Okay, We Like Art. Anyone Know Why? "In all the airtime and column inches devoted to discussing art - its merits, its value, its place in our lives - the big questions that lie at the heart of the debate are often too difficult or too obscure to tackle. They are, roughly speaking, these: why do we care about art? And, given that we obviously do (and that this is worldwide phenomenon that has stretched throughout history), what is it in art that we care about?" Financial Times (UK) 01/17/05
Posted: 01/17/2005 8:37 pm
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The Seattle Solution (A Public Nude) A computer analyst dies in Seattle, leaving the city $1 million for public art on the condition that an artist be commisssioned to create a male nude and place it in a prominent place. The city's solution? It approached sculptor Louise Bourgeois, and plans to place the work in the Seattle Art Museum's new sculpture park... Seattle Post-Intelligencer 01/15/05
Posted: 01/18/2005 10:23 am
Back To The 80s (We're Talkin' East Village) New York's East Village was an art phenomenon of the 1980s. But, writes Peter Schjeldahl, "there was something toxically facetious about the East Village versions of avant-gardism and la vie bohème which heralded a shift to arch self-consciousness in American culture. But the half-cooked epoch was significant in ways that merit closer consideration than it has received." The New Yorker 01/18/05
Posted: 01/18/2005 9:58 am
London Art Fair Tries Old School Approach The London Art Fair has undergone a bit of an identity crisis in recent years as it struggled to compete in a newly crowded marketplace where art fairs seemed to pop up like mushrooms in every available urban space. So this year, the fair is going back to basics, abandoning the flashy colors and irritating buzzwords of past years, and focusing hard on modern British art, with an eye towards attracting "collectors, not shoppers." The Telegraph (UK) 01/17/05
Posted: 01/17/2005 8:54 pm
Russia To Consider Returning Dresden Collections Russian president Vladimir Putin seems to have opened the door to negotiating the return of German artwork looted by Soviet troops at the conclusion of World War II. "Putin said that an exhibition in Russia of art that has been returned to Germany, including Raphael's Sistine Madonna from Dresden's State Art Collection, as has been proposed by Lidia Ievleva, director of the Tretyakov Gallery, could be held. Such an exhibition would create an atmosphere that could allow further progress on the matter of trophy art." St. Petersburg Times (Russia) 01/18/05
Posted: 01/17/2005 8:21 pm
A Bank That Looks Like Europe The unexpectedly vibrant design selected last week for the new headquarters of the European Central Bank has critics almost giddy with delight. "What makes the design more than a superficial attempt to spice up the European Union's image is its subtle relationship to 20th-century architectural history. Its bold forms nod to the idealism that was once embodied in International style Modernism but also critique it, expressing a more nuanced view of Europe's role in the emerging global culture." The New York Times 01/17/05
Posted: 01/17/2005 7:43 pm
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People Generally Like Their Fairy Tales Without Pimps Italian opera director Giancarlo del Monaco is mounting a new production of Engelbert Humperdinck's beloved opera Hansel & Gretel in Berlin, and the local punditocracy is up in arms over del Monaco's decision to rework the traditional fairy tale into a brutal commentary on pedophilia, child abuse, and urban violence. "The children's mother is a whore and their father an alcoholic. The 'sand-man' is a cocaine-snorting pimp, who pursues Hansel and Gretel with a video camera and hands them over to the wicked witch - the modern 'stranger' who could be the man down the road, the local pervert, the Catholic priest." The Age (Melbourne) 01/15/05
Posted: 01/17/2005 8:30 pm
Better Late Than Never It's been three months since the musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra agreed to a new two-year contract, averting a strike and seemingly marking a truce between the players and their management. But a letter sent by the orchestra's president to key donors late in the negotiating process has the musicians still fuming over its assertion that they were making "financially unrealistic and institutionally ruinous demands." The musicians have now sent a letter of their own to many of the original memo's recipients in an attempt to repair what they view as their wrongfully damaged image. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 01/17/05
Posted: 01/17/2005 7:17 pm
