A Group Turns out you can tell who's important in a group of people by tracking the email traffic within the group. "Researchers have developed a way to use e-mail exchanges to build a map of the structure of an organization. The map shows the teams in which people actually work, as opposed to those they are assigned to. The technique can also reveal who is at the heart of each sub-group. These people often correspond with company-designated leaders such as project managers. But unofficial de facto leaders can also emerge. The approach might even help to pinpoint the heads of criminal or terrorist networks." Nature 03/20/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas/redir/20030417-21252.html
What's In A Voice? Why do those radio announcers with melodious vocal timbre so often turn out to be singularly unattractive when you meet them in person? "While there is a clear connection among age and sex and the pitch of a person's voice, there's no connection between pitch of voice and height, weight or any other dimension of an individual's size... However, there are 'telltale' signs of body size in the 'shape' or resonance of the voice." A university study is examining the connections. Calgary Herald 04/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas/redir/20030416-21056.html
Moby Bush? Jason Epstein equates Moby Dick to the current Bush Administration. "Melville's great novel is prophetic even if the resemblance of the Pequod to George Bush's White House is imperfect. Though Ahab's missing leg and the destroyed Twin Towers are symbolically comparable losses, as is Dick Cheney's lost opportunity to kill Saddam Hussein in 1991, Iraq will not crush and sink the United States as the whale crushed and sank the Pequod. Nor is George W. Bush a grizzled monomaniac whose mere glance strikes terror, but the callow instrument of neoconservative ideologues, obsessed since the end of the cold war with missionary zeal to Americanize the world, as previous empires had once hoped with no less zeal to Romanize, Christianize, Islamicize, Anglicize, Napoleonize, Germanize, and communize it." New York Review of Books 05/01/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas/redir/20030414-20949.html
ARTS ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues
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Colorado State Arts Budget Depends On Cigarettes? The Colorado legislature, which had been debating whether to cut state arts funding, voted to restore some of it, but there's a but (or is that "butt?"). Funding for the interlibrary loan program and the arts council would be contingent on the state receiving its tobacco payments." Denver Post 04/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030415-21030.html
Florida Contemplates Eliminating Arts Funding Florida arts groups are barcing for the worst - that state arts funding will be eliminated. "Even in the dark days of the early 1990s, when the National Endowment for the Arts was under attack, no state government joined the chorus to eliminate arts funding within its own borders. Florida in particular was among some that increased support to compensate for the reduced role of the NEA. But that was before the economic shudders of the dot-com bust, the Sept. 11 attacks, Wall Street scandals and wars on terrorism and Iraq caused tax revenue collections to plummet." However, "this is not an economic issue. The legislators have turned it into a policy issue." The Sun-Sentinel (Florida) 04/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030415-21029.html
Kennedy Center - Right Building, Wrong Place? So there are big plans to improve the Kennedy Center and connect it up with the rest of the city. Great, writes Charles Paul Freund, but the Kennedy Center still lacks that element crucial to a great cultural institution... Reason 04/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030414-20937.html
Rosenthal To Gioia: Fund Artists Over Institutions LA Times reader Rachel Rosenthal doesn't like NEA chairman Dana Gioia's emphasis on only funding arts institutions at the expense of artists. "Yes, art should be taught in school; yes, it's good to reach out; yes, art should be part of the fabric of social life. But by denying direct support to artists, what you are doing is forcing individual creative artists to mold their output to fit the tastes and policies of existing presenting organizations (theaters, galleries, concert halls) instead of following their own muse. This is a distorting and painful situation for most creators, and it favors interpretive artists: actors, musicians, curators." Los Angeles Times 04/14/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030413-20828.html
Our Cultural Leaders - Where's The Considered Debate? Clive Davis is disappointed by the behavior of Britain's cultural leaders over the issue of the war. "At a time when cultural figures should have been leading a considered debate, Britain’s cultural elite (and a fair part of America’s too) responded with a mixture of hysteria, self-righteousness and wilful ignorance. If you think I am exaggerating, consider just some of the evidence. Exhibit 1 is the poetry (for want of a better word) of Harold Pinter, a once-respected figure who has turned into the literary equivalent of a sad old man with a 'The End Is Nigh' sandwich board." The Times (UK) 04/14/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030413-20824.html
Denver - More Interest In Arts Than Sports A new study reports that in Denver "more people in the Denver area patronize the performing arts than professional sporting events, according to an unprecedented new study of attitudes and attendance patterns. It also shows that among the primary performing-arts disciplines, theater far outdraws dance, opera and the symphony." Denver Post 04/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20030413-20820.html
DANCE
http://www.artsjournal.com/dance
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Rethinking All That Moving Around: Western dance - particularly ballet - has emphasized athleticism (and thereby youth). But more and more, dancers are exploring the Asian tradition, which is less athletic, and concentrates more on the upper body. "By the time critics notice something in art, artists have almost always long since led the way. So it is with Asian dance and its impact on the West, which has by now insinuated itself into our dance vocabulary. Ballet remains popular, and rightly so: there is something thrilling about artistically inflected athletic accomplishment, and we'll always respond to that. But feats of studly skill are not all there is to dance, and Asians know it." The New York Times 04/20/03
http://artsjournal.com/dance/redir/20030420-21359.html
Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley Cuts Budget/Performances: Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley has cut its budget by $1.4 million. "The company's new budget of $4.9 million for 2003-2004 includes pay cuts for staff members, reduced operating budgets for all departments, reduced hours for some employees and the elimination of Sunday evening performances." San Francisco Chronicle 04/19/03
http://artsjournal.com/dance/redir/20030419-21351.html
Pop Goes The Hip Hop: Hip hop is popular. Wildly popular. But it's not like what you see in the pop culture, says Rennie Harris. "This culture, and specifically pop culture, has kind of convinced people that hip-hop dance is sort of a series of steps and patterns. A monkey can do that. They do regimented, synchronized movements in the military, but you don't call it dance. This is not to disrespect that; the point is to let you know that what you are doing right now is not hip-hop, it has evolved into something else. And once it loses the soul, it is no longer dance." Los Angeles Times 04/20/03
http://artsjournal.com/dance/redir/20030419-21345.html
MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/media
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Is Canada Getting Out Of The Canadian Culture Business? Did the Canadian government realize it was slicing up some of Canada's most successful TV shows and bumping them off the air when it cut $25 million from a fund to help produce them? Or has the government just decided that spending money subsidizing Canadian culture is no longer a good idea? Whatever - the impact of this decision will be huge. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/17/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030417-21196.html
What Happened To The Serious Arts On PBS? "While film and video makers still have a presence on PBS, albeit usually in the late night slot, contemporary performing arts appear to have been replaced by baby boomer-oriented MOR rock, a recent renewal of interest in early doo-wop, R&B and soul, light classical fare (including all the multitudinous variations on the Three Tenors), a very curious and unexpected surge in pop music directed at a rather older viewing demographic like some kind of updated version of the Lawrence Welk (e.g. Roger Whittaker), and all manner of new age-y, glitzy, and otherwise flimsy, mainstreamed versions of world music and dance. Enough of Yanni, Fleetwood Mac, Riverdance, Sarah Brightman, and Andrew Lloyd Webber! Give me some new music and contemporary performing arts of substance and meaning!" NewMusicBox 04/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030416-21145.html
Is An "R" Rating Death To A Movie? None of the top 20 films at the box office last year in America were rated "R". "According to Daily Variety, two-thirds of all films released in 2001 earned an R, and they grabbed only 28 percent of the dollars spent at U.S. box offices. Last year, 58 percent of new movies were R-rated, and those accounted for 24 percent of ticket sales. Now, try to predict the future of bold, adult-themed cinema deserving R ratings. That is anyone's guess. But in an industry where imitation breeds success, things aren't looking good for moviegoers who enjoy edgier, sexier or more violent film entertainment." Rocky Mountain News 04/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030416-21142.html
Choosing Against The Internet Being connected to the internet isn't just a matter of being able to afford it, says a new study. "A total of 80 million American adults - 42 percent of the adult population - say they don't use the Internet, the study found. But 20 percent of them have Internet access in the next room and choose not to go online. Or, some of them get family members to go online for them. 'Many of the people whom we talked to define themselves as people who don’t use technology. They view themselves as high-touch versus high-tech." Wired 04/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030416-21133.html
Why Arts Don't Play On TV Why don't the arts find more of an audience on TV? It's because they're ghettoized in "high art" packaging, says one BBC producer. "Hollywood and the advertising industry have succeeded in adapting music, verse and dance to popular taste where television has so far failed." BBC 04/14/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030415-21038.html
SAG And AFTRA Union Leaders Vote To Merge Directors of America's two main actors unions have coted to merge. "Aimed at providing more negotiating muscle, saving money and ending jurisdiction squabbles, the plan would fold the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists into the new Alliance of International Media Artists. Sunday's vote by SAG and AFTRA directors turns the issue over to members, who are expected to vote by this summer. Although the strong support by directors bodes well for the plan, at least 60% of the members still must OK it." Los Angeles Times 04/14/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030414-20947.html
Are NPR Underwriting Spots Too Commercial? Are public radio underwriting spots sounding too much like commercials? Many local public radio stations have been complaining about spots carried on National Public Radio. "In the past several months, stations have blasted the network for accepting a Microsoft spot that urged listeners to 'learn more about…' and one for Saab heralding a '. . . dynamic new look'." Current 04/07/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030414-20936.html
Why Movies Are So Bad This Times Of Year There seems to be great consternation in the movie industry right now over the lackluster performance of recent movies." Why, asks Barry Koltnow? Because movies this time of year stink. "The reason they stink is that all the best movies come out in the last two months of the year because members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are brain-dead and cannot remember a movie longer than two months. Therefore, if you want your movie to be considered for an Oscar, you must release it just before the voting deadline. On the other hand, if you have a fun movie that has the potential to make a lot of money, then you must release it in the summer when school is out and kids have the time to see a movie 12 times a day." Orange County Register 04/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20030413-20833.html
MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/music
