Art For Art's Sake 45 years ago, General Mills made a conscious decision to invest in serious contemporary art as a way to liven up its blockish new Minnesota headquarters. "Today, in an era of corporate cutbacks and pressures to increase employee productivity, sales and profits, General Mills is a holdout in emphasizing the importance of art in its corporate culture. The company displays original art and limited edition prints throughout its headquarters, and encourages employees with offices to choose pieces they like for display in their workspace. General Mills even has a full-time curator to oversee acquisitions, sales and care of the collection." Kansas City Star (AP) 09/03/03
Posted: 09/04/2003 6:17 am
The Importance Of Opera House Architecture "Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, which opened in August, is one of the best-sounding opera houses in the country. With sonics vivid and full-bodied, the building seems to work well on both sides of the proscenium. It's just too bad the building, inaugurated with a new Seattle Opera production of Wagner's Parsifal, isn't a better piece of architecture." So says Dallas critic Scott Cantrell, scouting other cities for ideas to inspire Dallas's own soon-to-be-built opera house. "Seattle's approach certainly plays up clichés about the two cities. Dallas is supposed to be about dazzle and prestige, Seattle about living comfortably and not making a fuss." Dallas Morning News 09/04/03
Posted: 09/04/2003 6:06 am
The Museum That History Forgot "In the dusty remote reaches of Uzbekistan, in a city so desolate that it served as the site of a Soviet chemical weapons factory, sits what may be one of the most important collections of 20th Century Soviet art in the world. This collection, virtually unknown during the Soviet era, has been revitalized by the attention of a group of art-loving expatriates whose efforts helped spur the completion in late 2002 of a long-stalled museum building, realizing the dream of its founder and the small cadre of dedicated women who for years kept the museum going under almost impossibly difficult conditions... However, although the security guards, curators and gift shop attendants all appear for work each day in the marble-clad edifice, the 'new' museum - designed in 1971 - remains shuttered." Chicago Tribune 09/04/03
Posted: 09/04/2003 5:57 am
The Auction Market Sweet Spot "The stereotypical image of the auction buyer as chief executive with a seven-figure salary isn't the only customer that auction houses are considering important these days. Now they're seeing a growing number of buyers with perhaps only a few thousand dollars to spend but who add up to a vitally lucrative market in their own right." The New York Times 09/04/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 7:25 pm
The Eight-Year-Old 2000 Year-Old Carvings In July carvings on rocks in Norfolk were discovered and archaeologists suggested they could be 2000 years old. "But the mystery was solved after the Great Yarmouth Mercury local newspaper reported the 'potentially very important discovery'. Jobless construction worker Barry Luxton, 50, saw the report and a photograph of the rock and recognised it as one that he had engraved." In 1995. The Guardian (UK) 09/04/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 6:32 pm
Art Of The Disappeared Art "There are hundreds of thousands of missing works of art. Some - like the Cellini sculpture that has just been ransomed for £3.5m and the 'Leonardo' that was stolen from the Duke of Buccleuch last week - have been taken by thieves. Others have been destroyed by war or natural disaster. All of them acquire special significance once they disappear." The Guardian puts together a virtual gallery of the disappeared. The Guardian (UK) 09/04/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 6:28 pm
Rem Goes To China (Along With Everyone Else) Architect Rem Koolhaas struck out of some big projects in New York. So where did he go? China. "Every architect in the world right now is looking at China, because it seems to offer limitless opportunity. It’s a place of almost unstoppable optimism—despite this momentary setback from SARS—and immense building projects that are ideally suited for someone who positions himself right on the cusp of change, as [Mr. Koolhaas] does." New York Observer 09/03/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 6:17 pm
Are American Museums Sanctioning Illegal Archaeology? "European museum officials and archeologists charge that American museums continue to purchase and to exhibit unprovenanced antiquities and that such practices encourage the destruction by looters of ancient sites. A number of museums in Europe, including the British Museum and the Berlin State Museums, have adopted stringent new standards for antiquities." ARTNews 09/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 5:29 pm
Alarm Bells, Stravinsky, What's The Difference? The opening night gala at the San Francisco Symphony was going off beautifully, with 2,700 patrons enjoying the glitter and glitz of the evening, not to mention some fine music. Over 1,500 supporters had dinner at Davies Symphony Hall, and the orchestra was reportedly in top form for the performance under music director Michael Tilson Thomas. And then, in the middle of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, someone pulled the fire alarm. San Francisco Chronicle 09/04/03
Posted: 09/04/2003 5:47 am
The Calgary Model As orchestras around North America struggle to stay afloat or, in some cases, rebuild, a split is developing over the issue of what type of management is best for a symphony orchestra. Some orchestras are turning to corporate-style managers with little musical background, in an effort to make fiscal responsibility the first priority. Others are actively steering away from that course, stressing the importance of an understanding that the main focus of the organization is music, and not profit. In the former camp is the revitalized Calgary Philharmonic, which has risen from the ashes of bankruptcy as a bare-bones organization with a skeleton staff, little overhead, and, as it happens, booming ticket sales. La Scena Musicale 09/03/03
Posted: 09/04/2003 5:36 am
- Orchestras Fighting Back All this talk about symphony orchestras dying has some orchestras feeling unfairly treated. "The impatience orchestras are showing with continued talk of crisis is perhaps indicative of a sea-change in their own philosophy toward their situation. And Orchestra Canada representatives say it's high time to shift the focus from fighting the short-term fires to eradicating the deep-rooted problems that have been fuelling the flames for decades." La Scena Musicale 09/03/03
