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Tuesday, February 4
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A Mechanical Duck That Pooped Inventors have been trying since forever to create mechanical devices that move or act like live beings. "The eighteenth century was 'the golden age of the philosophical toy,' and its most celebrated engineer was Jacques de Vaucanson. For Vaucanson, recreating life meant imitating its processes and movements — most famously, its bowel movements. While he entertained audiences with automata that played the flute and the organ, his most celebrated invention was a copper duck that realistically 'gulped' food through a flexible neck and then excreted it on a silver platter. First displayed in 1739, the duck caused a sensation." New York Review of Books 02/14/03
Bloomsbury? What Did They Ever Do For Us? "Bloomsbury, the fragile but oddly resilient cargo of intellectuals, art theorists, novelists and wife-swappers who between them exerted such a sinewy grasp on early to mid-century English culture, represents perhaps the most desperate example yet of the reading public's tendency to admire literary people for non-literary reasons, for personality and peculiarity rather than what exists on the page. Look at what Bloomsbury achieved, in terms of books written and ideas entertained, and with a few marked exceptions (Woolf's The Common Reader, Strachey's Queen Victoria) the trophy cabinet is conspicuously bare." The Independent (UK) 02/02/03
Getty Passes On Masterpiece For years the J Paul Getty Museum in LA has been able to buy whatever art it wanted - and has. But at the recent Old Master auctions in December the Getty failed to even bid on an important work that would have been a natural for its collection. "The decision of the world’s richest museum not to even bid on one of the last great narrative pictures of the Renaissance (one arguably of even greater rarity and importance than the $50 million Northumberland Raphael) is incomprehensible." The Art Newspaper 02/1/03
UN Covers Up "Guernica" Reproduction The United Nations has covered up a reproduction of Picasso's "Guernica" that has hung outside the UN Security Council since 1985. "U.N. officials said last week that it is more appropriate for dignitaries to be photographed in front of the blue backdrop and some flags than the impressionist image of shattered villagers and livestock. 'It's only temporary. We're only doing this until the cameras leave'." Washington Times 02/04/03
Monday, February 3, 2003
Model Attraction - This Year's Best NY Art Show This week, the competition for designs for the World Trade Center site is expected to be narrowed to two finalists. Regardless of which plans make the cut, the models of the proposed plans has been the hit art event of the season in New York. "Some days, the place gets so jammed—with people chattering in every language from Japanese to Italian—you have to rubberneck to get a decent glimpse. The models are like magical toys, some with moving parts and lights, others with stunning video displays providing a virtual-reality trip into the future." Newsweek 02/10/03
Into Every "Painter Of Light" A Little Darkness Must Fall Thomas Kinkade, the self-styled "Painter of Light" was a phenomenon, selling millions of dollars worth of sentimental paintings out of mall-front stores. But lately business has been bad, and Kinkade dealers are furious. "The dealers have their own ideas about why sales have slowed: Media Arts has been flooding the market with cheap reproductions of the same art for which they're forced to charge top dollar. Although dealers are prohibited by contract from discounting the paintings by even a dime, Kinkades have been showing up at national discount chains, puncturing the carefully wrought myth that they are collectibles with a generous scarcity premium." Los Angeles Times 02/03/03
Nagano Gets Munich Opera Job Kent Nagano has been appointed director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, succeeding Zubin Mehta. Nagano had been widely touted as the next music director of the Montreal Symphony, and the Munich appointment likely kills that possibility. "Canadian journalists had whipped the public into a frenzy of anticipation, praising the 51-year old Nagano’s musicianship, his ability to speak French and his 'cool' image." La Scena Musicale 02/03/03
Coming Home - Folk Music Takes To People's Houses Folk music has its roots in small intimate places. But now, "with few venues willing to hire folk acts and few middle-class suburbanites willing to make the schlep downtown, search out parking and elbow other patrons to get the bartender's attention, folk house concerts are quietly spreading like wildfire with the help of e-mail and Internet advertising." Wired 02/04/03
