Ideas Conceptual Construct - The Art Of Learning Performance Art How does someone learn to be a performance artists? Can you learn how to smear that chocolate over your body or lock yourself up in a suitcase? "More students are studying performance practice, and more are studying its history and theory, in a range of departments: art history, performance studies, anthropology, curatorial programs. Still, even with performance as something of an entrenched category in the current cultural climate, it’s a lucky student who can find a sympathetic mentor in most traditional art schools." ArtNews 04/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 6:39 pm Visual Arts Save Antiquities By Letting The Free Market Work? Andre Emmerich wonders why museums like Iraq's National Museum have such a high concentration of available artifacts in one place. Wouldn't it be better for the preservation of the art if it were spread between many museums and collections? "Contrary to what some believe, trade in ancient objects is not the enemy of preservation. The great contribution the art market makes to this cause is to endow works of art with value. As a practical matter, the objects yielded by excavating tombs are generally quite repetitive within each culture. An obvious solution would be to deaccession the masses of such repetitive minor objects now stored in deplorable conditions." OpinionJournal.com 04/24/03 Posted: 04/24/2003 8:12 am Booming Aboriginal Art Market Australian aboriginal art is hot. "Thirty years ago Aboriginal work was hardly recognized as art. Painted tree bark and ritual stone and wood objects, spears and clubs tended to be lumped together with stuffed koalas and wallabies in the ethnographic sections of Australian museums; Aboriginal art was never displayed in the same spaces as work by white artists. Less than 20 years ago you could barely give it away. People just didn't take art made by Aboriginal painters seriously. But at our sales in July we'll have people from all over the world bidding hundreds of thousands of dollars for art you could have bought for hundreds in the 1970's. We're estimating a total sale value of more than $3 million." The New York Times 04/24/03 Posted: 04/24/2003 7:20 am Working The Crowds With revenues, donations and endowments down, museums are working harder than ever to lure visitors - meditation, singles nights, special membership offers... the marketing is only limited by imagination (and taste?) The New York Times 04/23/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 7:56 pm Museums: Coping With The Crowd Problem "Museums love blockbusters and, judging by the lines, so does the public. But the lines themselves signify the difficulty museums have solving the blockbuster math: let too few people in and the show becomes impossible for everyone to see; let too many people in and the art becomes impossible to see. To some extent, museum officials regard gallery traffic as a problem to be coped with, not cured." The New York Times 04/23/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 7:52 pm Art Anxiety: What If I Don't Get It? The democratization of the American art museum has in some ways increased the visual insecurity of viewers. You're standing there judging the work, but instead it feels like the work is judging you. If you're stumped, you are less likely to blame the artist than yourself. You may even assume you are an indolent person who has failed to make the requisite intellectual effort, which in turn can unleash a chain of negative thoughts about straying from your diet, neglecting to send a sympathy card and other unforgivable failures of will." The New York Times 04/23/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 7:50 pm Reform Needed For UK's National Trust The UK's National Trust has a management problem, says a new report. "The report says it is unrealistic to expect a body of 52 council members, meeting only four times a year for three hours at a time, to run an organisation with an annual expenditure of £251m, hundreds of properties, land holdings of 248,000 hectares (612,808 acres), 3 million members and a staff of 6000." The Guardian (UK) 04/24/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 7:39 pm Repairing Cultural Bosnia Bosnia's National Museum was at the center of heavy fighting during the civil war. "The National Museum, a quadrangle of four Italian Renaissance buildings surrounding a quiet botanical garden, is wedged between what was the war's front line and the broad avenue that became a target for snipers. But the staff that stayed on during the war stood guard at night. They hauled exhibitions to the basements and bulwarked bigger pieces with planks and sandbags. Ultimately, the museum was among the few cultural institutions in Bosnia to survive relatively intact. Now, more than seven years after the war's end, the museum is struggling to reclaim its position as a showcase of Bosnia's history." The New York Times 04/23/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 7:12 pm The Iraq Museum Autopsy Who let Iraq's National Museum get ransacked? What's missing, and how did it happen? Time 04/21/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 7:04 pm Back