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Trouble Remembering? The idea of erecting monuments has seemed so old-fashioned for a long time. "The view that memory is an impediment to modernity has been widely shared by architects, artists, and theorists. The obsolescence of the monument became almost an axiom of the modernist creed. But sometimes aesthetic theory and artistic fashion must yield before the harshness of lived history. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial began to change the prevailing opinion that the monument is dead, not least because it availed itself of a modernist vocabulary to accomplish its commemoration." The New Republic 02/03/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 11:15 pm
Artist Mails Himself To Tate An unemployed actor had himself sealed up in a box and mailed to the Tate Museum. He said he had "turned himself into living art to explore the way that artists are seen as objects." A number of people from the Tate came out and applauded as the box was opened. The Times (UK) 02/07/03
Posted: 02/07/2003 7:53 am
Art Thief Sentenced To Four Years The French waiter who stole millions of dollars worth of art over six years has been sentenced to four years in prison for the thefts by a Swiss court. Why did he take the art? "He believed he was one of the very few people sensitive enough to appreciate the true beauty of works of art." BBC 02/07/03
Posted: 02/07/2003 7:39 am
Who Gets To Decide The WTC Job The competition between the two remaining design proposals for the World Trade Center site is also a contest between who gets to decide the shape of the project. "Two views of what comes next are now contending, pitting Roland W. Betts, a director of the development corporation with strong personal ties to the White House, against Charles A. Gargano, the state's top economic development official, some Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executives, developers and others." The New York Times 02/07/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 10:31 pm
Instant Messaging - Why UN Covered Its Guernica Reproduction? So the UN covered up Guernica this week. Was it sensitive to the message? "The continuing sensitivity to Guernica exemplified by the U.N. cover-up may remind us that modern art is poor in images glorifying just military action, though rich in images of the horrors and injustices of war. Further back in history, of course, there are numerous celebrations of the triumph of righteous might." Slate 02/06/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 7:19 pm
The "Third Rail" Of Art History? After Lawrence Weschler wrote about David Hockney's theory about how Old Master painters might have used optical devices as aids in their work, he got an avalanche of protests. "I write about all sorts of things–hell, I write about relations between Jews and Poles, for God’s sake – so I’m used to getting letters. But I’d never found myself on the receiving end of anything like this. It turns out that the question of technical assistance may be the Third Rail of popular art history. Most people, it seems, prefer to envision their artistic heroes as superhuman draftsmen, capable of rendering ravishingly accurate anatomies or landscapes or townscapes through sheer inborn or God-given talent." ArtKrush 12/02
Posted: 02/06/2003 6:47 pm
Pop Goes The Jingle "With traditional sources of revenue falling, the music industry is now desperate to get advertisers to use original pop songs to sell everything from handbags to hamburgers. This trend, which media types call 'synchronisation', is leading to another: the decline of the jingle. Once pop songs in their own right (America's first radio jingle, Pepsi's “hits the spot”, became a jukebox hit in 1939) catchy jingles are being discarded. Despite the $90,000-plus cost to license a pop song (compared with $15,000 for a customised jingle), advertisers, especially those aiming at younger consumers, think it money well spent." The Economist 02/07/03
Posted: 02/07/2003 7:12 am
Opera Australia Survey: Old Audiences Are Different From New Audiences After Opera Australia ran up a $2 million debt and botched the PR over not renewing director Simone Young's contract, the company commissioned a study of audience concerns. Among the findings: "The subscriber's enthusiasm to "frock up" to go to the opera creates problems. 'It is about a sense of occasion, as well as going to the theatre. But this cuts across new audience members who might feel intimidated because they can't pronounce the titles and are not sure how to dress." The Age (Melbourne) 02/07/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 10:42 pm
Chill Out Dude Classical chillout albums are a curious phenomenon. The numerous albums that visit this territory do very well: Virgin's Classical Chillout was the bestselling classical compilation of 2001, shifting 400,000 units, and those who bought it were younger than the usual classical fans. Chillout as an idea has become as good as a brand. And, as EMI's research shows, many potential customers associate classical music with, above all, relaxation. More stimulating compilations, such as Euphoric Classics, sell less well." The Guardian (UK) 02/06/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 8:42 pm
