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How To Enjoy Your Museum Visit Haven't been to a museum in awhile and you're wondering what the right way to appreciate what's inside? The Onion has a helpful guide. Tip #12: "Spend a minimum of 30 seconds, ideally 45, staring at each exhibit so no one will suspect that every molecule in your body is screaming to get the hell out of there and go to the mall." The Onion 03/03
Posted: 03/13/2003 10:10 pm
Court Battle Over Nazi-Looted Picasso May Shift From LA To Chicago "The legal battle over ownership of a $10 million Picasso masterpiece looted by the Nazis during World War II may shift from Los Angeles to Chicago if a tentative ruling issued Thursday by a California judge becomes final and survives appeals." Chicago Tribune 03/14/03
Posted: 03/14/2003 6:49 am
Libeskind - Bringing Your Feelings To Work Daniel Libeskind's design for the World Trade Center site, which he calls 'Memory Foundations', "epitomises American society's current morbid preoccupation with death and conflict. Several architecture commentators have pointed out that the subjective nature of Libeskind's work is something new among architects, who rarely express their own feelings and tend to be more comfortable talking about the functional and technical aspects of buildings. The difference between Libeskind and a cool, rational architect such as Norman Foster is something like the difference between Princess Diana and a regal head of state." spiked-culture 03/11/03
Posted: 03/14/2003 6:18 am
Web Of Prehistory A new website will show detailed images of prehistoric rock art in the UK, cataloguing work that is thousands of years old. "The website will include global positioning system readings - highly accurate positions of the artwork compiled using satellites - and digital drawings and photographs." The Scotsman 03/14/03
Posted: 03/13/2003 11:04 pm
Williamson Wins Second Archibald Prize For the second year in a row, Sydney artist Jan Williamson has won the Archibald packers' prize for portraits with a picture of actor/writer Rachel Ward. "Williamson, a full-time painter and mother of nine, took out the packing room prize last year with her painting of singer-songwriter Jenny Morris." The Age (Melbourne) 03/14/03
Posted: 03/13/2003 10:22 pm
Making Out To Mozart? Really? Showing a little skin to try to sell recordings is one thing, but a new series of "classical" (and we use the term advisedly) recordings is right over the top. "Shacking Up To Chopin, Making Out To Mozart and Bedroom Bliss With Beethoven are the three albums in the Love Notes series. Each claims to be "the perfect addition to intimate moments" and boasts a selection of "teasing, tantalising and suggestive melodies with rapturous crescendos". They also promise to provoke "uninhibited passion", "loss of control" and "sleepless nights of the best kind". The Scotsman 03/14/03
Posted: 03/14/2003 7:50 am
San Antonio Symphony Catches Up On Some Of Its Bills The San Antonio Symphony, which announced two weeks ago that it didn't have enough money to make its payroll or pay more than $400,000 in past-due bills, says it has raised $200,000 since then, enough to pay musicians for the delayed payroll and cover some of the payroll due today. The musicians agreed to continue playing, and most staffers remained on the job. "The symphony has collected about $200,000 in individual gifts and proceeds from benefits hastily organized by other organizations concerned for the orchestra's survival." San Antonio Express-News 03/14/03
Posted: 03/14/2003 7:22 am
Sell Off - Major Music Lables For Sale There are five major recording labels. And that number looks to be reduced in the near future. "In a sign of how bad things have become in the down-and-out music industry, most of the five biggest music companies are either up for sale or contemplating deals." Yahoo! (Reuters) 03/13/03
Posted: 03/13/2003 11:38 pm
Royal Liverpool Orchestra Puts Itself On The Endangered List The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra has declared a financial crisis. In a letter to all 76 players, musicians were told that "the gap must be closed by 2005-6 to secure a continued and viable future for the Phil. What we have become is not sustainable because it is not affordable. If the books are to balance, cuts will be inevitable, leading to possible redundancies among players and management. There are also fears that some players of less mainstream instruments may be offered part-time contracts." The Guardian (UK) 03/14/03
Posted: 03/13/2003 10:28 pm
Cutting Back The Arts In The Twin Cities Minneapolis/St. Paul arts institutions are cutting back their operations in response to a downturn in funding. "The Guthrie Theater said it plans to pare its core staff by 10 percent or more within a few weeks. The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts said it has eliminated eight of its 68 jobs, half through layoffs. The Minnesota Opera Company will shorten its coming season, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts will start closing earlier on Fridays next week. Last month, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra cut 10 administrative positions from a staff of 45. Other leading arts groups, including the Minnesota Orchestra and the Walker Art Center, have reduced staff size through attrition and job consolidation." The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis) 03/14/03
Posted: 03/14/2003 6:53 am
Making The Case For Arts & Humanities Chairmen of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities go to the US Congress to plead their cases for funding. "We cannot defend what we do not understand. But even as our country prepares for a possible war, numerous polls, studies and reports indicate that many students at both the secondary and university levels lack even a basic understanding of their country's past. From my perspective this is a national emergency." Washington Post 03/14/03
Posted: 03/13/2003 11:23 pm