To The Bamiyan Buddhas Two years ago the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed the ancient Bamiyan Buddhas. So what's become of the site? "Earlier this year, the United Nations' cultural arm, Unesco, persuaded the Afghan government to reject proposals to install replicas of the ancient Buddhas in the towering cliff niches in which they used to stand." But repairs to the niches - "which have begun to crumble as rain has seeped into cracks left by the explosions" - have been slow to get underway. "Unesco officials said that that project would get under way when security conditions improve, using $1.8 million given by Japan and special scaffolding from the Messerschmitt Foundation of Germany." The New York Times 04/23/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 6:54 pm Music Fast-Thinking Conductor Lands American Beethoven Premiere Mobile (Alabama) Symphony conductor Scott Speck was watching CNN in March when the news ticker at the bottom of the screen flashed: "Beethoven oboe concerto premieres in the Netherlands." "I said, 'WHAT?'" Speck recalls. "What Beethoven concerto? What are they talking about? As far as I knew, there was none. And if there had been one, surely I would known. Even if there was one, what do they mean by 'premiered'?" So he tracked down the recently-discovered piece, and scheduled it for the orchestra's next concert... Mobile Register 04/20/03 Posted: 04/24/2003 7:58 am The Video Orchestra This fall the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra will mount video screens on either side of its stage. The video presentations will accompany all of the orchestra's "Musically Speaking concerts. "The screens will be used to show live close-ups of the conductor and soloists. With wall-to-wall dreamscape visuals accompanied by an atmospheric soundtrack, the VSO's experiment will venture beyond the live footage to include a visual script with images of featured composers and the people and places that inspired them." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/24/03 Posted: 04/24/2003 6:57 am Florida Philharmonic My File Bankruptcy Citing "years of financial instability and poor management" the Florida Philharmonic says it may file bankruptcy if it is unable to raise $20 million by May 2. "We built the orchestra before we had put in the proper financial infrastructure. That's the problem.'' Miami Herald 04/23/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 8:47 pm Previously: Florida Philharmonic Down To Its Last Dollars The Florida Philharmonic, said to be carrying a $3 million debt, is declaring an emergency and asking community leaders to help. "Based on what is known today, the FPO is projected to run out of operating cash in early May." Palm Beach Post 04/22/03 EMI To Put Music Catalogue Online Music giant EMI announces that it will put 90 percent of its music catalogue online. "The company is to make available for sale online over 140,000 tracks from over 3,000 EMI artists, allowing customers to burn music onto CD-R, copy tracks to portable players and purchase singles online as soon as the songs are serviced to radio and in advance of their commercial release on CD." Europemedia.com 04/23/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 4:17 pm Louisville Orchestra Might Miss Payroll The Louisville Orchestra warns it might not be able to make next week's payroll. The orchestra is carrying an $800,000 debt. Orchestra musicians say they'll play a series of concerts next week during the Kentucky Derby celebrations in hopes of raising money so they can be paid later. Louisville Courier-Journal 04/23/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 3:59 pm Arts Issues Cincinnati Boosts Arts Spending While cities and states across America are cutting their arts budgets, Cincinnati is doubling its arts spending. "Even as budget cuts are forcing the elimination of entire city services, city leaders are doubling government support of the arts. City Council will vote today on a plan by Councilman Jim Tarbell to divvy up an unprecedented $2.2 million in grants to 17 organizations, including $350,000 to the opera to help fix up the north wing of Music Hall. "I will admit that I don't know much about the opera, the symphony or the ballet - though I do enjoy going to them. It has just seemed to me that the city must recognize its growth potential, and the arts provides the biggest growth potential I can think of'." Cincinnati Enquirer 04/23/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 8:55 pm Public Protest Across US Over Education Cuts US state governments with budget problems have been proposing cuts in education. But the public outcry is strong. "Since January, hundreds to thousands have protested in Arkansas and California, Maryland and New Jersey, Texas and at least 15 other states. The crowds in Frankfort and in Oklahoma City topped 20,000. New Yorkers hope a May 3 event will draw 30,000 in support of public schools. "The scale of the protests is as large and as extensive as we've seen since the '82-'83 recession. And now, schools are more reliant on the states. So when the states cut back, the impact on local school districts is more severe than anything we've ever seen." Los