Revising Stravinsky David Schiff tries to sort out what's Stravinsky and what's Robert Craft in Craft's revisionist history of his time with the composer. It's a daunting task. "Are Stravinsky’s ventings on contemporary music, delicious to read but often spiteful and self-serving, omitted here, because, as Craft says, the musical scene has changed beyond recognition – wouldn’t that make them all the more interesting? – or because Stravinsky’s judgements have not stood the test of time, certainly not his dismissals of Britten and Messiaen and the plaudits for Stockhausen? Or because the stinging verdicts were not actually Stravinsky’s?" Times Literary Supplement 02/04/03
The Internet: Friend To Musicians Who Aren't Stars One musician is angry about the recording industry's attempts to shut down music file-trading. "The Internet means exposure, and these days, unless you're in the Top 40, you're not getting on the radio. The Internet is the only outlet for many artists to be heard by an audience bigger than whoever shows up at a local coffeehouse. The Internet allows people like me to gain new fans; if only 10% of those downloading my music buy my records or come to my shows, I've just gained enough fans to fill Carnegie Hall twice over." Los Angeles Times 02/03/03
LA Opera - Pulling Into The Passing Lane It's been a rough year for the Los Angeles Opera. But the company has announced a bold next season, and seems to be moving into the passing lane. Mark Swed suggests the company is on the road to becoming a major force in American opera. "Five years ago, no operaphile would think to mention Los Angeles in the same breath as San Francisco and Chicago, American's second and third opera cities, after New York. But compared with San Francisco Opera's upcoming 81st season and Lyric Opera's 49th season, our 17-year-old company looks to become not only their artistic equal next season, but perhaps even a leader." Los Angeles Times 02/02/03
La Scala Renovation Passes One-Year, Picks Up More Protests Restoration of the La Scala opera house has now been going on a year. The anniversary has been marked with court challenges, filed by preservationists arguing that "the new designs were ugly and the contracting for the work was flawed." The city briefly opened the building to allay fears, and city officials defended the project against court challenges. Miami Herald (AP) 02/02/03
New Jersey Governor Proposes Elimination Of All State Arts Funding New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey has proposed elimination of the state's entire spending on the arts - $31.7 million in cultural funding in next year's budget. Cuts include "all $18 million from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts budget, as well as $3.7 million from the historical commission and the next $10 million installment for the New Jersey Cultural Trust, a public-private partnership meant to stabilize struggling cultural groups." Cultural groups are stunned: "We went to our own funeral today. We understand the fiscal crisis facing New Jersey. What we don't understand or accept is why we are being singled out (and) ... eliminated." Newark Star-Ledger 02/04/03
Posted: 02/04/2003 6:34 am
Do Art And Opinion And Politics Mix? LA Times art critic Christopher Knight recently began a review with the sentence: "The imbecilic plan for war with Iraq currently on offer from the Bush administration has yet to register much support from the American public." Predictably, letters protesting Knight's expression of a political opinion landed at the newspaper. Should a critic mix his political point of view with his judgment of art? Does it weaken the criticism? ArtKrush 02/04/03
Posted: 02/04/2003 6:06 am
In Zimbabwe - A Crackdown On Artists "The arts in Zimbabwe are struggling for air in an even more repressive atmosphere than anything experienced in South Africa. 'It's well past censorship. It's rule of fear. It's total control'." The Telegraph (UK) 02/04/03
Bush Delivers Arts Budget Proposals President George Bush delivers his funding requests for the arts to Congress. "The president followed through on his support for improving Americans' knowledge of the country's history by proposing $25 million for a humanities endowment initiative called "We the People." The president is concerned about our lack of understanding ourselves, our historical amnesia. By contrast, funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that would help television and radio stations make the transition to digital transmission, supported in the past by President Bush, were eliminated in the new budget request." Washington Post 02/04/03
