IDEAS
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas
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Want To Live Longer? Get Some Friends A new study says that having close friends is more important to a healthy happy life than close family ties. The study reports that "those with the strongest group of friends and confidants were found to have lived longer than those with the fewest friends. Close contact with children and relatives had little impact on survival rates over the 10 years." - Discovery 06/16/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas/redir/20050616-57582.html
ARTS ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues
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Americans For the Arts - Looking For Value In Austin Members of American for the Arts gather in Austin for the group's annual meeting. "Robert Lynch, AFA's president and chief executive officer, presented findings from the organization's latest research effort: an analysis of municipal, state, and regional arts agencies in 2003, the first year that saw a decline in arts funding after six years of increases. As the national economy has crept back from its post-Sept. 11 slump, however, arts funding has either increased or plateaued." - Backstage 06/16/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20050616-57587.html
Tough Times For Critics? "Serious arts criticism is looking beleaguered these days in the face of forces ranging from a celebrity-besotted media to the rise of critic-bloggers on the Internet to falling newspaper circulation to suspicion of anything that might be considered “elitist.” The age of great critics - popular, influential writers such as Virgil Thomson on classical music, Clement Greenberg on visual art, Edwin Denby on dance or Pauline Kael on movies - is long gone. Today, critics are more likely to be glorified touts giving thumbs up or down than probing thinkers and literary stylists." - Falls Church News-Press (Virginia) 06/16/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20050616-57580.html
Surviving The Dot-Com Boom And Bust For many arts groups, the tech bubble of the late 1990s was a boon unlike any other in recent history, a time when businesspeople were rolling in cash and eager to dole it out to needy nonprofits. But in San Francisco, one of the centers of the dot-com boom, the arts were nearly drowned by the concomitant tidal wave of rising real estate prices. "The real estate crunch may have eased when the boom went bust, but now the focus has shifted to battling even more aggressively for financial support, as public and private funding dried up." The crisis gave new direction to the Bay Area group known as Intersection for the Arts, which has been connecting artists, performers and audiences in an attempt to promote a citywide sense of community ownership of the arts. - San Francisco Chronicle 06/16/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20050616-57577.html
House Strikes Library Access From Patriot Act The U.S. House of Representatives has blocked a controversial provision of the infamous Patriot Act, saying that it impinges on the privacy rights of individuals. The provision allows federal investigators access to library and bookstore records in order to track the reading habits of Americans suspected of wrongdoing. The American Civil Liberties Union is celebrating the 238-to-187 vote striking down the provision. President Bush is most decidedly not. - The New York Times 06/16/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20050616-57572.html
Power To The People? Maybe... Most politicians are not what you'd call on the cutting edge of new technology, and in the past few years, that has meant that most Congressional attempts to deal with the controversies surrounding new media, fair use, and copyright law have wound up being criticized as anti-consumer. The main problem seems to be that Congress doesn't really understand the issues involved. But there are exceptions, and Congressman Rick Boucher is Exhibit A. "While other lawmakers have long-standing relationships with the entertainment industry, whose chief concern is piracy, Boucher sees his pro-technology policies as a way to further education, communication and job creation. Boucher, a Democrat representing the rural 9th District of Virginia, has introduced a bill to restore some of the fair-use rights taken away by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act." - Wired 06/16/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20050616-57571.html
DANCE
http://www.artsjournal.com/dance
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ABT's Talent Master: American Ballet Theatre is rich in talent. But does director Kevin McKenzie use the talent effectively? "Is he too evenhanded? In an effort to appease honored veterans and flatter new additions and encourage promising youngsters, does he spread the casting of major roles too thin, in a way that shortchanges the public? Wouldn't coherent, recurrent casts, as has become the practice among singers recently at the Metropolitan Opera, mean more integrated, better rehearsed performances? And wouldn't fewer principals in leading roles help build star images and thereby augment the box office?" The New York Times 06/17/05
http://artsjournal.com/dance/redir/20050616-57592.html
MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/media
