Ideas Controversial Cleaning Cleaning art to make it clearer alters the work in a way some find unacceptable. "If one were to suggest that a Bach Cantata should be transposed and reconstructed to make it 'listenable' to a wide audience, many would find the proposition unacceptable. The same might be said of remaking T. S. Elliot's 'Wasteland' so that the poem would become 'understandable' to neophytes and school children. The situation surrounding a painting from the past is rather different in one crucial aspect, however. Re-writing Bach's musical score for a new redaction or Elliot's poetic structure for another less complex one does not affect the original text. The correct, uncorrupted text is still there and can always be consulted. Such is not the case with a painting which has been made more readable. The restoration operation requires that making the object more readable be conducted on the original, unique and only text itself." ArtWatch International Posted: 03/10/2003 7:36 pm Visual Arts Where Are The Great Women Artists? Back in 1971, art historian Linda Nochlin published an influential essay titled "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" "It was a provocative, lengthy, and wide-ranging examination of women’s status, past and present, which commenced with the author’s "open-minded wonderment that women, despite so many years of near-equality . . . have still not achieved anything of exceptional significance in the visual arts." Now - 30 years later - "how many of Nochlin’s observations remain valid and how have they influenced the discourse on art in the academy, in the museums, and in the marketplace?" ArtNews 03/03 Posted: 03/11/2003 7:22 am Nice Nice Nice - The Failure Of Architecture "For centuries, the task of the architect was to build the ideal city, whether the city state of 15th-century Italy, or a Modernist backdrop for car-driving, welfare-state citizens. Naturally, they all failed." In the 60s, a group of Italians called Superstudio "had the audacity to say that after 400 years of failure we should give it a rest. Utopia? It ain’t coming." The problem is, they couldn't come up with an alternative. So "three decades after the Italians exited stage left, architecture, and especially British architecture, has fulfilled all their prophesies. It’s cursed with niceness. It’s dull. Unquestioning. Terminally polite." The Times (UK) 03/10/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 5:47 pm Tearing Down An Eyesore (Or Is It?) Birmingham, England's central library is only 30 years old. It has been controversial - seen either as part of an axis of architectural evil, along with the city's Rotunda and New Street station, or as a bold brutalist design. Prince Charles described it as "looking like a place where books are incinerated". Now it is to be torn down for a new library. But some worry that "although fashions of the 1970s have been reassessed and mined for information several times over, buildings of this period are still very little understood; if the library is demolished, Birmingham will lose a great building before its importance has been recognised." The Guardian (UK) 03/10/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 5:25 pm Guard Implicates Himself In Dali Theft A guard at New York's Riker's Island jail has implicated himself in the theft of a Salvador Dali sketch from the facility. "The officer told authorities Saturday's theft was concocted as a get-rich-quick scheme, with participants hoping to cash in on the sketch by selling it on the black market for $500,000. But the painting was discovered missing far sooner than they hoped because the officers opted to keep it in its frame and put a replica sketched by one of the guards back with another frame." New York Post 03/07/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 4:28 pm Music A Concerto About Me - And It's Good! Toronto Star music critic William Littler was surprised to get an announcement of a performance of a new concerto dedicated to...him. So he had to go and see why an Edmonton-based composer was honoring a Toronto-based music writer. "It turned out that he had been reading my reviews on the Star's Web site. The concerto, he explained before its world premiere, represented his way of thanking me." Naturally Littler stayed for the performance, and reports that "the 24-minute concerto turned out to be a piece worth hearing, with a distinctive musical character and an emotional communicativeness." Toronto Star 03/11/03 Posted: 03/11/2003 7:05 am R&B Awards Come Without Cash This Year Winners of this year's R&B Foundation Pioneer Awards didn't get the cash awards that have accompanied the prizes in the past. "In the past individual acts have received $15,000 and groups $20,000. But this year the R&B Foundation has significantly altered the size of the awards and the way they are paid because of lagging fund-raising and a decrease in donations from record companies and individuals. Donations from our music industry sponsors are down about 60 percent." The New York Times 03/11/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 7:46 pm All Together - English National Opera Ponders Future The English National Opera is a mess. Critics contend that plans to save the company will strip the company of its artistic integrity. "The word 'ensemble' is at the core of the debate about ENO's future. What does it mean, and why does it provoke such intense emotions whenever it seems to be threatened? At one level, the answer is simple. An ensemble performs together. It can be half a dozen actors touring Strindberg in the provinces; or a band of period- instrument specialists bringing baroque concertos back to life; or a company of 500 in an Edwardian theatre in London's West End. Size doesn't matter, but shared values, collective experience, training, exploring and changing together – these are what count." The Independent (UK) 03/07/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 5:33 pm Why'd They Forget About Bix? Bix Beiderbecke was a seminal figure in jazz. This week is the 100th anniversary of his birthday. So "where are the sort of commemorative CD reissue series that celebrated Armstrong's 100th birthday in 2001, or Duke Ellington's in 1999? The major labels, which rarely miss an opportunity to make a quick buck off sentimentality (not to mention recordings paid for nearly 80 years ago), have apparently missed this one." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/10/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 5:16 pm The New Classical Music? "Alongside the traditional classical realm of Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart, another scene is asserting itself - one in which unconventional repertoire is embraced, new music by living composers is emphasized and being engaged with the cultural present is a priority. This scene isn't entirely new. But it is deriving renewed energy from artists in their 20s and 30s who grew up listening to the British rock band Radiohead as well as Ravel. And the new sounds are attracting young audiences to a musical genre whose health seems forever at risk." St. Louis Post-Dispatch 03/08/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 4:17 pm Theatre Settlement In Broadway Strike Sources say a settlement has been made in the Broadway musicians strike. Producers and musicians bargained for nearly 12 hours through the night at Mayor Michael Bloomberg's mansion. "The settlement, the terms of which were not immediately announced, will presumably allow most Broadway musicals that have been closed since Friday night to reopen tonight." The New York Times 03/11/03 Posted: 03/11/2003 6:20 am Virtual Reality - Little About Broadway Music Is "Real" Maybe the Broadway musicians strike is about live music, but "the truth is, orchestras on Broadway have been becoming virtualized for years. Electronic enhancement is used to juice up the sound of the string section and boost the punch of the brass. Missing instruments — extra woodwinds, a couple of harps, exotic percussion — are rendered through digital keyboards. The chorus onstage is often fortified by taped voices that are blasted through the sound system. But it would be great to see this tired assumption challenged. How often have Broadway audiences been given a chance to experience the truly natural sound of unamplified voices and orchestras? Broadway theaters were once much quieter places." The New York Times 03/11/03 Posted: 03/11/2003 5:47 am NY Mayor Enters Broadway Strike Talks New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has entered the Broadway musicians strike dispute. He's invited producers and the musicians union to negotiate at the mayor's residence. "I am encouraged that theater owners, producers and the musicians' union have taken the city up on its offer, and I am determined that they reach an agreement so Broadway can come back to life." Yahoo! (AP) 03/10/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 6:34 pm (Almost) Alive With The Sound Of Music So the Broadway strike is about live music, right? But for a long time now you really couldn't trust your ears in the theatre. "Many Broadway musical moments remain mostly live and somewhat pure, the creation of soaring talents onstage and sawing string players and the like offstage. But more and more, the sound of music on Broadway is being artificially enhanced, with volumes amplified and instruments synthesized as if the theater district were one big recording studio." Washington Post 03/10/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 6:26 pm Broadway - We're All In Favor Of Live Music Here - Right? Broadway producers say they want to keep live music alive in theatres, but that creative staff should be determining how many musicians should be hired, not unions. "Still, almost every major composer, orchestrator and musical director on Broadway has signed a petition to keep the minimums. So it appears that a good percentage of the creative staff has already spoken." And so far, the strike has cost New York $7 million. Chicago Tribune 03/10/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 4:42 pm Publishing Booker Prize Judges Chosen Judges for this year's Booker prize have been chosen, and jurors include a mountaineer and a philosopher. "The judging panel should reflect the widest possible range of experience and taste, compatible with wanting to read 150 books very fast. I think we meet those requirements pretty well - better than last time I was in the chair, when we lacked both a philosopher and mountaineer." BBC 03/10/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 7:00 pm Biography: A Creative Life "Biography is the least naturalistic of literary genres. Poetry and fiction, in comparison, are pure documentary. Think about it: the experience of living a life is nothing at all like writing or reading a Life. In real life, memory is patchy, with some scenes and events standing out in neon and large blanks of time about which you can not remember a thing. There does not seem to be any pattern to it. We live in the evershifting present, and the future is uncontrollable. The whole thing is chronically unstable." London Evening Standard 03/10/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 5:38 pm Adding Words - New This Year... Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the "most widely circulated of all word books", has "added a dozen or so new words this year, including blunt (a cigar hollowed out and filled with marijuana), booty (buttocks) and gearhead (a computer guru)." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 03/10/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 4:35 pm Media Public TV's Bait-And-Switch When American public TV hods pledge drives, it abandons regular programming and spews out entertainment or special-interest shows calculated to grab more viewers to watch and make a contribution. But "all this pledge-time stunt-programming is enough to make a longtime public-TV booster wonder if somebody has lost sight of its mission. It seems disingenuous, if not dishonest, like a bait and switch. Meanwhile, people who appreciate public-TV's staple programming have the option of griping through stress tips or another Andrew Lloyd Webber tribute for a week or more or slip-sliding over to the History Channel and C-SPAN, from which they may never return. Apart from being aggravating, this strategy seems self-defeating in the long run." Newsday 03/11/03 Posted: 03/11/2003 6:55 am How Do Women Look On TV? The National Organization for Women studies the American primte time TV schedule to see how women are portrayed. "How accurately did the 2002 television season reflect real life? What conclusions might one make about gender, race, sex, violence and social issues in the United States after watching the six major networks?" The NOW Foundation attempted to answer these questions." Chicago Tribune 03/10/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 4:50 pm "Chicago" Takes Screen Actors Guild Awards The movie version of "Chicago" wins three of five 2002 Screen Actors Guild awards. New York Daily News 03/10/03 Posted: 03/10/2003 3:57 pm Dance Pair Quits Boston Ballet After a couple of tumultuous years, things were supposed to settle down at Boston Ballet with the arrival of new artistic director Mikko Nissinen. But two dancers who have quit mid-season suggest that the controversies aren't over yet. Boston Herald 03/11/03 Posted: 03/11/2003 6:12 am