Critical Disconnect It seems like critics are more out of step with audiences than they have been in a long time. Critics' favorite movies aren't the big box office hits. Reality TV has captured viewers' hearts, but not the critics. And pop music critics consitently pick albums and artists that don't sell well. "So what gives? Should critics really worry about staying in sync with the masses? Should they start grading on a curve?" Hartford Courant 02/07/03
Posted: 02/07/2003 6:30 am
Mandela, Artist Nelson Mandela is enjoying a surging art career. He has been making drawings in charcoal and pastel of his time as an inmate at the brutal Robben Island prison. "In just five months, the 84-year-old former South African president and Nobel Peace laureate has sold more than 1,000 lithographs of five drawings. The inspiration for the new career came when art publisher Ross Calder saw Yoko Ono was using John Lennon's sketches to raise money for charity. He took the idea to Mandela, suggesting he could do the same. 'I may be artistic, but it's in the back, far recesses of my mind. It will take a lot to get that out'." New Jersey Online (AP) 02/07/03
Posted: 02/07/2003 7:44 am
Czech Republic - Where Artists Lead Playwright Vaclav Havel has stepped down as president of the Czech Republic. So is the country ready for another artist to lead it? Musician Karel Gott, who has topped the Czech charts for much of the last four decades, has been proposed by a group of rock musicians, and he says he's interested in running for the job. BBC 02/06/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 6:58 pm
Broadway Musician Strike Inevitable? Negotiations on a new contract between Broadway producers and musicians began this week, and musician minimums are the big issue. The two sides are well apart. "Producers have taken what one source calls a 'blood oath' that they will hang together in the event of a strike. They expect the union to take a divide-and-conquer approach, striking only those shows with weak box offices or that don't yet have their 'virtual orchestras' in place (there are a few). Should that happen, every show will bar musicians from the theater and use pre-recorded music." New York Post 02/07/03
Posted: 02/07/2003 7:26 am
- Previously: How Live Is Broadway Live Theatre Music? The battle looming on Broadway between the musicians' union and producers is being cast as a fight over whether there will be live music in orchestra pits. On the other hand - union rules requiring a minimum number of musicians to be employed at theatres even when not all the musicians are required for a show, are unreasonable almost by any standard. Meanwhile - today's theatre orchestras are so highly miked that it's often difficult to tell whether the music is live or not. Where's the artistic value in any of this? Newsday 02/02/03
Moscow Theatre Reopens After Last Year's Siege The Moscow theatre where 170 people were killed during a siege by Chechen rebels has reopened. "Moscow's city government has given $2.5m (£1.5m) to repair the Dubrovka Theatre which now has a high-tech security system. Nord-Ost's producer and co-writer, Georgy Vasilyev, himself a hostage, had always vowed the show would go on despite 18 cast and crew members being killed." BBC 02/06/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 6:55 pm
Poets Uprising "Poets may rightly grumble that they aren't read or paid enough, but in times of crisis it's the poets, of all the artists in all countries, who suddenly seem the most important. Robert Lowell was a face of protest during the Vietnam war. Rupert Brooke and Robert Graves were among those who, writing from the trenches in World War I, best conveyed the anguish of war in what was not protest but patriotic poetry. So now, hardly surprisingly, we have our poets stepping forward to protest war, at what appears a fairly late moment. Why are poets the leading dissenters?" The New York Times 02/06/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 10:37 pm
Eggers And His Movement "Most observers see Dave Eggers and his fans as existing outside politics. But Eggers' literary superstardom is prompting an alternative culture that has grown up around him over the last five years. It is a San Francisco- and Brooklyn-based community of writers, artists, designers and, increasingly, children - with a growing national following. They are the readers, contributors and designers of the literary journal-cum-Web site McSweeney's (first published in 1998) and McSweeney's Books. They are, especially in the last year, the audiences at McSweeney's-sponsored conferences, readings and concerts across the country. They are idealistic about education, sentimental about children and impatient with the homogeneous culture that corporations produce." American Prospect 02/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 7:32 pm
