ARTS ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues
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Milan's Missing Documents An investigation of missing documents at Milan's State Archive has proven startling results. "Thousands of pieces were found to have disappeared: parchments from the 11th century; papal bulls; official decrees bearing the signatures of Emperor Charles V, Empress Maria Theresa and Napoleon; autograph manuscripts by such Italian literary giants as Alessandro Manzoni and Gabriele D'Annunzio — a substantial slice of eight centuries of European history, as seen through documents from one of the continent's wealthiest metropolitan centers from the Middle Ages onward. Some 3,000 items from the State Archives and smaller depositories have been recovered, while 1,000 more are still reported missing, probably smuggled into private collections in Italy or abroad." - Andante 12/23/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20031223-36075.html
The Art Of 7-11 (And Other Businesses) At a time when some American cities are cutting back on public art, "Menlo Park (Cal.) now requires that public art adorn new commercial buildings and major remodeling. Early next year, Menlo Park residents will see the fruits of this new law when art is installed at the 7-Eleven, a cafe, and a Chevron gas station. To some, it's a smart way to further beautify this bedroom community without using city money. To others, making business owners spend 1 percent of a project's cost on art is an expensive annoyance." - San Jose Mercury-News 12/23/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20031223-36065.html
Actors Equity 1, Homeland Security 0 Canadian actor Geordie Johnson should be on a San Francisco stage today, rehearsing for a new production of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House. But thanks to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Johnson's work visa was refused as the DHS tightened restrictions on foreigners entering the country. The company Johnson was to have worked with was forced to recast his part, since they could not afford to wait for an appeal. Nonetheless, Actors Equity filed an appeal anyway, and this week, it was granted, the union having successfully argued that "the entire framework of agreements under which actors, directors, musicians and even professional athletes gain cross-border employment [was] in jeopardy." - The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/23/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20031223-35996.html
Corporate Giving: Good For The Bottom Line? A new study commissioned by the Boston Foundation reports that the public is more likely to patronize corporate businesses which make a point of donating to the arts and other nonprofits than those which do not. The pollster who led the study says that the upshot of the report is that "foundations have got to get out of the purely good guy giving pool and they've got to drive the argument that partnerships between nonprofits and corporations help a corporation's bottom line. If you can make that case, you can start this argument again and maybe you can get more money." - Boston Globe 12/23/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20031223-35995.html
MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/media
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Up All Night, Staring At A Screen Advertisers are famously obsessed with young people, and so television, by necessity, is obsessed as well. In recent years, network brass have been at a loss to explain where all their young viewers have gone. Some say they went to cable, some say they went to the internet, and some say it shouldn't matter, anyway. But what if the 18-to-34s haven't deserted TV after all? What if they've just moved their "prime time" back a few hours? A close look at demographic ratings shows that young people are watching plenty of TV: they're just turning on the set a lot later. Miami Herald (AP) 12/23/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20031223-35998.html
Hitting 'Em While They're Down "Last week's court decision preventing the recording industry from forcing Internet service providers to identify their subscribers on peer-to-peer networks offers new hope to file traders who have been sued. But fighting the RIAA may prove costly for anyone hoping to challenge the trade group, which spends an estimated $17 million annually in legal fees. In the wake of Friday's ruling, which found that the RIAA can't subpoena Internet providers for subscribers' personal information without going through the court system, experts say lawyers could feasibly argue that their clients' information was unjustly obtained from ISPs, and therefore should not be used. But such a strategy would be unorthodox and difficult to carry out." Wired 12/23/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20031223-35992.html
MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/music
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Free Music? On Its Way You want free music? Legally? Coming right up. "You're going to see lots of free music given out via third-party companies. It's not going to be Apple and iTunes driving the business. It's going to be companies like Pepsi and other third parties that are promoting digital music on bottle caps and on labels. Indeed, Apple Computer has inked a deal with Pepsi to give away 100 million iTunes downloads in a promotion that kicks off in February with a Super Bowl ad." CNN.com 12/23/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20031223-36066.html