Missouri To Discontinue Arts Funding? Missouri Gov. Bob Holden's proposes to eliminate funding for the state arts council, which "distributed as much as $5 million in the flush year 2001 to organizations as varied as the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra to the family folk festival in St. Joseph, Mo. Holden proposes that the council pay for arts programs by dipping into the Missouri Cultural Trust, a state savings account that matches private donations with public money." St. Louis Post-Dispatch 02/02/03
Where's Glenn Gould Avenue? And Why Isn't There One? "I think I'd be the teensiest bit more receptive to the fiscal argument against supporting and celebrating Canadian arts, if those who make it so stridently made any attempt to support and celebrate the arts in ways that did not involve spending lots of money. The Roman Catholic Church seems to have less stringent regulations about canonization than we have about naming streets after our artists. How much does it cost to put up a street sign? How much does it cost to weave into the fabric of our cities and towns the evidence of real artists creating real art?" The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/03/03
Denver Center Theatre's Muted Celebration Next season is the Denver Center Theatre's 25th anniversary. But the theatre's celebrations will be somewhat muted. The 25th season contains only one premiere, and tight budgets make restraint mandatory. "That premiere is a new musical, but its loneliness in a collection of regional premieres and American revivals points toward the shrinking endowment of the Bonfils Foundation, which largely underwrites the theater company. Donovan Marley, the theater's artistic director, said next season will also see more staff reductions, and while he hoped they would be through attrition, he could not guarantee it." Rocky Mountain News (Denver) 02/04/03
Posted: 02/04/2003 8:16 am
No Roles When You're Older? Dallas Actresses Start Their Own Theatre A group of Dallas actresses in their 30s and 40s got tired of sitting around complaining that there were no roles for them anymore. So they started their own theatre, found an old church to renovate, and Contemporary Theatre of Dallas was born... Dallas Morning News 02/04/03
Posted: 02/04/2003 7:31 am
Library Use Soaring As Economy Slips Unemployment is bad in New York, and people have time on their hands. So they go to the library. "Use of public libraries here has climbed almost 10% since the summer of 2001 and that circulation is up 12%. Computer use just for resume writing at Mid-Manhattan increased 128% over the last year. On the fourth floor of that charmless branch on Fifth Avenue, there isn't an empty seat on a snowy afternoon..." Los Angeles Times 02/03/03
Great Books Of All Time - Harry By A Nose? After the success of its "Great Britons of all time" poll, the BBC is going to apply the formula to books. Viewers will nominate 100 books. "In November, the top 10 books will be announced - and the case for each one will, as with Great Britons, be made in a one-hour special programme, presented by a celebrity, or at the very least a personality. Finally, before Christmas, there will be another giant vote. The result? It's almost certain that 'The Lord of the Rings' will triumph over 'Harry Potter', in a tightly fought contest. Or vice versa." London Evening Standard 02/03/03
Did HG Wells Plagiarize From Toronto Woman? Did HG Wells plagiarize his "The Outline of History," published in 1920, from a 50-year-old Toronto woman named Florence Deeks? Deeks spent a good part of the the middle and later part of her life trying to prove that Wells had based his work on a manuscript she had sent to Macmillan publishers in 1914. A new book takes up her case in an attempt to win justice... Los Angeles Times 02/02/03
Kids - Forgetting The Classics? Are kids losing touch with the literary kids' classics? A survey in Britain reports that only three percent of children had read "Little Women." "Only 12% had actually read Alice in Wonderland, only 2% 'Swallows and Amazons', and only 6% 'The Secret Garden'. By contrast, 81% had read 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'. 'The Lord of the Rings' scored 31%." The Guardian (UK) 02/01/03
San Jose Silicon Valley Dance Company May Close After City Rejects Bailout The fledgling Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley has told the city of San Jose that the company could close as soon as Friday without an emergency grant of $100,000. "But a key city panel voted Monday night to deny the money, after arts groups complained that the money, from funds that had been slated for the now-defunct symphony, should be made available to all arts groups. The ballet is trying to raise $1.2 million to keep it afloat through the end of the season, in May, and perhaps give it enough time to further develop its own symphonic organization, Symphony San Jose Silicon Valley." San Jose Mercury-News 02/04/03