Harry - A Record Cover Price For A Children's Book The new Harry Potter book could weigh in at more than 1000 pages. But it will also sport a heavy price. "Scholastic Children's Books, the U.S. publisher of J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix', announced Thursday a suggested retail price of $29.99. 'That's definitely the highest price for a children's novel we've ever seen'." Nando Times (AP) 02/06/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 7:26 pm
Books Are Dead...Good Riddance "Books suck. Most books are dopier than television or movies or even advertising (many books tend to be just collateral promotions or the lesser offspring of dopey television, movies, and advertising). Even if there are precious exceptions, the overwhelming number of big-money, industry-sustaining books are incontrovertibly dum-dum things. More cynical, more pandering than any other entertainment product. Working at a magazine where every day random books come flying in by the bushel you get a sense of the magnitude of the wasteland. Books may be the true lowest-common-denominator medium. What’s more, in the book business, you have to work in really deadening conditions..." New York Magazine 02/05/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 7:06 pm
Booknotes - Keeping It Simple C-Span's "Booknotes" is a serious place to talk books. Host Brian Lamb has a big following, but the appeal of the show is in its simplicity. "This is not a show done for intellectuals. A lot of people thought it was in the beginning. They started to hear me ask some very basic questions, and they'd say: 'Oh, my goodness, why is he asking those stupid questions?' So: Why is he asking those questions? 'I want to know the answer'." Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette 02/06/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 6:32 pm
What's Wrong With Canadian Filmmaking? Producer Ivan Reitman has some ideas. "The Canadian producer has been trained and encouraged to focus on qualifying for a range of content rules and points set by an ever-changing platoon of politicians and bureaucrats. Unfortunately, this intense focus on technical criteria sometimes means that creating films for the real world is ignored. The audience is forgotten. Navigating the minutiae of this hermetically sealed world of institutionalized filmmaking genetically selects Canadian producers for failure." Toronto Star 02/07/03
Posted: 02/07/2003 8:46 am
British Awards Have American Taste The Bafta Awards are the British equivalent of the Oscars. But this year the field is so crowded with Americans, the exercise looks more like a Hollywood preview. "The pre-eminence of all-American stars, films and craft talents in the nominations made by those who consider themselves the elite of the British film industry is causing a scandal. And rightly so. 'Where are the Brits?' is what's being asked as the lists are scanned." London Evening Standard 02/07/03
Posted: 02/07/2003 6:39 am
Oscar's Weird Foreign Policy "The foreign language nomination committee for the Oscars isn't the U.N. Security Council, but each year at this time it must wade through global politicking, diplomatic challenges and sometimes hard-to-fathom national preferences as it selects five nominees from the offerings presented by countries around the world." Some of the choices are unusual - excellent films get passed up while dogs are allowed to bark. So, predictably, there are controversies. "Many of this year's 54 entries have been bizarre or even difficult to watch." Los Angeles Times 02/07/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 11:01 pm
A £250 Million Film Studio? Who Wants That? In an effort to bring film production to Scotland, a group has proposed a £250 million plan to build a studio complex "comprising up to 14 soundstages, an extensive back lot and the largest external water tank in the world." But the plan has been denounced by residents nearby as "a smokescreen to allow an exclusive housing and leisure development to be built on prime, green-belt land." The Scotsman 02/07/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 10:48 pm
You Can Do That On TV? "Everywhere you look on prime-time television, there is language and behavior that would have been unthinkable just a few short seasons ago. But the truth is, while the avalanche of sleaze alone may seem major to the casual observer, it's actually just a small part of what TV insiders regard as a wholesale reevaluation of the way TV does business. The only guarantee at the moment is that more changes are on the way." Christian Science Monitor 02/07/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 3:01 pm
Out From Behind The Curtain - A Russian Export When Boris Eifman started his dance company in 1977, he was spurned by Soviet authorities. " 'Back then, the authorities looked on me as a pornographer, not a choreographer.' His crime was not to dissent from Soviet politics, but to choreograph in a style that challenged the orthodoxies of Soviet ballet. Today, Eifman Ballet Theatre is one of Russia's prime cultural exports, and Eifman, its 56-year-old director, cuts an engaging ambassadorial figure." The Guardian (UK) 02/06/03
Posted: 02/06/2003 8:48 pm | 