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Is Music Better/Worse Depending On Who Wrote It? Does a piece of music's back-story change the way we hear it? Of course. But "do we serve music as a whole by giving attention to pieces whose qualities, taken by themselves, rarely rise above the competent and the agreeable? In other words, does a life that resonates with profound circumstances justify the reputation of music that falls short of such depths? Music moves the spirit in a way that other arts do not. Dare we compromise its integrity, no matter how moving the story attached? Some would say not." The New York Times 04/20/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030420-21360.html
Mix Tapes - Mixing For Trouble Mix tapes/CDs are hot. "Mix tapes are the creations of local DJs who take hits, rarities, the works of up-and-coming rappers or all of the above, and use them to turn a blank CD into a highly personal jukebox. There is intense competition among those DJs to get the freshest material, and because the formal music industry has long viewed the whole scene as a copyright nightmare, a spirit of pirate radio pervades." Los Angeles Times 04/20/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030419-21347.html
America's Top 20 - All About Product Placement Of the 20 songs on the American Top 20 list last week, ten of them plugged products in the songs. "Stars love plugging. Brands love getting plugged. But someday the slightly murky relationship of product placement and what initiates that product being placed in a song might have to change. If you were a sandals-wearing, lead-the-people-through-great-hardship kind of a guy, you might say that this was because it was in some kind of fundamental way "wrong" or something like that. If you're slightly less amazed in these days of 'created brand relevance that doesn't appear orchestrated', then you might just say it's because it's all getting a bit boring." The Guardian (UK) 04/19/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030419-21339.html
San Antonio To Cut Season Short The cash-strapped San Antonio Symphony will end its season more than a month early, and attempt to retool its finances in order to have the funds to mount a full 2003-04 season. The orchestra has been in dire straits for months, with its musicians frequently playing without pay. Orchestra officials say they are optimistic about plans for next season, but acknowledge that the new season may be a shorter one, and might not happen at all if new sources of local funding can't be found. WOAI NewsRadio 1210 (San Antonio) 04/18/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030418-21260.html
Is Music Better With An Explanation? Why do we need theory to explain music? "Actually, theory can be beautiful and illuminating (as opposed to complicated, obfuscating, quagmired, self-important, self-absorbed). And nothing could be more human: the desire to create systems out of chaos or near-chaos is a natural and (usually) noble expression of humanity's ability to reason. And there are theories about everything: Goethe had one about color, Einstein had one about gravity, Eisenstein had one about film montage... Freud about dreams. Darwin even had a pet theory (literally). But music theory is surely the strangest. That's the burden of trying to make sense of the most ethereal, ephemeral, abstract–one could argue the most free–art form." NewMusicBox 04/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030416-21146.html
Rachmaninov - A Shrink-Wrapped Talent? Did psychotherapy turn Rachmaninov from "a composer of ambitious discordances into a tinkler of popular tunes?" So maintains a new book. "It was a kind of unconscious Faustian pact, in which he was seduced into giving up his revolutionary rage in exchange for peace of mind and endless pleasanteries."
London Evening Standard 04/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030416-21138.html
Oregon Symphony Facing Deep Cuts The Oregon Symphony has become the latest in a long line of North American orchestras to announce severe fiscal problems and a series of deep cuts to deal with them. Over the past few years, as the American economy has nosedived, the orchestra's endowment has lost fully 50% of its value. To make up the difference in revenues, Oregon will cut several staff positions, slash salaries, and even reduce the pay of its conducting staff (including legendary outgoing music director James dePriest) by 10%. The ensemble is also asking next season's guest performers to voluntarily reduce their fees, and although no cuts are immediately being made in the salaries of the orchestra's musicians, the subject is sure to come up when their contract is renegotiated next year. The Oregonian (Portland) 04/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030416-21053.html
Opera Doesn't Work On TV. Does It? "Whenever the coverage of arts on the box is discussed, an assumption is voiced that opera is a cornerstone of public-service broadcasting which doesn't feature strongly enough in the schedules. I'm not convinced. The fact is that there has always been quite a lot of opera on BBC2 and Channel 4, and it rarely draws the viewing figures of a million that can, crudely speaking, justify the time and expense. Opera does not normally make very gripping or alluring television." Yet, it can work... The Telegraph (UK) 04/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030415-21042.html
Classical Brit Nominees Nominations for this year's Classical Brit awards offer few surprises. "There are three nominations for a serial winner, the conductor Sir Simon Rattle, two for last year's outstanding contribution award winner, Andrea Bocelli, while last year's album of the year recipient, Russell Watson, is vying for the same award for his third album, Reprise." The Guardian (UK) 04/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030415-21037.html
ENO - The Payne Connection The troubled English National Opera could use some help from Opera Europa, a "powerful European opera forum with a dynamic new director." Unfortunately that director is Nicholas Payne, whom the ENO fired last year. Oh well... The Guardian (UK) 04/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030415-21035.html
San Francisco's Last Fulltime Jazz Club Closing "On Sunday it will be the end for Jazz at Pearl's, the city's last full-time jazz club. The room is losing its lease after 13 years. After a heated back-and-forth with the landlord over renegotiating a lease that, they hoped, would give them five years with an option, [owners] Buxton and Wong folded." Los Angeles Times 04/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030414-20945.html
Spike Lee On The Essential Marriage Of Music And Film "One must come to music with complete respect. I don't know how directors can do a film and after the script's been written, and the film's cut and all this money's been spent - it's like, well now let's get the composer. It's just insane to keep the composer out of the loop until so late." The Telegraph (UK) 04/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030414-20944.html