Posted: 09/04/2003 5:35 am
Whither The Record Industry? "The popularity of Apple's iTunes song service has demonstrated that customers like to pick and choose their songs online. New statistics from the music industry indicate that labels are shipping more singles to stores, too. But whether the stats signal the return of the single is still a bit of a puzzle." The industry denies that it is making any sort of concentrated effort to market the single more heavily as an alternative to illegal song-swapping, but "faced with falling CD sales for the third year in a row, it's to the music industry's benefit to offer music in formats that consumers will pay for." Wired 09/04/03
Posted: 09/04/2003 5:26 am
- CD Prices To Drop The world's largest producer of CDs has announced that it will drop the price of the average disc sold in the U.S. by 30% this fall. Universal, which has suffered from a 3-year slump in album sales, will lower the retail price of an average CD from $17-$19 to $13, and lower the wholesale cost from $12.02 to $9.09. The price cut is seen as an acknowledgement by Universal that the problems of the industry go beyond the phenomenon of online piracy, and that consumers are no longer content to pay inflated prices for pop music. BBC 09/04/03
Posted: 09/04/2003 5:16 am
Detroit's New Cultural Campus The Detroit Symphony is moving into a renewed home this fall. But that home will be part of a new complex of cultural groups - a new Detroit High School for the Fine, Performing and Communication Arts be built there. "The $122.5 million high school is under construction, and after it opens in 2005, its 1,200 students will study in closer contact with symphony musicians than almost any students anywhere. Detroit Public Television will open a studio there, and there will also be a 50,000-watt AM radio station." The New York Times 09/04/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 6:52 pm
A Fight Over A Bequest A battle is brewing over a $1.7 million bequest made to the Victoria State Opera, which was taken over by Opera Australia in 1996. Opera Australia believes it is entitled to the money, but others believe the bequest ought to b e divided among other small Australian opera companies. The Age (Melbourne) 09/03/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 5:07 pm
Opera Amidst The Microchips For two decades, Irene Dalis has been at the helm of the opera company she helped to found in her hometown of San Jose. Opera San Jose is a major success story in a tough field, and Dalis gets much of the credit for keeping the company vibrant through good times and bad. "We don't pretend to be something that we're not. We're certainly not going to be a San Francisco Opera. Their budget is around $60 million. Ours is under $3 million. But we have other values. Our company is the only one of its kind in America and it's not because I'm such a genius. I'm copying the format used in Germany where each city of 100,000 or more has its own opera company and they hire singers by the year." San Jose Mercury News 09/04/03
Posted: 09/04/2003 6:33 am
Stafford To Lead Milwaukee Public Michael Stafford has been named the new head of the Milwaukee Public Museum. Stafford has been the chief of a Michigan science museum, where he oversaw a $31 million renovation project. The hope in Milwaukee is that Stafford will be able to raise the museum's local profile, and by extension, improve its fundraising abilities. The museum's last president, Roger Bowen, resigned after only 15 months on the job. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 09/03/03
Posted: 09/04/2003 6:21 am
Sword Play Lands Actor In Jail A man in Portland is arrested for swinging a metal sword in public. Turns out he's "one of the leading actors in Portland's Northwest Classical Theatre Company's production of "King Henry VI, Part 1." Police hold him while the show and the audience wait, and finally a director steps in to take his place. Backstage (AP) 09/03/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 8:02 pm
Bible As Magazine A new edition of the Bible in the form of a magazine? It's a hit with kids. "Although 82 percent of America's teenagers say that they are Christians, only 32 percent say that they read the Bible. And we decided we needed to give it to them in a format they know how to use, which is magazines." CNN.com 09/02/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 9:23 pm
Is Living In The Midwest A Career Handicap? Charles Baxter is an accomplished writer. But he has had less attention than many other writers with his achievements. "Part of the explanation may lie with the label 'Midwestern' and the mostly dubious associations it implies that hover over his fiction like, well, storm clouds over the prairie. 'When others think about Midwesterners, they think: naïve, somewhat simple. Why else would you live here if not for some failure in judgment'?" The New York Times 09/04/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 7:19 pm
Hoping For A Quiet TIFF It's been a rough couple of years for the Toronto International Film Festival, with events from the 9/11 attacks to the SARS outbreak having a devastating impact on what has traditionally been one of North America's most important film fests. But as critics prepare to descend on the Ontario capitol for this year's TIFF, it seems likely that the festival will bounce back strong from its trials. The fact is that critics have a great time in Toronto, and the festival is famously well-run, in contrast to the haphazard feel of some other major festivals. Add in the panning that Cannes received this year, and Toronto may be poised to regain its position in the upper echelon of festivals. Chicago Tribune 09/04/03
Posted: 09/04/2003 5:59 am
Court Stays New FCC Media Rules A US Federal Court has stayed implementation of the Federal Communication Commission's new rules on media ownership. The FCC proposes to relax limits on media consolidation. "Given the magnitude of this matter, and the public's interest in reaching the proper resolution, a stay is warranted pending thorough and efficient judicial review," the three-page judicial order stated. Wired 09/03/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 5:39 pm
Men In A Bad Light Increasingly, media seem to be portraying men in unflattering ways says Australia's Advertising Standards Bureau. "Negative images of men are prevalent in advertisements, news, television drama and films. Their effect? Blokes are starting to mobilise with rumblings of complaint." The Age (Melbourne) 09/04/03
Posted: 09/03/2003 5:19 pm