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Groking The Movie Biz (Not Really) How does the movie business work? We don't really knoww. According to a recent academic paper, the effectiveness of "star power" is one of many "puzzles" that haunt the movie business, an industry where executives "rely heavily on tradition, conventional wisdom, and simple rules of thumb." Despite extensive market research dating back to the '20s, Hollywood is the King Lear of the entertainment world: It has always but slenderly known itself. Slate 06/16/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20050616-57589.html
What Good Is A Film Festival? "A film festival sounds vaguely intellectual, an oasis of cinematic contemplation in the midst of the crass commercial marketplace. But a film festival is an aberration; people don't need further encouragement to go to the movies. When the most misguided Hollywood remake of a half-remembered TV show can make $10 million in its opening weekend, it could even be argued that people go to the movies too much. There are few good reasons for film festivals to exist, and yet they proliferate like cancer clusters across the country." Slate 06/16/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20050616-57588.html
Why The Movie Slump? Poll Says Look To Home... A new poll says that 73 percent of those asked prefer to see movies in their home on DVD or videocassette rather than in the theatre. "The same poll found that only 22 per cent of people preferred to see movies the old-fashioned way – in a movie theatre. The numbers may provide fodder for those who believe the proliferation of at-home entertainment technologies is permanently changing moviegoing patterns." CBC 06/16/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20050616-57585.html
Radio You Can Interact With "A team of students from Carnegie Mellon University have developed Roadcasting, a collaborative, mobile radio system that will allow car drivers and anyone else with a computer, a wireless connection and digital music files to not only broadcast their own station, but influence the play lists of other Roadcasting DJs transmitting in the area." Discovery 06/16/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20050616-57583.html
Offending Christians Still Not A Crime An attempt to bring the BBC under judicial review for defamation of Christianity has been blocked by the British courts. The case arose from the protests staged after the BBC announced plans to televise a performance of the popular show, Jerry Springer: The Opera, which includes hundreds of swear words and a scene in which God, Mary, and Jesus are guests on a talk show in hell. The request for judicial review was turned down flat by the UK's High Court. BBC 06/16/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20050616-57569.html
MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/music
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Bringing Music To Kids How do you get children hooked on classical music? "Much has been written about music's ability to act as a means of expression and communication in both healthy children and those with difficulties; it frequently gets through where speech fails. Then there are the benefits of taking part in a creative endeavour, the interplay and team spirit of singing in a choir or playing in an orchestra or band." The Guardian (UK) 06/17/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20050616-57591.html
Exploring The Wagner/Hitler Connection "Brigitte Hamann's new biography of Winifred Wagner, the composer's English-born daughter-in-law, brings to light fresh evidence of the family’s involvement with Hitler and its complicity in his crimes. It took great ingenuity on the author’s part since the Wagners squirreled away their papers and refuse access to outsiders. But Hamann, a Viennese scholar, laid hands on Winnie's letters to her best Nazi girlfriend and, with other sources, has assembled a dossier strong enough to have landed several Wagners in the Nuremburg dock." La Scena Musicale 06/15/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20050616-57590.html
A Run On Free Beethoven BBC listeners downloaded almost 700,000 copies of the first five Beethoven symphonies as Radio3 played nonstop Beethoven last week. The most popular download was the First Symphony. "This trial was all about gauging listeners' appetite for downloads and the results are astonishing." BBC 06/16/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20050616-57584.html
Spoleto Packs 'Em In Again "Box-office receipts for the [Charleston-based Spoleto USA music festival] came in at a record, about $2,000 more than last year's figure of $2.53 million. This is the third year in a row the festival has set a sales record." Charleston Post & Courier (SC) 06/15/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20050616-57579.html
Reviving Music Nearly Killed By Hate The generation of Jews and others who perished in the Holocaust doubtless contained untold thousands of talented artists, composers, and performers whose skills were tragically lost to history. But conductor James Conlon is determined to bring attention to the music of unjustly ignored "Holocaust-era composers who were banned by the Nazis... Unearthing these lost musical treasures of the Holocaust has become a virtual obsession for Conlon, who begins his first season as music director of the Ravinia Festival on June 23 with a concert of music by Mahler and a virtually forgotten composer who perished at Auschwitz, Viktor Ullmann. Mahler and Ullmann will remain a season-long emphasis." New City Chicago 06/15/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20050616-57578.html
