The results from Chicago are in: From Apr. 15 – June 15, presumed opera-lovers have paid $1 per vote to choose which of three operas they’d like to see performed during the Chicago Opera Theater’s 2011 season. The winner is Shostakovich’s Moscow, Cheryomushki. The COT raised $33,000 in the effort.

This was the second annual “People’s Opera” contest, which I wrote about here in March. Last year, the COT raised $40,000 (both totals include a $16,000 matching grant).

COT may be disappointed with the decline in money raised, but every dollar counts in this climate. And I think the voting stirs interest.

Apparently Moscow, Cheryomushki took the lead early and kept it. Strauss’ Capriccio came in second place and Mozart’s The Magic Flute finished third. Here’s the plot summary for the winner:

This comical romp takes place in a desirable new housing tenement in Moscow called Cheryomushki (Cherry Town). But not everything is as sweet at the name implies…the tenants must band together to outwit the stubborn and corrupt building management. Below the surface of this romantic comedy Shostakovich has created a satirical political opera. Chicago Opera Theater has never before performed a work by this composer and it has been 25 years since a Shostakovich opera has been performed in Chicago.

You can read more about the contest here.  

Well, that’s what the official closing report from Art Basel says. When the fair closed on Sunday, some 61,000 people — plus 2,800 journalists — had attended, officials say. That’s up slightly from last year’s total and the highest ever. Other constants of Basel: the quality remained high; many of the 300 dealers “curated” their booths with themes or solo shows, and sales were good. Some dealers said they were pleasantly surprised with unexpected sales, others had “solid results,” another were joyful
about the results — though none gave, or have to disclose, specifics.

As I’ve said before regarding art fair results, there’s no way to tell who’s telling the truth. Private dealers are not obliged to disclose anything they don’t want to disclose. Bloomberg’s report, from the first days last week, is far more somber. It cites reports of prices down 30 percent or more, and has dealer Per Skarstedt saying that sales volume was half last year’s. The Art Newspaper’s final report, written at least a day later, was much more positive.

No question, though, that attendance is good. Even if the money isn’t being passed from hand to hand, the interest in art seems to remain high.   

Photo Credit: Gladstone Gallery (top); Hauser + Wirth (bottom), both, courtesy Art Basel

 

Dartmouth College has just announced that it has received a $50 million gift, the largest in
its history, to build a new visual arts center on campus.

What a contrast from Brandeis, in Waltham, MA, which has grown infamous for its announcement earlier this year that it planned to shut its Rose Art Museum. Brandeis lies only 135 miles from Dartmouth, in Hanover, N.H. Worse, in announcing the gift, which was made anonymously, Dartmouth President James Wright said:

Arts are at the heart of a liberal arts education, and have always been vital to the Dartmouth experience, empowering students to think creatively, challenge assumptions, and wrestle with demanding and often unfamiliar media.

Then Dartmouth’s Dean of Faculty Carol Folt chimed in:

Dartmouth faculty view the arts as a powerful way to understand human culture and history, and when practiced, to stimulate creativity, flexibility, and leadership. This gift will have an immediate impact on Dartmouth’s intellectual and cultural environment. It will galvanize the talented faculty we already have and attract others, create new opportunities for innovative teaching, and offer more students the chance to experience the creative process first-hand.

Ouch.

Image credit: © jeff stikeman architectural art 20

 

[Read more…] about Take That, Brandeis! Dartmouth Gets $50 Million for a Visual Arts Center

Put this away for a rainy day if you like; it’s not new, but it’s fun. That’s what I did, anyway. New York, for most of these past two weeks, has been drizzly, gloomy and cool. So I spent more time inside. Rummaging around my computer, I discovered an email I sent myself about two years ago about something called Phillips Art Expert.

The site is an unabashed commercial for the art market connected with Phillips de Pury, the auction house. The fun part is under a tab called “Games Gallery.” There, you can take quizzes about the art world. “Quiz” let’s you choose from categories like “Basecoat,” “Russian Contemporary Art,” and “Art and Design” and take timed multiple choice tests. I haven’t taken them all yet, but let’s just say I scored as low as 37 and as high as 80. (I’m saving my best categories for another time.)

There’s also “Auction Game,” which lets you guess the hammer price of real auction lots and is only available two weeks before each auction.

The final category is called “Name that Brushstroke.”

[Read more…] about What Do You Really Know about Art? Phillips Art Expert Has Some Answers

While at MASS MoCA last Saturday, I stopped in at the new Kidspace, a nine-year-old collaboration with the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and the Williams College Museum of Art that moved to new premises in late March. On view is CRIBS by
Matthew Bua, an installation that features a crib crammed with detritus, found paintings, vacation slides, gloves, and 50 guitars rescued from the streets of New York, and other junk. 

But there were no kids in Kidspace when I was there — just two adult attendants. Working against Kidspace, perhaps, was the warm, sunny day. And it was lunchtime.

Still I was curious about the Kidspace experience, so in the last few days I’ve been querying MASS MoCA, which said my visit occurred at a typically downtime for museums in the Berkshires. From end-June through the summer, MASS MoCA says, Kidspace will be “incredibly busy” with public hours every day and art classes three days a week.

Just what I wanted to hear to start a new, irregular feature on Real Clear Arts called Five Questions. Laura Thompson, the Director of Exhibitions and Education for Kidspace, stepped up to the plate this time.  

What is artist Matthew Bua trying to convey to the kids?

Matt is trying to convey that 1. collections don’t have to be hidden away or made precious; they can be used to tell a story about a person or place, or can be incorporated into artwork; 2. he is of the “use it or lose it” mindset, which means he believes collection materials and recyclables should be used for artistic endeavors; and 3. architecture can be produced by anyone and should have more unique individual characteristics.

[As for MASS MoCA,] we are hoping to spark discussions on aesthetics such as: what is art, does it have to be beautiful, and how could they make something like this in their own lives?  Following viewing the installation, Kidspace always has an art-making opportunity, and for CRIBS, we are making “junk-itecture” – architectural sculpture out of found objects and recyclables.  

Aside from organized school programs, does this Kidspace effort get many walk-in visitors and by what age group?

In our previous space on the third floor, we would get about 13,000 annual walk-in visitors who participated in our public hours and art classes. We work with about 1,100 school children annually, both in Kidspace and in their own classrooms (often with artists-in-residence). Since moving Kidspace to the 2nd floor, adjacent [to Sol] LeWitt[‘s installation], we’ve seen about a 40% increase in walk-in traffic, so we project next year’s number will be about 18,000 visits during public hours.

The public age ranges from birth to senior citizens, but mostly I would say families with children ages 3 to 16.

For a museum in a city of 15,000 with a population base of only about 100,000 in the Berkshires, our public visitation is very strong.

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