Kang Quits, DSO Left Wondering Why The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is losing its top executive, just as it is trying to find a new music director and cope with a hefty financial shortfall. Emil Kang, who had earned praise as DSO president for his consensus-building skills and efforts at sharpening the orchestra's artistic vision, resigned abruptly on Monday, without explanation. The orchestra's new board chair has refused to comment on whether or not Kang was forced out, but another board member says that, at least, the board "as a group" did not ask for the resignation. Kang, 35, was one of the youngest administrators of an American symphony orchestra. Detroit Free Press 12/23/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20031223-35993.html
PEOPLE
http://www.artsjournal.com/people
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Ballard: Why I Turned Down The Queen's Honor Why did writer JG Ballard recently turn down an honor from the Queen that would have made him a Commander of the Brtitish Empire? "It goes with the whole system of hereditary privilege and rank, which should be swept away. It uses snobbery and social self-consciousness to guarantee the loyalty of large numbers of citizens who should feel their loyalty is to fellow citizens and the nation as a whole. We are a deeply class-divided society." The Guardian (UK) 12/22/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20031223-36068.html
Victor Gruen, Father Of The American Shopping Mall Victor Gruen was a German emigre who came to the United States, and created the quintessential shopping mall. "Gruen was a classic American type, the brilliant and driven immigrant who struggles to achieve wealth and influence but who yearns most of all for legitimacy. Like the immigrants who built Hollywood, Gruen combined art and commerce in new ways that captured something deep in the American psyche. His powerfully demotic designs helped pave the way for the egalitarian suburban landscape most Americans choose to live in today." OpinionJournal 12/24/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20031223-36064.html
PUBLISHING
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing
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Why Do You Like "Rings" So Much? Why is Lord of the Rings so popular? An academic study is underway to find out. "Deploying 13 languages on the internet, researchers from universities in 20 countries are asking a series of questions of fans in an attempt to pin down the attractions of fantasy fiction. The questions are targeted exclusively at admirers of JRR Tolkien's trilogy, including posers like "Where and when is Middle Earth to you?" which would baffle the uninitiated. The study is being publicised in almost every country, from China to Colombia, to search out national variations in response to the books and films." The Guardian (UK) 12/20/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20031223-36069.html
Big Times In A Small Town Concord, Massachusetts, is everything a small New England town should be, and the Concord Bookshop, an independent bookseller widely regarded as one of the best in the Northeast, is a large presence in the community. But an in-house dispute between the bookshop's owners and its employees is tearing the store apart, and the whole town, with its sizable population of well-known writers, seems to be getting involved. Eight employees, including the bookshop's three top managers, have resigned, with one of them saying that "the fragile alchemy that made it such a great place to work [has] died." But the owners insist that they love the shop as much as anyone, and are only trying to survive in an increasingly difficult era for indie booksellers. Boston Globe 12/23/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20031223-35994.html
THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre
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NEA Shakespeare Program Pacifies Critics New Criterion editors have generally been against public funding of the arts in general and the NEA in particular. But "it is gratifying to report that the National Endowment for the Arts seems finally to have come around to our way of thinking on these issues. Under the leadership of the distinguished poet and critic Dana Gioia, the NEA has said farewell to the ephemeral and the meretricious. One evidence of the agency’s new commitment to quality is Shakespeare in American Communities." New Criterion 12/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20031223-36074.html
Is "Buffy" The Best Musical Of All-Time? A TV poll to name the top 20 musicals of all time includes - an episode of the American TV show Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. "An all-singing episode of the cult teen sci-fi drama will battle it out with favourites such as Chicago, Cabaret and The Sound Of Music. Buffy is the only TV show to make the top 20 in Channel 4's The 100 Greatest Musicals." London Evening Standard 12/22/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20031223-36070.html