The Dictator And The Opera North Korean dictator Kim Jong II has written a book on opera. "You might assume the book is a socialist critique of La Traviata and Carmen. Unfortunately, it's nothing so delicious, and isn't even whacked-out enough to be fun. It's just desperately prosaic and, for us, a creepy cautionary tale about what happens when someone whose favorite opera is titled 'Sea of Blood' (and whose favorite movie is Rocky III, according to another of his aesthetic tracts, 'On the Art of the Cinema') attempts to legislate the artistic process." Philadelphia Inquirer 04/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030413-20837.html
PEOPLE
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J Paul Getty II, 70 Billionaire John Paul Getty II has died. "He donated millions to various galleries and institutes but rarely sought publicity for the money he gave away. Among the beneficiaries was the National Gallery in London, which received £50m in 1985 to support its bid to buy national treasures." BBC 04/17/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20030417-21241.html
Musicologist's Death - The Schumann Theory? Did Boston University musicology professor John Daverio try to end his life in the same way as one of his great heroes, Robert Schumann? Daverio's body surfaced in the Charles Monday night after he had been missing since March 16. Daverio wrote the 1997 biography 'Robert Schumann: Herald of a New Poetic Age', which of course mentions the brilliant, disturbed composer's attempt to commit suicide at age 44 by throwing himself into the Rhine..." Boston Globe 04/17/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20030417-21160.html
Peter Prier Preps A Pack Of Plucky Perflers Every professional requires proper training, and luthiers, the mysterious perfectionists who construct the violins, violas, and cellos used by the world's musicians, are no exception. But your average university doesn't offer a major in fingerboard shaving, or even a seminar in perfling. So where do budding luthiers turn for instruction in their craft? A surprising percentage turn to the teaching shop of a single man. In fact, the proliferation of American luthiers is largely due to the efforts of one Peter Prier, of Salt Lake City. Baltimore Sun 04/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20030416-21055.html
Investing In Your Celebrity... A British television show has created a stockmarket out of celebrities. Viewers "give real celebrities a 'share price' and 'invest' in them by predicting whether their 'stock' will rise or fall. 'Celebdaq' (its awkward name stems from Nasdaq) was created for the British Broadcasting Corp. last summer as a Web site, but this year it has also become a controversial Friday night TV show on the new digital channel BBC3, which is targeting an audience aged 25 to 34. The show has the look of a financial news channel. The stock value of some 250 celebrities - actors, musicians, sportsmen and the famous-for-being-famous - crawls across the bottom of the screen like tickertape. Stars have their own abbreviations: SALHAY is Salma Hayek, SANBUL is Sandra Bullock." Los Angeles Times 04/14/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20030414-20946.html
Hughes Pleads Guilty In Car Crash Art critic Robert Hughes has admitted guilt in the car accident he caused in Australia in 1999. "A Perth court fined him A$2,500 (£960, $1,500) after he pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm. Prosecutors said Hughes was driving on the wrong side of the road when the crash happened. But he said he does not remember anything about the head-on accident 120 km (75 miles) south of Broome." BBC 04/14/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20030414-20906.html
PUBLISHING
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing
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Reading In Iraq "In Iraq, and in the Arab world as a whole, public libraries are extremely under-funded and cannot even remotely satisfy the needs of those who want to read. People like me, who had to walk long distances to visit a public library only to be asked to pay huge fees which I could never afford, had no choice but to turn to the libraries of our mosques, which were even poorer than the public ones. The network of bookshops in Iraq is denser than in many other Arab countries. People know about the Iraqis' eagerness to read. During the 1980s, Iraqi booksellers still ordered several times the volume of what their Egyptian colleagues ordered. And despite the embargo and the weak purchasing power of the past years, every new publication sold like hotcakes." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 04/18/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030417-21246.html
Unifying Through The King James The King James Bible, first published in 1611, isn't just a book, of course. But it isn't just a bible, either, reports a new book on the making of the King James. It "was composed in an English that had never been spoken in the street. This was the language of deliberate godliness, yet grounded in easy words and simple things: able to swoop in one verse from the sublimity of the eternal to the clumsiness of a fisherman jumping from a boat. There was a political purpose in this. James I, baptised a Catholic but brought up by Scottish Presbyterians, dreamed of bridging in this Bible his kingdom's religious divides." The Economist 04/18/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030417-21240.html
Post-Partisan Depression The demise of the Partisan Review doesn't mean the magazine will be forgotten. "From its inaugural issue as an independent journal, in 1937, which included Delmore Schwartz's short story 'In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,' a poem by Wallace Stevens and contributions by Lionel Trilling, Sidney Hook and Edmund Wilson, to its heyday in the 1940's and 50's, the journal published an astonishing range of landmark work. For many Americans, Partisan Review was their introduction to Abstract Expressionism, existentialism, New Criticism and the voices of talented young writers like Robert Lowell, Norman Mailer, Elizabeth Hardwick and Susan Sontag." The New York Times 04/17/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030416-21149.html
Why It's Difficult To Get Publishing Sales Figures "Nobody talks about publishing numbers because they are so unbelievably low. How many authors really make a living wage from their advances? How many books actually earn out, or pay their authors anything beyond the initial advance? And how many copies sold turn any particular book into a best-seller? Those are the questions all people interested in publishing think they want to know—and their answers are the ones publishing executives go out of their way not to reveal. A book can be on the best-seller lists for a couple of weeks and have sold 30,000 copies. Within publishing, that’s a reasonably good showing, but compared to, say, the music or movie or magazine business, where sales are measured in millions, it seems like nothing." New York Observer 04/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030416-21131.html