Angeles Times 04/22/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 6:49 pm New Jersey Artists Protest Cuts New Jersey's arts council says that Gov. James McGreevey's proposal to cut the state's arts budget by 50 percent rather than eliminating it is not enough. "Of the cuts McGreevey made in the budget - which include social service programs and higher education - the loudest outcry has been from arts groups, who have made daily pleas at performances, waged letter writing campaigns and sent a barrage of e-mails to lawmakers." Newsday 04/23/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 6:19 pm States Supersize Copyright Laws Numerous US states are introducing their own "enhancements" of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The new laws may make using a number of digital devices illegal. "By and large, the state bills don't lay out specific devices that would be deemed illegal. Most follow along the lines of the proposed Tennessee statute, which would criminalize "any communication device which is connected in such a manner that would permit the unauthorized receipt, interception, acquisition, description, transmission or re-transmission of a communication service." Wired 04/23/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 4:20 pm People The Next Big Conductor? Conductor David Robertson is on many people's list to land the directorship of a major American orchestra. Indeed, critics added his name to the list for several high-profile orchestras in the past few years. "I find out about these things in the newspapers. I found out recently that there was an orchestra I refused, which was rough, because I was never asked. It's an interesting thing, where people seem to know more about potential posts than I do. It's nice that my name comes up, but I look a little bit like the perpetual bridesmaid." The Plain Dealer 04/24/03 Posted: 04/24/2003 7:32 am Laugh Track Inventor Dies The man who invented the laugh track for TV shows has died at the age of 93. "Charlie Douglass was working as a technical director for live TV shows in the early days of the industry when he came up with the idea of developing a 'laugh machine' to enhance or substitute for live audience reaction. He called his first invention the 'Laff Box' and it became the basis of a lucrative family business." New York Post 04/24/03 Posted: 04/24/2003 7:16 am Theatre NEA's Shakespeare Initiative Plays It Safe So the National Endowment for the Arts is paying to bring Shakespeare to the far corners of America. "On the face of it, it seems like a sound idea, but you don't have to scratch far beneath the surface to detect the icky stench beneath," writes Dominic Papatola. "By aiming high, the program targets the lowest common denominator: The NEA's decision to do a nationwide Shakespeare program speaks more to the once-controversial agency's fear of offending than it does to bringing a master playwright to the masses." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 04/24/03 Posted: 04/24/2003 7:37 am Wanted: One Saddam Lookalike A play about the Iraq war opening in London, has posted an audition notice for a Saddam Hussein lookalike. "Open auditions for the part start next week at the Riverside Studios in west London. According to an advert in today's edition of the Stage, "a black beret and flak jacket will be provided", and in a further concession to lookalikes now gone to ground, moustaches will also be on offer." The Guardian (UK) 04/24/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 7:35 pm XXX On A London Stage A play billed as the "most sexually explicit ever to open in London" has made its debut. "The two-hour multi-media show involves naked actors performing simulated sex acts in front of video screens depicting further explicit sexual activity. Based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade, the performance 'aims to challenge boundaries of what is acceptable without a moral judgment'." BBC 04/23/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 4:10 pm Publishing The Oldest Writers Archaeologists have found what they believe to be the oldest examples of human writing. "Carved into 8,600-year-old tortoise shells, the pictograms were found buried with human remains in 24 graves unearthed at Jiahu in Henan province, western China. They predate the earliest recorded writings from Mesopotamia by more than 2,000 years." Discovery 04/22/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 6:43 pm Going For The Fastest Book Forty German writers are hoping to set a record for the fastest book by conceiving, writing and printing a book in 12 hours. "After the authors have finished their writing, the contributions will be subbed by editors and then sent to the publishers. Organisers hope to have 1,000 copies printed before the 12 hours is up, and a party is planned to celebrate the record attempt." BBC 04/23/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 4:07 pm Media Reality Bites: Reality Craze Means Unemployed Writers One thing about all those reality shows dominating the TV schedule - they don't need writers. And so many sitcom and drama writers in Hollywood are hurting for work... Backstage 04/23/03 Posted: 04/23/2003 9:04 pm