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Weekend, April 19,20




Ideas

The Power Of (War) Art War is awful of course. But "war can produce gorgeous images and striking effects that furnish the raw material for sublime works of art. To anyone who has experienced war's ravages firsthand, that idea may sound naive, grotesque, even absurd. Yet over centuries of human brutality, the aesthetic has seldom been at odds with the horrific..." Los Angeles Times 04/20/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 10:07 pm

Visual Arts

Iraq Museum Looting Overstated? Was the extent of the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad overstated? "Thanks to Iraqi preparations before the war, it seems the worst has been avoided. Donny George, the director-general of restoration at the Iraqi Antiquities Department, Wednesday said his staff had preserved the museum's most important treasures, including the kings' graves of Ur and the Assyrian bulls. These objects were hidden in vaults that haven't been violated by looters. Most of the things were removed. 'We knew a war was coming, so it was our duty to protect everything. We thought there would be some sort of bombing at the museum. We never thought it could be looted'." Wall Street Journal 04/17/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 10:22 pm

Is National Mall Being Memorialized To death? The National Mall in Washington DC is one of America's most important public spaces. And space is the key, writes Christopher Knight. But Congress seems intent on cluttering it up with ever more memorials and tributes, which will certainly ruin a grand place. "Approved or proposed Mall additions now include memorials to President Reagan, Martin Luther King Jr., terrorist victims, Native Americans and soldiers lost in peacekeeping missions. Then there's the network of tunnels, underground security checkpoints and surveillance cameras newly suggested for the Washington Monument. Like other burgeoning examples of a post-Sept. 11 'architecture of fear,' these schemes would destroy the monument in order to save it." Los Angeles Times 04/19/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 9:53 pm

What Happened To Warnings About Iraq Museums? Before the war on Iraq, warnings were sent to the Britsh and American governments about protecting Iraq's cultural treasures. "They were completely ignored by the British government, who failed to acknowledge letters sent to them. That was unspeakably terrible. But meetings did take place with the Pentagon, who were given lists of endangered sites. They made contact with some of the appropriate experts, and assurances were given. But I think they were not prepared for what happened in Baghdad - for any of it. The looting of hospitals, for instance - just the scale of it all. I don't think anybody foresaw that there would be a disaster on this scale. The letters that were written were not very specific. They probably did not mention possible looting in the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad. It hadn't crossed my mind that that would even be possible." The Telegraph (UK) 04/19/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 9:44 pm

Andre Breton's Estate Broken Up, Sold Surrealist André Breton's personal art collection has been sold at auction. It brought in €46m (£31.8m), twice the pre-sale estimate. "The auctions, which went on late into the night to accommodate telephone bidders from the US, were disturbed by opponents of the state's refusal to buy Breton's rented flat near Pigalle, in the north of Paris, where the surrealist manifesto was drawn up in 1924." The Guardian (UK) 04/19/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 9:16 pm

The Dictator And His (Bad) Art "In light of the atrocities committed against the Iraqi people and other unfortunates over the past 30 years, it is undoubtedly beside the point to criticize Saddam Hussein for his aesthetics. Still, one of the more tantalizing discoveries of the last few days, as we peel back the onion layers of his regime, has been the revelation of the dictator's taste is art..." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/19/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 9:13 pm

Music

Creativity On A Deadline (And Sometimes You Miss It) "Creativity is hard to schedule. Yet orchestras today have to plan their seasons months, even years in advance. This leads to a disparity: on one hand, stringent deadlines; on the other, a process of creation that requires flexibility and can never quite be pinned down. For when you commission a piece, you're never sure what you're going to get — or when you're going to get it." The New York Times 04/20/03
Posted: 04/20/2003 9:50 am

Is Music Better/Worse Depending On Who Wrote It? Does a piece of music's back-story change the way we hear it? Of course. But "do we serve music as a whole by giving attention to pieces whose qualities, taken by themselves, rarely rise above the competent and the agreeable? In other words, does a life that resonates with profound circumstances justify the reputation of music that falls short of such depths? Music moves the spirit in a way that other arts do not. Dare we compromise its integrity, no matter how moving the story attached? Some would say not." The New York Times 04/20/03
Posted: 04/20/2003 9:45 am

Mix Tapes - Mixing For Trouble Mix tapes/CDs are hot. "Mix tapes are the creations of local DJs who take hits, rarities, the works of up-and-coming rappers or all of the above, and use them to turn a blank CD into a highly personal jukebox. There is intense competition among those DJs to get the freshest material, and because the formal music industry has long viewed the whole scene as a copyright nightmare, a spirit of pirate radio pervades." Los Angeles Times 04/20/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 10:10 pm

America's Top 20 - All About Product Placement Of the 20 songs on the American Top 20 list last week, ten of them plugged products in the songs. "Stars love plugging. Brands love getting plugged. But someday the slightly murky relationship of product placement and what initiates that product being placed in a song might have to change. If you were a sandals-wearing, lead-the-people-through-great-hardship kind of a guy, you might say that this was because it was in some kind of fundamental way "wrong" or something like that. If you're slightly less amazed in these days of 'created brand relevance that doesn't appear orchestrated', then you might just say it's because it's all getting a bit boring." The Guardian (UK) 04/19/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 9:24 pm