Librarians Fighting The Patriot Act Librarians across America are debating how to protect the privacy of their patrons as the government demands to see borrowing records. "There's a huge concern in the library profession about it. The idea that you're free to read, to think, without government looking over your shoulder is sacrosanct." Chicago Sun-Times 04/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030415-21005.html
Mobs Burn Down Iraq's Libraries Having destroyed Iraq's art treasures in the museums, mobs moved on to Iraq's libraries, destroying the country's written history. "The National Library and Archives a priceless treasure of Ottoman historical documents, including the old royal archives of Iraq were turned to ashes in 3,000 degrees of heat. Then the library of Korans at the Ministry of Religious Endowment was set ablaze." The Independent (UK) 04/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030415-21004.html
Cliche Central There's a central list of words that have become cliched and ought not to be used in good writing. "This year's list consists almost entirely of pat phrases associated with '9/11' and the 'war on terror', all of which are so far beyond mockery and have been so ruthlessly dissected in the (British) press that the list seems sadly unimaginative (it's become clichéd to remark on the clichéness of the clichés). But isn't there an unforgivable fundamentalism in proscribing certain words as 'bad' English and promoting others as 'right', even when done in jest - one that is, at best, pompously pedantic and, at worst, pernicious, given that many 'wrong' words originate with ethnic or cultural groups for whom they are perfectly 'correct'?" The Observer (UK) 04/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030413-20823.html
Scrutinizing The Worth Of National Poetry Month "The designation of April as 'National Poetry Month' suggests special pleading and a strategy of containment-as if all other months were thereby declared poetry-free zones. For poets, readers, and even inadvertent overhearers of poetry, however, there is a constant stream of poetic activity, private and public, involving poets both new and old." But "if National Poetry Month can offer something other than hype, let's make it an opportunity to give our national discourse the scrutiny our best poets have always given to language." Boston Globe 04/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20030413-20815.html
THEATRE
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Can A Broadway Bomb Make It Big On The Road? Seussical the musical was not a hit when it got to Broadway, and the critics were not kind. But after a $2 million makeover, wholesale tinkering from top to bottom, the remade show has been out on the road, and doing pretty well. "The reviews in other cities have been kinder than those of the original production, and the show has performed well at the box office, if a bit unevenly. And, of course, there's a wide range of Seuss souvenirs raking in cash at intermission." Hartford Courant 04/20/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030420-21362.html
Seattle's ACT Theatre Makes Money Deadline, Survives Seattle's ACT Theatre, which said earlier this year that it needed to raise $1.5 million in emergency cash by April 15 or it would close, has found the money. "It was a squeaker, but we did it," said Susan Trapnell, a former ACT manager who volunteered her time for three months to help raise $1.5 million to keep the wolf from ACT's door." Seattle Times 04/17/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030417-21215.html
Brazilian Passion Play Divides A Community Fifty years ago a passion play was first staged in a remote Brazilian village. "Now titled 'The Passion of Christ in New Jerusalem,' it has become the best-known religious entertainment in Brazil, the largest Roman Catholic country. The play, being performed nightly through Saturday, has grown into a lavish million-dollar spectacle that annually draws as many as 70,000 people to what is described as the biggest open-air theater in the world. It is so successful that it has even inspired a rival, dissident pageant." But last year the founder died, and attempts to modernize and show-biz it up are ignited big controversy. The New York Times 04/17/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030416-21148.html
Ancient Athens Theatre Had Terrible Views Scientists have sonstructed computer models of Athens' Odeon Theatre, built 2,500 years ago in the time of Pericles. "They have reconstructed the world's first indoor theatre in three-dimensional virtual reality, only to find that 40% of the audience would have had an obstructed view. They say it would have been worse 'than being stuck behind a 6ft 10in bodybuilder at a modern cinema multiplex'. Athens in the 5th century BC was the home of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides and other playwrights of the golden age. The Odeon was next door to the open-air theatre of Dionysus, near the Acropolis." The Guardian (UK) 04/17/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030416-21144.html
Monica Lewinsky On Broadway? If Jerry Springer can be an opera, why can't Monica Lewinsky be a Broadway musical? Now she will be: "Monica! The Musical" will get its first reading at the Manhattan Theatre Club on May 7. "Its creators, hope that the reading will lead to a stage berth here in New York, where it would join unlikely post-post-ironic musicals such as Debbie Does Dallas, Urinetown and the new Zanna, Don’t!" Some sample lyrics? "I feel I’ve lost my head," sings young Bill. "Don’t look too hard for you will find it / Beneath my dress of red," responds the siren." New York Observer 04/16/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030416-21132.html
More From The Humana Festival This year's offerings at the Humana Festival of new plays followed some common themes. "Bad endings in America? Mopey zeitgeist? Metaphorical navel-gazing? Armchair quarterbacking the philosophical arc of the Humana is the second-most-favorite pastime of the festival. (Relentless schmoozing is, of course, numero uno.) And because so many of this year's scripts seemed not-quite-fully realized, there was plenty of room for interpretation." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 04/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030415-21002.html
