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Thursday, May 8




Ideas

Can Economics Quantify The Quality Of Art? A Universisty of Chicago economist contends that "techniques commonly used by economists, such as statistical analysis, can be employed to understand even a seemingly subjective world such as art. By studying the careers of more than 100 modern artists, David Galenson proved certain artists did their best work early in their careers - with 'best' determined by which works fetch highest prices at auction and are displayed by museums - while other artists did their best work later in their careers. Those who peaked early, Galenson claimed, were conceptual artists, driven by a singular vision. The late bloomers, by contrast, were experimental innovators who used a long period of trial and error to eventually create their masterpieces. What irked art historians was the prospect of dividing artists into neat categories, of treating their output like a commodity." Chicago Tribune 05/08/03
Posted: 05/08/2003 9:02 am

Musicians Alarmed Over Media Consolidation "Musicians of all stripes are starting to recognize that the galloping consolidation of American media - especially in radio, where most Americans were first introduced to their favorite songs - has reduced the ability of recording artists to take the risks that reshape our consciousness, to explore new ideas and new sounds and, ultimately, to be heard." And musicians are alarmed by proposeals for even more deregulation They've sent a letter to the FCC to protest. The "letter from some of the best-known musicians in the U.S. is the latest sign of the broad opposition that rule changes being considered by the FCC - which would allow one company to own newspapers, television and radio in the same town, and which would allow more consolidation of media ownership on the local and national levels." The Nation 05/04/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 5:03 pm

Visual Arts

Troves Of Iraqi Art Located Americans in Iraq have located much of the art thought to have been looted from Iraq's National Museum. "The investigators located the vaults in Baghdad over the last week, including five within the museum complex, and forced them open, revealing hundreds of artifacts that had apparently been stored away to protect them from being damaged in an American assault. The finds included ancient jewelry, pottery and sarcophaguses, officials said. The discovery of so many valuable artifacts would support the view of Iraqi museum officials and American investigators who have said that while many irreplaceable antiquities were looted from the museum during the fall of Baghdad last month, the losses were less severe than thought." The New York Times 05/08/03
Posted: 05/08/2003 8:53 am

Walker To Lay Off Staff Minneapolis's Walker Art Center is laying off 5% of its staff in an effort to cut costs without jeopardizing a major expansion of the museum, which focuses on contemporary art. Among the casualties is the Walker's director of New Media Initiatives, a groundbreaking curatorial position which had won the museum acclaim when it was created. A Walker spokesman said that the major reason for the layoffs was the dismal performance of the museum's endowment, which has fallen from $200 million to $145 million in the last few years. Saint Paul Pioneer Press 05/08/03
Posted: 05/08/2003 6:15 am

Boston Museum Set To Buy Degas Masterpiece "A day after successfully selling three significant artworks at Sotheby's auction house in New York, officials from the Museum of Fine Arts said they didn't anticipate any delay in closing the deal to buy a coveted Degas painting said to be worth as much as $40 million. But the museum wouldn't offer details about how it will make up the difference between the $16,264,000 it earned at auction Tuesday night and the price of [the Degas] which has been part of a private collection in France. Experts said it was possible that the MFA would turn to a trustee or donor with a particular interest in Degas." Boston Globe 05/08/03
Posted: 05/08/2003 5:42 am

  • Previously: Sell Three, Buy One, Everybody's Happy Boston's Museum of Fine Arts took a major step yesterday towards fulfilling its goal of purchasing an 1876 Degas masterpiece entitled Duchessa di Montejasi With Her Daughters Elena and Camilla. The painting is expected to cost between $20 million and $40 million. To raise the money for the purchase, MFA auctioned off three valuable paintings from its permanent collection. "It took just five minutes for the works - two Degas pastels and a Renoir painting - to go, with the pieces approaching Sotheby's top estimate of $17 million." Boston Globe 05/07/03

Airline Sells Magritte Painting To Help Pay Employees The bankrupt Belgian airline Sabena has auctioned off a Magritte painting it owned to help pay laid-off staff. "The picture, appropriately of a sky bird - L'Oiseau de Ciel - has sold at auction for €3.4m (£2.4m) to help the staff that the line was forced to pay off when it went into bankruptcy in November 2001." The Guardian (UK) 05/07/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 6:31 pm

London Art Commission Rejects Mandela Statue There has been a campaign to erect a statue of Nelson Mandela in London's Trafalgar Square, "close to South Africa House, the scene of 40 years of anti-apartheid demonstrations and 28 years of protests against Mr Mandela's imprisonment." But the government's public art commission has rejected the statue on aesthetic grounds. London's Mayor Ken Livingstone disagrees with the decision. "I am appalled that an all-white committee sitting in Westminster can dismiss the idea of putting a great international statesman in this prominent place." The Guardian (UK) 05/07/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 6:23 pm