Posted: 02/04/2003 8:55 am
Men Of Dance - Busting One Stereotype For Another A documentary about four star male dancers at American Ballet Theatre tries hard to portray them as normal guys. Too hard. Obviously the documentary-maker wants to bust stereotypes of male dancers being sissies. But to hear everyone tell it in tonight's broadcast, dancing is just a guy's thing. For example, "Ethan Stiefel likes to ride a motorcycle and what chiefly attracted him to ballet, he says, is the opportunity to place his hands on women's bodies. No, no, no. Believe it or not, men in tights are drawn to ballet by a calling, a compulsion toward artistic endeavor and yes, ambition." The New York Times 02/03/03
Where's The Imaginative Dance Needed For LA? With the LA Philharmonic moving out of the The Music Center of Los Angeles, dance fans are hoping to see more dance brought to town. Very little dance has been seen there for years. To that end, the Music Center has taken a baby step, bring three companies to town. "The companies are certainly worthy; for the Music Center, however, this seems a discouragingly safe and unimaginative way to begin. What's really called for is a wake-up call to the vast, hibernating dance audience. This selection does nothing to define the place that the Music Center wants to stake out for itself as a dance presenter." Orange County Register 02/02/03
Developing Dance Outside The Big Apple In the American dance world, New York is the center of the universe. Every choreographer and dance company feels the need to be seen there. But a panel of choreographers meeting in Cleveland stressed the importance of making careers outside of New York. "The regional voice makes a difference. There's a different kind of complexion to dance in Seattle, Austin [Texas], Cleveland..." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 02/02/03
People
Lou Harrison, 85 American composer Lou Harrison, died Sunday in a Denny's in Indiana on his way to a festival of his music at Ohio State University. "Mr. Harrison's primary contribution to Western music, aside from the sheer beauty of his works, was his wide-ranging, deeply felt connection to the musics of non-Western cultures, Asian especially. He studied in Taiwan and South Korea and was deeply immersed in Javanese music. He built several gamelans, or Indonesian percussion orchestras, spawning a movement that spread through North America (there are some 200 ensembles built in direct emulation of Mr. Harrison's)." The New York Times 02/04/03
- Goodbye Lou Harrison "grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, studied music at San Francisco State College, composition with Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, and pioneered with John Cage in creating and performing works for percussion ensemble. 'Lou's passing is so symbolic of the end of an era. His deep connections to Schoenberg, Ives, Cowell, and Cage made him a real icon, even beyond his own compositional career'.” San Francisco Classical Voice 02/04/03
Culture Minister As Uninspired Artist UK culture minister Kim Howells has big ideas about art. He wants boldness. He wants imagination. He wants something new. So you might think the art he made himself might be all (or even some) of these things. You'd be wrong. "It turns out that his idea of art, as manifested in the example of his own work sold at a charity auction (to the organiser, a friend) for £60 is disappointingly, or gratifyingly if you want to put the boot in, dull. Dull isn't the word. This laborious, insipid excuse for a drawing is a piece of middle-class kitsch so lacking in life that it could win the Daily Mail's competition for 'real' art. Howells' drawing is nerveless and oddly lacking in warmth - the very opposite of his public persona." The Guardian (UK) 02/04/03
Spacey To Join Old Vic Kevin Spacey has agreed to take an active role in the management of London's Old Vic Theatre. "The actor, who is already on the board of trustees, is understood to have agreed to spearhead the theatre's artistic and commercial endeavours. Despite playing host to some of the most celebrated actors, including Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and Vivien Leigh, the theatre's rich history has been overshadowed for some time by its lack of funds and desperate need for refurbishment." The Guardian (UK) 02/04/03
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