What Will It Take To Revitalize The Royal Shakespeare? Has Michael Boyd just taken on the worst job in theatre? He says running the Royal Shakespeare Company is "tricky," not bad. "Recently, it's been very difficult to resist the feeling of the RSC being the largest machine in an entrepreneurial theatrical world, but what we've actually got to be is the alternative to the entrepreneurial world. We've got to be a bit of a bastion of idealism, a bastion of research and development. We need room to experiment with our work, not always feeling the need to programme conservatively. We do Shakespeare for goodness' sake. That's commercial enough in its own right.' He wants to return the RSC to the cutting edge of British theatre." The Telegraph (UK) 04/15/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030414-20943.html
This Year's Humana Fest - The Fear Flows Through Louisville's six-week Humana Festival - America's biggest festival for new plays, is winding up. "In stylistically diverse ways, playwrights featured in the 27th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays tapped into our national post-9/11 angst and let the fear flow through their funny, sobering, provocative works." Miami Herald 04/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030413-20829.html
Royal Shakespeare - Time For A Makeover Directing the down-and-out Royal Shakespeare Company is called the toughest job in theatre. And Michael Boyd now has the job. Big changes are ahead he says. "At present, the RSC is 'too big for anyone to run' and 'too big for people to identify us'. He presides over an antiquated corporate structure, with 30 governors, 12 of whom are on the board. It is imperative, according to at least one governor I spoke to, that the RSC reorganise itself structurally and that creative and commercial genius coincide. Arts Council support depends on the ability to generate income by other means. Boyd has taken this on board, telling me that he and Christopher Foy, the company's managing director, will 'work seamlessly together to try and close the cultural divide between art and management'." The Observer (UK) 04/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030413-20822.html
VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/visualarts
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NEW - ARTSJOURNAL'S ARCHIVE OF STORIES ABOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF IRAQ'S ART
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030420-21313.html
Iraq Museum Looting Overstated? Was the extent of the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad overstated? "Thanks to Iraqi preparations before the war, it seems the worst has been avoided. Donny George, the director-general of restoration at the Iraqi Antiquities Department, Wednesday said his staff had preserved the museum's most important treasures, including the kings' graves of Ur and the Assyrian bulls. These objects were hidden in vaults that haven't been violated by looters. Most of the things were removed. 'We knew a war was coming, so it was our duty to protect everything. We thought there would be some sort of bombing at the museum. We never thought it could be looted'." Wall Street Journal 04/17/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030419-21350.html
Is National Mall Being Memorialized To death? The National Mall in Washington DC is one of America's most important public spaces. And space is the key, writes Christopher Knight. But Congress seems intent on cluttering it up with ever more memorials and tributes, which will certainly ruin a grand place. "Approved or proposed Mall additions now include memorials to President Reagan, Martin Luther King Jr., terrorist victims, Native Americans and soldiers lost in peacekeeping missions. Then there's the network of tunnels, underground security checkpoints and surveillance cameras newly suggested for the Washington Monument. Like other burgeoning examples of a post-Sept. 11 'architecture of fear,' these schemes would destroy the monument in order to save it." Los Angeles Times 04/19/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030419-21344.html
Andre Breton's Estate Broken Up, Sold Surrealist André Breton's personal art collection has been sold at auction. It brought in €46m (£31.8m), twice the pre-sale estimate. "The auctions, which went on late into the night to accommodate telephone bidders from the US, were disturbed by opponents of the state's refusal to buy Breton's rented flat near Pigalle, in the north of Paris, where the surrealist manifesto was drawn up in 1924." The Guardian (UK) 04/19/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030419-21337.html
The Dictator And His (Bad) Art "In light of the atrocities committed against the Iraqi people and other unfortunates over the past 30 years, it is undoubtedly beside the point to criticize Saddam Hussein for his aesthetics. Still, one of the more tantalizing discoveries of the last few days, as we peel back the onion layers of his regime, has been the revelation of the dictator's taste is art..." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/19/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030419-21336.html
The Fog Of Washington Arrogance "Let's be serious. Is anybody really surprised that Baghdad's great civic art museum didn't rate a measly tank? That the treasures of ancient Mesopotamia sat unguarded and exposed, ripe for the picking by local scavengers either amateur or professional? The horrendous event was not, after all, a dire outcome of 'the fog of war.' It was instead a routine example of the fog of the Bush administration, when it comes to matters cultural." Los Angeles Times 04/18/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030418-21285.html
The Real Cost of the Baghdad Looting Although Americans may find it convenient to think of the Middle East as a land of barbaric, uncultured souls prone to unstoppable violence, the recent horrific and systematic destruction of Iraq's cultural firmament points up how wrong these misconceptions truly are. When Baghdad's central library burned to the ground last week, centuries of irreplacable cultural scholarship were lost to the world. Iraq has always taken great pride in its culture and its history, and has catalogued both with a meticulousness which 'cultured' Americans have never matched. "Since 1967, the country has had stringent laws preventing the export of antiquities. One of the saddest ironies of the destruction is that Iraq's defense of its cultural heritage was considered a model for the region." Washington Post 04/18/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030418-21259.html