PEOPLE
http://www.artsjournal.com/people
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Ross Stretton, 53 Stretton was "a leading ballet dancer and a successful artistic director of the Australian Ballet, but failed in the larger arena of the Royal Ballet - for a year in 2001-02 he was its most short-lived, and most disastrous, artistic director." The Telegraph (UK) 06/17/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20050616-57594.html
Remembering Ross Stretton "All who paid tribute to Ross Stretton, who died yesterday, agreed on one thing: that the former artistic director of the Australian Ballet and, briefly, head of the Royal Ballet, was an intensely private person, so vigilant about his self-imposed line between home and work that even the senior dancers he worked with, such as Steven Heathcote, cannot recall seeing the inside of his Melbourne home." Sydney Morning Herald 06/17/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20050616-57593.html
Vilar Selling Art To Make Bail As disgraced arts patron Alberto Vilar struggles to free up the $4 million in assets required by the court as part of his $10 million bail agreement, he has apparently decided to allow Christie's to auction off a part of his personal art collection valued at half a million dollars. "Vilar seemed on the verge of release to home detention and electronic monitoring yesterday when a prosecutor agreed he could be freed even though all the paperwork, including the signatures of four of his friends, was not completed. Judge Kenneth Karas disagreed, though, saying the government would be unable to seize adequate assets if the paperwork were not completed and Vilar fled." Philadelphia Inquirer (AP) 06/16/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20050616-57576.html
Still Too Soon, Apparently A Brooklyn performance artist's latest project has raised the ire of family members of 9/11 victims, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and at least one New York tabloid. Kerry Skarbakka said that he wanted to get inside the minds of the people who died leaping from the upper floors of the World Trade Center before its final collapse, and his chosen method involved donning a business suit and repeatedly leaping from the roof of Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art (he wore a harness), while photographers below took pictures of his fall. New York Daily News 06/16/05
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20050616-57575.html
THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre
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VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/visualarts
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The Freud Phenomenon "In the late 1980s, not yet antique but merely old-fashioned, Lucien Freud was shunned by the museums and his practice seemed to have reached a dead end. And while there are particular circumstances that explain Freud’s resurrection—above all the simple fact of his survival which illogically confers on a career the stamp of authenticity and sincerity—it is also linked to the much remarked upon revival of painting in the last few years." The Art Newspaper 06/16/05
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20050616-57586.html
Looking Through Vasari At Leonardo (His Greatest Work?) Is the painting considered Leonardo's greatest work, on a wall behind another painting by Vasari? A scientist using sophisticated scanners thinks he's discovered it. "We looked through Vasari's painted walls with a low-frequency sonogram machine. On the west wall we found nothing really significant. But on the east wall, beneath the Battle of Marciano, we spotted a 16-centimeter cavity. It is very likely that Vasari created it to protect Leonardo's work. Amazingly, this hollow space is right under Vasari's hint 'seek and you shall find.' " Discovery 06/16/05
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20050616-57581.html
Venice's Big Step Forward The Venice Biennale seems to have taken a very real turn for the better this year, says Sarah Milroy, not least due to its inclusion of far more than the usual number of female artists. "Customarily, these shows are a real mixed bag, flabby, undisciplined affairs bloated with nepotistic inclusions... But in the two leading curated group exhibitions, there is little trace of the usual laziness. Curators Rosa Martinez (at the Arsenale) and Maria de Corral (at the Italian pavilion) have pulled together large shows that feel carefully shaped and are filled with interesting newcomers from around the world to a degree that made the show feel truly global for the first time in my 20 years of attending." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/16/05
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20050616-57574.html
Munch To Reopen, Minus Its Star Attraction "The Munch Museum is set to reopen, 10 months after Edvard Munch's iconic painting The Scream was stolen. The Oslo museum closed in August 2004 after masked thieves pulled the work and another painting, Madonna, off the wall in front of visitors. Police are yet to recover the paintings, despite a reward of two million kroner [$308,210] on offer. A pastel version of The Scream and a lithography of Madonna will be put on display at the museum instead." BBC 06/16/05
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20050616-57570.html