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Charlotte Proposes Arts Building Plan Members of Charlotte's city government propose spending $130 million on new arts facilities. "Supporters of the plan -- which was unveiled at Monday's City Council meeting -- say it would mark a dramatic shift in public funding for the arts, with an emphasis on building venues and a drastic reduction for the various arts groups in subsidies for operating expenses such as utilities, janitorial services and minor maintenance." Charlotte Business Journal 01/16/05
Posted: 01/18/2005 8:03 am
Architects Treading Carefully In Tsunami-Ravaged Asia The architecture world has been profoundly generous in its response to the Asian tsunami disaster, sending large donations and offering expertise in rebuilding a good-sized chunk of several countries. But all the good will in the world doesn't make the decision-making regarding reconstruction any easier, and many in Asia are worried that governments will approve the construction of a large number of concrete and prefab housing units just to appear to be doing something. Those on the ground say that what is really needed is "architectural acupuncture, knowing what to do where, marrying local traditions with global expertise." The Times (UK) 01/18/05
Posted: 01/17/2005 8:59 pm
Whatever Happened To The Public Domain? As U.S. copyright rules have tilted ever more strictly towards the original holders, artists and filmmakers who created work under far different regulations are increasingly finding themselves out in the cold. As the limited permissions documentary filmmakers negotiated with copyright holders of news footage expire, older documentaries such as the award-winning Eyes on the Prize are having to be pulled from circulation completely. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/17/05
Posted: 01/17/2005 8:08 pm
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Licitra On The Move "Salvatore Licitra is one of several looking to fill the voids left by two of the Three Tenors, and he's making it look easy. Though he's still establishing himself in major opera companies, he's already on his first recital tour. His commitments to the big opera companies of the world now go through 2009. Besides being one of the world's most promising singers, he's probably the most fun. He hasn't been famous very long - for that matter, he hasn't been singing all that long - and as hard as he tries, his lips stay only partly buttoned." Philadelphia Inquirer 01/18/05
Posted: 01/18/2005 10:51 am
All The World's A Stage - Why Not Sing? One of London's most daring and admired theatrical directors is taking a hard right career turn, preparing to stage a major choral work by Michael Tippett which the composer never intended to be performed. And while Jonathan Kent may be better known for his accomplishents in non-musical theatre, his unusual body of work seems to point naturally in the direction of opera's searing melodrama and rhythmic symmetries. In fact, it's worth asking what took him so long to make the leap. The Guardian (UK) 01/18/05
Posted: 01/17/2005 8:45 pm
Is NPR Racist, Or Is Smiley A Greedy Control Freak? "When Tavis Smiley walked away from his National Public Radio show last month, he did not go quietly. In a series of interviews, he cast aspersions on his former employer, telling Time: 'It is ironic that a Republican president has an administration that is more inclusive and more diverse than a so-called liberal-media-elite network.'" But NPR claims that the real reason Smiley declined to return to its air was a disagreement over salary and creative control. Smiley isn't exactly denying the charge, but claims that the network's unwillingness to meet his demands showed a lack of respect, and implies that race was a factor. Washington Post 01/17/05
Posted: 01/17/2005 7:47 pm
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Toronto's Theatre Sound Like A Shopping Directory Toronto's theatres are taking on corporate names. The latest is the New Yorker Theatre, which is becoming the Panasonic Theatre. The company reportedly paid $4 million for the deal, spread out over 10 years. "The theatre's lobby alone will be equipped with $250,000 worth of state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment from Panasonic, including its latest 65-inch high-definition plasma TV." Toronto Star 01/18/05
Posted: 01/18/2005 10:15 am
Broadway's Record Week Broadway scored a record week at the box office in the last week of 2004. "During the week between December 27 and January 2, the 31 shows on the Great White Way took in a total of $22,069,502. That topped the previous record, set during December 23 to December 29, 2003, by $718,869." The Stage (UK) 01/18/05
Posted: 01/18/2005 8:13 am
Thief Robs Theatre, Leaves Tsunami Relief Collections A man burst into the box office of the Town Hall Theatre in Galway, Ireland and took the evening's ticket receipts. But "on his way in and out of the theatre, he pointedly walked past the bucket of money in the foyer, donations which had been collected for the tsunami disaster fund before each matinee and evening performance." The Stage (UK) 01/18/05