Cultural History Theft - An Organized Racket "Stealing a country’s physical history, its archaeological remains, has become the world’s third biggest organised racket, after drugs and guns. There are those who argue that it shouldn’t need to be illegal at all. There are those who say, look, the free market should operate here. Why shouldn’t a private collector be allowed to buy an antiquity and keep it in his bathroom, maybe next to the bidet, or as a tasteful holder for the Toilet Duck, if he wishes to do so, and if both he and the seller are happy with the price? You will not be surprised to hear that many of those who argue this way are American. You may not be surprised, either, that shortly before the invasion of Iraq, and with the spoils of war on their mind, some of these people formed themselves into a lobbying organisation called the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP)." The Spectator 04/17/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030417-21251.html
America's Contempt For History (Other Than Its Own) Allowing the destruction of Iraq's art shows the contempt the United States has for other cultures. "The notion that Iraq even has history - let alone that 7,000 years ago this land was the cradle of civilization - is not likely to occur to the neocolonialists running a brawny young nation barely more than 200 years old. The United States' earnest innocence is the charm that our entertainment industry markets so successfully around the world, but it is also the perennial seed of disaster as we blithely rearrange corners of the planet we only pretend to understand." The Nation 04/16/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030417-21250.html
Winnipeg To Build Human Rights Museum Winnipeg Canada is planning to build a $270 million international museum of human rights. About $130 million has been raised so far for the first $200-million phase, to be built on vacant land at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers in downtown Winnipeg. Canoe.com 04/17/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030417-21245.html
What Was Stolen Or Destroyed The Art Newspaper has put illustrations of artwork lost in Iraq's National Museum online. The drawings come from the museum's catalog. "We should stress that at this stage there is no detailed information on what objects have been looted, what have been damaged and what are safe. Nevertheless, the images in the Treasures of the Iraq Museum represent many of the most important objects from the collection, which numbers some 170,000 pieces." The Art Newspaper 04/17/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030417-21222.html
An International Tragedy "The tragedy has provoked international uproar. Western museums have launched an urgent rescue mission to trace and return the missing treasures. Downing Street has demanded a list of the antiquities that can be circulated to British troops in Iraq. Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, has promised a military guard on remaining museums and important archaeological sites. And Unesco is to hold an emergency meeting tomorrow to prepare an action plan. For many, it is too late. Shards of antique pottery, smashed stone sculptures and scattered bits of parchment abandoned in the museum galleries make clear that little care will be taken with the stolen antiquities." The Art Newspaper 04/17/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030417-21220.html
Iraq Art Destruction Makes New Enemies For America That Americans allowed the destruction of Iraqi culture while they stood by and watched has ignited rage among those Iraqis who might have been expected to support the Americans. "Somewhere, in the cacophony of bombs and the orgy of looting that followed, Baghdad's cultural elite became angry about the war, seeing in its destruction a vulgarity that only pushed the country deeper into degradation. Even today, even in Baghdad, there are people unused to chaos, and chaos now it is." The New York Times 04/17/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030417-21217.html
Is Rio Guggenheim A City's Dream Or A Disaster In The Making? Rio de Janeiro officials are hoping that a splashy new Guggenheim museum there will help the city. "Local officials are hailing the proposed museum project as part of a grand new vision of Rio, the South American capital of sun and samba that in the future also could be considered an art lover's tourist destination. But even as the project inches closer to final approval, the new Guggenheim branch's critics are growing in numbers, threatening to derail the city's plans. They say the museum should be subordinated to more pressing social needs such as roads, schools and health care..." Chicago Tribune 04/17/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030417-21193.html
Debunking The Guernica-At-The-UN Story A big story before the war on Iraq began this spring had the United Nations covering up a copy of Picasso's "Guernica" that hangs outside the Security Council. Were US officials skittish about being shown on TV talking about war in front of a powerful anti-war work? No, writes Claudia Winkler. Here's what really happened: As the Iraq drama was playing out at the United Nations, the press corps covering the Security Council swelled. The usual press stakeout, where ambassadors routinely take reporters' questions outside the Security Council, simply couldn't hold the numbers - expected to reach 800 for Powell's address on February 5. So the Secretariat moved the stakeout down the hallway. As over 200 cameramen were setting up, they complained that the background at the new location didn't work for them." They asked for a plain background... Weekly Standard 04/16/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030416-21147.html
Artist, Heal Thyself The economic slump has spread through galleries and museums, and is now hitting individual artists who make their living selling paintings to the public. James Auer thinks that part of the problem is that most artists don't actually buy any art themselves. "It's very difficult to persuade someone to do something you haven't done yourself. And that includes the act of acquiring a fairly costly artwork - and paying off the debt, if necessary, on the installment plan. Collecting fine art can be a creative act, too. Indeed, it's the other, essential end of a vital continuum." Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 04/16/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030416-21059.html
When Is It Okay To Deface Art? "In Paradise Square, Baghdad, tearing down a giant bronze Saddam is seen as moving, heroic and symbolic. Bad art about bad people deserves all the abuse it gets, we might argue, but where do the lines of acceptability lie when an artist wilfully wrecks another artist's work? Jake and Dinos Chapman are in trouble again for defacing a complete set of Goya's 80 Disasters of War etchings. Goya worked on the series for a decade from 1810 and never saw it printed in his lifetime." But strangely, the defacement is moving... London Evening Standard 04/15/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030415-21041.html