Broadway 2003: More Money, Fewer People "Fewer people saw shows on New York's Broadway during 2003 - but takings have gone up during the past year. Theatres predict the year will end with 11.2 million people visiting Broadway's venues, down from 11.4 million in 2002. But takings are expected to be up to $730m (£414m), compared with $707m (£401m) the previous year - helped by top ticket prices hitting $100 (£56). Broadway theatres are putting the drop in visitors down to a lack of big shows opening during the summer." BBC 12/23/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20031223-35991.html
VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/visualarts
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Should Barnes Temporarily "Sell" Some Art To Survive? Is survival of the Barnes Collection depandant on moving to downtown Philadelphia? Another "solution" has been proposed by art dealer James Maroney. "The plan, which Maroney considers a form of legal "tenancy in common," appears relatively simple: A selected number of Barnes’ paintings, not currently on display, would be sold to interested art collectors for the duration of the buyers’ lifetimes, but returned to the Barnes Foundation upon their deaths. Maroney said that the novel plan would raise money while imposing less "damage to Dr. Barnes’ vision than certain other proposals … ." Philadelphia City Paper 12/24/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20031223-36073.html
WTC - Are Architects The Only Ones Who Understand? Why did we end up with such bad designs for the WTC memorial, wonders Jerry Saltz. "How could something so important and sensitive, something so in need of an inspired touch and more time, go so wrong, so quickly? To answer this we need to look back to a month after September 11, when the air was still acrid with the smell of the smoldering wreckage, and the managerial mindset that brought us to this point surfaced. At a packed assembly of architects in Cooper Union's Great Hall, professionals from all over the globe met and listened to dozens of their own speak about the tragedy in ways I hadn't heard before or, thankfully, since. I love contemporary architecture, but I was appalled by the breathtaking opinion, expressed by many in attendance, that architects were the only ones who understood the site 'in the deepest sense'." Village Voice 12/19/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20031223-36072.html
Scotland's Year In Art "Monet was the National Galleries’ big hit. You might have thought we knew Monet well enough, but no fewer than 170,000 people visited the Monet exhibition to get a fresh insight into his work. It was the biggest attendance ever for an exhibition in Edinburgh and it must be a comment on something that we have not been doing in between that the previous record of 120,000 visitors was held by the Epstein exhibition in Waverley Market more than 40 years ago." The Scotsman 12/23/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20031223-36071.html
Light Up London (But No Controversial Images, Please) A holiday project to project images on buildings in London has hit a snag. "The project began with the projection of sunflowers onto the Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner on December 2 and has grown slowly, culminating with the illumination of Buckingham Palace tonight. All 10 buildings in the scheme will then be lit up each evening until New Year's Eve. But pictures commissioned by pop star Damon Albarn - one of many celebrities taking part at the request of co-organiser Bob Geldof - proved too contentious to be projected onto London venues such as the National Theatre." The Guardian (UK) 12/24/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20031223-36067.html
The Power Struggle Behind The Freedom Tower The uneasy agreement between Daniel Libeskind and David Childs that resulted in the new Freedom Tower design unveiled last Friday was "the result of a whirlwind of intense, sometimes fiery meetings over the course of the last week. During most of that time, staffers from studio Daniel Libeskind were banned from the 40 Wall Street offices of [Skidmore, Owings and Merrill,] where the two camps had been working. As a result, both sides were barely speaking to one another." In fact, Skidmore staffers accused Libeskind employees of "a Watergate-style break-in," with Libeskind's camp accusing of David Childs of intentionally diverging from the agreed-upon framework for the design. All in all, it's something of a wonder that a design was ever agreed upon. New York Observer 12/22/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20031223-35999.html
Missing Turner Mask May Have Been Stolen London's Royal Academy of Arts has acknowledged that the death mask of JMW Turner, one of the Academy's most prized possessions, may have been stolen more than 15 years ago, with no one at the museum noticing the mask's disappearance until another institution asked to borrow it in 2002. However, it is also possible that the mask is still somewhere in the Academy's vast collection, and staffers are hoping to turn it up during an ongoing cataloguing project. BBC 12/23/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20031223-35990.html