Arts Issues

Milwaukee Schools Slashing Arts Education Milwaukee's public school district is having a budget crisis. So how does it propose solving it? In part, by decimating its arts programs. "Although the district's financial officers will not submit a proposed budget to the School Board until May 1, a preliminary analysis shows that the district will likely lose 21 art instruction positions and 13 music positions. The cuts would reduce the district's costs by more than $2.4 million. It seems pretty obvious to us right now that the arts are where there are going to be some big cuts." Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 04/20/03
Posted: 04/20/2003 10:16 am

Theatre

Can A Broadway Bomb Make It Big On The Road? Seussical the musical was not a hit when it got to Broadway, and the critics were not kind. But after a $2 million makeover, wholesale tinkering from top to bottom, the remade show has been out on the road, and doing pretty well. "The reviews in other cities have been kinder than those of the original production, and the show has performed well at the box office, if a bit unevenly. And, of course, there's a wide range of Seuss souvenirs raking in cash at intermission." Hartford Courant 04/20/03
Posted: 04/20/2003 10:10 am

Theatre Politique David Edgar says political theatre will never disappear. "For most of the 30 years in which I have been doing political theatre, it has been on its last legs. Over those years, I have spent more time than I care to consider sitting on panels in black-box theatres discussing whether this much-contested genre has any future. In fact, as I argue roundly on such occasions, the anatomising of contemporary society has been the great project of British theatre-writing since 1956, and whenever one wave seemed spent, another arrived to take its place." The Guardian (UK) 04/19/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 10:13 pm

Broadway Hit Closes In London's West End Is it because the war kept tourists away from London's West End? That's one theory why "Contact" - expected to run for a year or more - is closing after only six months. "Contact came to the West End with an apparently gilt-edged pedigree. It was devised by choreographer Susan Stroman, and John Weldman, and was a smash hit on Broadway, where it won a string of awards, including a Tony." The Guardian (UK) 04/19/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 9:19 pm

Publishing

Madonna, Writer Of Children's Books, Critic Madonna says the children's books she's writing will be "moral tales based on the cabbala". "She condemned the shallow nature of most children's books, explaining that the suggestion for her project came from the teacher with whom she has been studying the cabbala for seven years. She spotted the lack of moral children's books when reading to her first child, Lourdes. 'Now I'm starting to read to my son, but I couldn't believe how vapid and vacant and empty all the stories were'." The Guardian (UK) 04/19/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 9:38 pm

Media

Culture By Remote Remote controls are one of the biggest innovations TV has undergone. "Ever notice, for example, that network series rarely have theme songs like in the old days? Thank the remote. Notice that there are no commercials between the end of one network show and the beginning of the next one? Thank the remote. Notice (if you're old enough) that the commercials themselves are more sophisticated and less annoying than the ones the TV blared in the '70s? Thank the remote. Notice those endless headlines crawling across the bottom of your screen? Thank the remote. Notice (ladies) that you can tell a lot about a guy's control issues by watching an evening of TV with him? Thank the remote." Los Angeles Times 04/20/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 10:16 pm

Dance

Rethinking All That Moving Around Western dance - particularly ballet - has emphasized athleticism (and thereby youth). But more and more, dancers are exploring the Asian tradition, which is less athletic, and concentrates more on the upper body. "By the time critics notice something in art, artists have almost always long since led the way. So it is with Asian dance and its impact on the West, which has by now insinuated itself into our dance vocabulary. Ballet remains popular, and rightly so: there is something thrilling about artistically inflected athletic accomplishment, and we'll always respond to that. But feats of studly skill are not all there is to dance, and Asians know it." The New York Times 04/20/03
Posted: 04/20/2003 9:38 am

Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley Cuts Budget/Performances Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley has cut its budget by $1.4 million. "The company's new budget of $4.9 million for 2003-2004 includes pay cuts for staff members, reduced operating budgets for all departments, reduced hours for some employees and the elimination of Sunday evening performances." San Francisco Chronicle 04/19/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 10:27 pm

Pop Goes The Hip Hop Hip hop is popular. Wildly popular. But it's not like what you see in the pop culture, says Rennie Harris. "This culture, and specifically pop culture, has kind of convinced people that hip-hop dance is sort of a series of steps and patterns. A monkey can do that. They do regimented, synchronized movements in the military, but you don't call it dance. This is not to disrespect that; the point is to let you know that what you are doing right now is not hip-hop, it has evolved into something else. And once it loses the soul, it is no longer dance." Los Angeles Times 04/20/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 10:03 pm

America's Most Popular Choreographer? Paul Taylor has legions of fans. "Taking his cue from Martha Graham, once his teacher and mentor, he has generally continued the modern-dance project of unchaining dance from rigid balletic constraints. But unlike more radical figures such as Merce Cunningham, he has also shied away from pure abstraction and has generally retained figurative elements, narrative and lyricism. The result is a highly personal style charged with energy and humour." The Guardian (UK) 04/19/03
Posted: 04/19/2003 9:33 pm


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