Lascaux Cave Painting Threatened The cave paintings at Lascaux in central France survived 20,000 years. But the prehistoric wall paintings are threatened with irreparable damage by modern man's attempts to save them. The Guardian (UK) 04/15/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030415-21039.html
Saatchi's Gallery Opening Party More than 1000 guests turned up for the opening of Charles Saatchi's new gallery in London. The crowd was full of artists and celebrities and "they were treated to a nude happening by Spencer Tunick. Following the 35-year-old artist's directions, 160 naked volunteers, some giggling with embarrassment, posed in several positions - to the delight of tourists on the adjacent London Eye." BBC 04/15/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030415-21031.html
The Symbolism Of Toppling Statues The images of Saddam's statues being pulled down in Iraq were compelling. "What is it about a dead and really poor statue - a boring one indeed - that rouses such personal antipathy? And why did we who were not there stay so gripped throughout the whole business? All of us are aware of the symbolic freight of statues like this one. Their toppling clearly symbolizes the end of the overthrown regime. Often the pent-up resentments against a now-absent leader are taken out on his images. The history of art and the history of all images is punctuated by events of this kind..." OpinionJournal.com 04/16/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030415-21028.html
Saddam Liked Fantasy Raunch In His Art An American artist named Rowena was surprised to discover that two of her oil paintings hung in Saddam Husein's personal quarters. The paintings are fantasy raunch, and "Rowena, 58, said she did the oil paintings that hung in the dictator's den about 15 years ago as covers for bodice-ripper paperbacks with titles such as 'King Dragon' and 'Shadows Out of Hell'." Oh, and she'd like them back... New York Daily News 04/15/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030415-21001.html
Tracking Down Iraq's Treasures Archaeologists are trying to track down items plundered from Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities. "They can't put the sculptures, statues, and coins back on the shelves from which they were wrested. But they can put together a database of what was lost in the looting that followed the fall of Baghdad. By gathering as much detailed information as possible, they hope to render unsellable the thousands of artifacts stolen from Iraq's largest museum, one of the region's most important. The more that is known about the lost pieces, the less likely they will be able to pass into private hands on the black market, scholars and curators say." Boston Globe 04/15/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030415-20957.html
Whitney Puts Off Expansion New York's Whitney Museum has decided to cancel plans for a $200 million expansion designed by Rem Koolhaas, a signal that there may be further belt-tightening for the institution. "We're feeling the pinch. A project like this would be a big challenge, and we're not in a position to proceed with it."
The New York Times 04/15/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030414-20948.html
What Are They Teaching In Art Schools These Days? "It’s not easy sorting out how best to use the short time allotted to arts degrees; an undergraduate fine-arts major often spends only one of his four years in art classes—hardly enough time to learn the traditional skills of drawing, painting, sculpture, and photography, let alone today’s laundry list of new forms. Even a two-year master of fine arts (M.F.A.) program doesn’t provide much time for training, compared with the decades-long master-apprentice system of earlier centuries. Countless other challenges have art-school faculties reexamining their missions and values. The proliferation of programs and students; the embrace of diverse art forms and content; the professionalization of art practice; the rise of cultural theory; whether (and how) to teach the new technologies that have sprouted in the last decade." ArtNews 04/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030414-20935.html
Defending American Expressionism "For decades, American Expressionism has been denigrated, if not ignored. Postwar conservative art critics and politicians derided the work as art by 'Reds and fellow travelers.' Contemporary critics are no kinder." But Bram Dijkstra says this is grossly unfair, and he's making a case for it in a new book on the subject. "This is not just art with a social content, it is great art with a social content." Chronicle of Higher Education 04/14/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030414-20934.html
London - Going Up... This week there will be a vote on allowing the building of Europe's tallest skyscraper in London. "Nothing can avoid the fact that this massive building will transform the scale of London. St Paul's Cathedral still holds its own against tall buildings in the City, but London Bridge Tower is three times its height. At the moment, Tower 42, the former NatWest Tower, sets an unofficial 600ft height limit in central London. If London Bridge Tower gets the go-ahead, all developers will be aiming at 1,000ft, the limit imposed by the Civil Aviation Authority. London will become a high-rise city, with the dome of St Paul's slowly reduced to a pimple. Organised opposition to such a transformation has largely evaporated." The Telegraph (UK) 04/14/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030413-20827.html
Destroying Iraq's Museum - One Tank Could Have Saved It The looting of the Iraq Museum is a loss for the world. "The losses will be felt worldwide, but its greatest impact will be on the Iraqi people themselves when it comes to rebuilding their sense of national identity. International cultural organisations had urged before the war that the cultural heritage of Iraq, which has more than 10,000 archaeological sites, be spared. US forces are making a belated attempt to protect the National Museum, calling on Iraqi policemen to turn up for duty. There is no pay, but 80 have given their services. 'The Americans were supposed to protect the museum. If they had just one tank and two soldiers nothing like this would have happened. I hold the American troops responsible. They know that this is a museum. They protect oil ministries but not the cultural heritage'." The Telegraph (UK) 04/13/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030413-20826.html