Star-Struck In LA Two enduring characterizations of Los Angeles - that it's unintellectual and star-struck are only partically true. There's no shortage of intellectual events featuring A-list names. But the attendees appear every bit as star-struck for the intellectual heavy-hitters as other crowds do for the movie stars. "The only thing wrong with intellectual life in L.A. is that people keep asking if there's intellectual life in L.A. The last remnant of provinciality is asking that question." Los Angeles Times 03/13/03
Posted: 03/13/2003 5:38 pm
Robert Hughes On Trial Remotely When art critic Robert Hughes goes on trial next month in Australia charged with dangerous driving in a 1999 accident, he won't be in the courtroom. Instead he'll attend through a video link from the US. "Hughes' lawyer proposed the video appearance in January, telling the court it was uncomfortable for Hughes to travel because of injuries suffered in the accident." CourtTV 03/14/03
Posted: 03/14/2003 6:45 am
Elderfield Appointed MoMA Chief Curator - "Most Significant Curatorial Post In Modern Art" The Museum of Modern Art has appointed John Elderfield as the museum's new chief curator of the department of painting and sculpture. Elderfield "succeeds Kirk Varnedoe, who organized "Matisse Picasso" with him, in what is generally recognized as the most significant curatorial post in modern art. It was first held by Alfred H. Barr Jr., the museum's visionary founding director." The New York Times 03/14/03
Posted: 03/13/2003 10:54 pm
Theatre - Political Action Reasserts After a period in which political theatre seemed to have disappeared for awhile, politcal theatre is back in America. "Indeed, responding to a number of political exigencies — among them the elevation of George W. Bush to the presidency by the Supreme Court, the Sept. 11 attacks, the looming war in Iraq and more generally the perceptible shift to the right in national perspective — American stages have been reasserting the theater's traditionally liberal bias with an almost vengeful fervor." The New York Times 03/14/03
Posted: 03/13/2003 10:51 pm
Cutting Out The Middleman - Harry Potter Goes Direct To Schools Booksellers are protesting that the Scholastic, the publisher of the Harry Potter books, has been taking orders for the book directly from schools, bypassing the booksellers. "Publishers have an obvious motive to sell direct: They keep more of the money. Scholastic has been selling books, including the earlier Potter works, at fairs for years. But this is the first time a Potter book has been pre-sold, offered before publication. And some retailers say they can't afford to lose any sales during a difficult economic time." Baltimore Sun (AP) 03/14/03
Posted: 03/14/2003 6:29 am
Protesting Aussie Writers Withdraw From Consideration For Rich Prize Some of Australia's most famous writers have withdrawn from consideration for the country's richest fiction prize. Why? "The novelists have withdrawn their names in protest at Forestry Tasmania practices, specifically the clear-felling of native forests for woodchips, and the use of 1080 poison which is claimed to be killing native and endangered animals in Tasmania's wilderness." Sydney Morning Herald 03/14/03
Posted: 03/13/2003 11:13 pm
Porn Factor - The Modern American Library "Today it's common to walk into any public library in America and see adults and teenage students openly viewing hardcore pornography that is unavailable at home on any premium cable channel, is restricted to "adults–only" sections of video stores and, at least before the advent of the Internet, used to be purchased by church–going folks who felt compelled to don hats and fake mustaches to avoid shameful recognition. The situation is tearing at the very soul of librarians, most of whom were raised in a reverential atmosphere of uplifting ideals and lofty debates about how literature can shape and elevate the mind of man. The elevation of his other organs was simply not discussed." MobyLives 03/13/03
Posted: 03/13/2003 10:15 pm
2002 - Year Of The Woman In Hollywood It's been a great year for women in Hollywood. "Not just the sheer number of good women's roles, but their breadth and range in terms of age and ethnicity, made this a watershed year. A genuine one, not the phoney annus mirabilis of a decade ago when a defensive Hollywood gave itself undeserved brownie points by declaring 1992 'The Year of the Woman' - an especially hollow gesture in a mediocre year in which the best woman's role went to a man: Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game." The Guardian (UK) 03/14/03
Posted: 03/13/2003 10:34 pm
Unreal - Why "Reality" TV Can't Last Can the "reality TV" sensation survive? "Simple economics dictates the phenomenon will run its course. TV executives, apparently forgetting the law of supply and demand (not to mention the flameout of 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'), have scheduled a record 42 new 'unscripted dramas' to bow before September. Nor can they afford to feed the phenomenon long-term: Studios make their real money in syndication fees, and no one wants to watch reality reruns." Christian Science Monitor 03/14/03
Posted: 03/13/2003 10:06 pm
No Humans Were Used In The Creation Of This Screenplay New screenplay-writing software is so sophisticated, you just plug in a few sentences and the computer does the rest. "I mean, how hard can it be when the very first 'story box' in the program, which asks what your movie is about, offers this reassurance: 'If you do not yet know what your story is about, leave this question blank and return to it later'?" Christian Science Monitor 03/14/03
Posted: 03/13/2003 10:02 pm
International Ballet Fest Seems More Like Competition The Kennedy Center's International Ballet Festival has, in many ways, "been successful - the sold-out houses, the fodder for discussions of style, form and substance, the views of dancers and works we do not often see here. One hopes it will inspire more such collaborative events. But in some ways the festival has been indifferently executed. In the parade of excerpts that has constituted the bulk of the festival, excerpts performed without sets, out of context and lacking atmosphere, what has been missing is the very thing this festival was designed to highlight: artistic impact and style. Why did the Kennedy Center allow the companies free rein?" Washington Post 03/14/03
Posted: 03/14/2003 8:01 am | 