Posted: 01/18/2005 8:07 am
Artistic Differences, And Behold, The Phoenix Rises Members of New York's venerable Jean Cocteau Repertory Company were dismayed when a new artistic director took the theatre in a direction they didn't like. So they quit and built a new theatre company - the Phoenix. Its first run sold out to critical praise. But can the company sustain itself as a going concern? The New York Times 01/18/05
Posted: 01/18/2005 7:43 am
When In Doubt, Blame The Oldsters The baby boom generation is stifling Australian theatre, according to the younger directors and writers struggling to worm their way into the business, and one prominent playwright is calling for nothing less than a revolution. "We have lost the notion of a 'whole' Australian theatre, one in which each component part has a vital yet interdependent function... This has been the most serious casualty of Anglo-New Wave disaffection. We have lost a sense of overarching identity in our theatre. And we need to get it back." Sydney Morning Herald 01/18/05
Posted: 01/17/2005 9:07 pm
Lloyd Webber Selling Off Some Assets Andrew Lloyd Webber, who dominates London's West End theatre district not only with his music but with his ownership of eleven venues, is reportedly in talks with a mystery buyer to sell off four of his theatres. The Guardian (UK) 01/18/05
Posted: 01/17/2005 8:41 pm
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New Kids Book Award Named For Dr. Seuss "The American Library Association has created a new award for children's books, to be named after the late Dr. Seuss. The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for outstanding children's literature will begin next year, the Association for Library Service to Children announced Friday." Yahoo (AP) 01/18/05
Posted: 01/18/2005 9:09 am
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Fox Censors Out Cartoon Butt (We're Scared Of The FCC) The Fox network is censoring out the butts of cartoon characters now. "Fox felt it had to pixelate the bare bottom of animated tot Stewie in an episode of "Family Guy" that aired a couple of weeks ago. When Fox ran the episode about four years ago, before Janet Jackson exposed her breast at the Super Bowl, endangering the moral fiber of American youth, it did not blur the shot of Baby Stewie's behind. 'FCC guidelines are not clear; we are now second- and third-guessing ourselves'." Washington Post 01/18/05
Posted: 01/18/2005 10:09 am
Rock Ruled (In The Past, But No More) Once, rock music was the dominant format of American radio. Not any more. "With baby boomers switching to other formats and younger listeners increasingly bypassing radio altogether, once-dominant rock stations are withering and in some cities dying." Washington Post 01/18/05
Posted: 01/18/2005 10:01 am
Morocco Opens World's Largest Movie Studio Morocco now boasts the biggest film studio in the world. "Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis and Rome's famed Cinecitta Studios have teamed up to create CLA Studios, which stretches over 371 acres with two shooting stages of 19,380 square feet each. Bigger than any studio in Hollywood or Europe, the site will be able to accommodate two major movies a year." Yahoo! (AP) 01/18/05
Posted: 01/18/2005 9:05 am
Film Signals New German Attitudes A German movie about Turkish immigrants has become a hit in Germany. "As the first ethnic film to be both a box-office and critical success in Germany, it signals new acceptance of multiculturalism. On screen, at least, Germans are now ready to meet immigrants they have long walked past on the street." The New York Times 01/18/05
Posted: 01/18/2005 7:37 am
PBS Cleaning Up Documentaries For FCC Approval HBO has offered the free use of three recent documentaries it aired to PBS, in an effort to get the films in front of viewers who do not subscribe to premium cable/satellite channels. But PBS is an over-the-air network, making it subject to FCC regulation, and the network is planning to err on the side of caution, removing a few scattered curse words and non-sexual nude scenes in films about terrorist attacks and Nazi death camps. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 01/17/05
Posted: 01/17/2005 7:52 pm
Aviators, Wine, & Oversexed Suburbanites Martin Scorsese's Howard Hughes biopic, The Aviator, and the surprise art house hit, Sideways, were the big winners at Sunday's Golden Globe Awards. Clint Eastwood took home the best director award for Million Dollar Baby, and Clive Owen and Natalie Portman took home supporting actor awards for Mike Nichols' Closer. On the TV side of the ledger, ABC's Desperate Housewives won for best comedy series, and a bizarre and edge F/X show about plastic surgeons won for best dramatic series. The New York Times 01/17/05
Posted: 01/17/2005 7:36 pm
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