The Artist And The Subway Stop Artist Anish Kapoor's work has grown so large in recent years it could be mistaken for architecture. Now he's been asked to produce some architecture. The city of Naples has asked Kapoor to "design a new underground station - a complex piece of infrastructure that is usually the preserve of architects and engineers. 'They're mad,' he says. 'It's folly. They don't know what they've let themselves in for. But it's wonderful; I can't imagine anything better than doing a tube station'." The Guardian (UK) 05/08/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 6:18 pm

Museums - How Do You Cut Back Without Becoming "Living Dead?" Museums squeezed by tough financial circumstances are trying to cope by shaving budgets. This is okay for the short term, But Adrian Ellis writes that "the risks creating a sort of 'living dead' institution, in which variable costs (programmes, exhibitions etc.) have been squeezed disproportionately because fixed costs are just that — fixed. Many museums in the sector are therefore going to need to take more radical steps if they are to thrive rather than simply survive in some semi-inert limbo, the usual non-profit alternative to actually closing the doors. The question is, of course, what sorts of steps?" The Art Newspaper 05/03/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 6:08 pm

Iraq Museum Director Says Staff Saved Much Of Museum's Artifacts The director of Iraq's National Museum sits down with The Art Newspaper to talk about what happened to his museum. Donny George says the museum's staff managed to hide away most of the museum's collection for safekeeping before the war. "Presumably the vast majority of the 170,000 items in the collection were therefore in the vaults. How much was lost from the vaults?" George: "We have only looked through a hole and shone a torchlight into the vaults. We don’t yet know what is missing, but a lot of the objects are still there."
The Art Newspaper 05/03/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 5:15 pm

Looters Going After iraq's Archaeological Sites The Iraq war has been over for a month, but looters are targeting archaeological sites and carrying off whatever they can find. "This isn't about museums anymore. This is about the last resource of our history: what's underneath our soil." Chicago Tribune 05/07/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 4:58 pm

Music

Florida Phil Moves the Goalposts Again The Florida Philharmonic said last month that it needed to raise $20 million immediately, or it would fold operations. When the absurdity of that goal became clear, the Phil revised the fundraising goal to $4 million by May 10. Now, employees at the Fort Lauderdale-based orchestra have been told that they will lose their jobs unless $500,000 is raised by the end of the week. The fundraising has not been going well, with many donors seemingly fed up with the orchestra's constant financial crises. Miami Herald 05/08/03 (first item)
Posted: 05/08/2003 5:59 am

  • Phil Faces Sad, Angry Public The plight of the Florida Philharmonic has some members of the public seeing red over the constant pleas for a bailout. In a sampling of letters to the Miami Herald, one reader called the Phil a "bottomless pit," forever looking to cure its own incompetence with other people's money. But other letter-writers are begging the orchestra to find a way to stay solvent, lest South Florida be left without a professional-caliber orchestra. Writes one, "The next performance for the Philharmonic would have been Mozart's Requiem. How fitting." Miami Herald 05/08/03
    Posted: 05/08/2003 5:57 am

Passing The Hat For The File-Swapping Four "The four university students nabbed by the Recording Industry Association of America for copyright infringement owe thousands of dollars to the music group following a recent settlement. Pledges of support have lit up message boards, but how much help they actually will receive remains to be seen." Wired 05/08/03
Posted: 05/08/2003 5:40 am

San Francisco Symphony's Golden Glow The San Francisco Symphony is visiting London, and Geoffrey Norris says thaat the orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas is vibrant in the way that the City of Birmingham Orchestra was under Simon Rattle. Says Tilson Thomas: "What I felt was important was to give the audience a wider view of what contemporary music could be. I introduced contemporary music that was much more tonal, established some of the minimalist composers and figures from neo-classicism and neo-romanticism, and, now that we're turning to Ligeti, Boulez, Murail, Scelsi and Berio, people are excited, amused, outraged by what they are hearing, but they have something to talk about." The Telegraph (UK) 05/08/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 7:20 pm

Scottish National Orchestra Chief: Our Critics Are Wrong Critics are blasting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, saying the organization is in deep trouble. But Simon Crookall, the orchestra's executive director deflects all worries. "His robust attitude permeates every aspect of his analysis of the orchestra: denying players are deserting the RSNO; defending his choice of programmes in the new season; resisting the accusation that he is sacrificing any need for freshness, challenge, or innovation in the RSNO's repertoire at the altar of the box office; and that the orchestra is being led inexorably down the road of commercialism." Glasgow Herald 05/07/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 6:36 pm

Arts Issues

NJ Official Fights For Arts Funding New Jersey's secretary of state is Regena Thomas, and she's fighting for her department. "The secretary of state, appointed by Gov. James E. McGreevey, is in charge of promoting and preserving the arts, history and culture in New Jersey. But in the $23 billion state budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, the governor has proposed that her programs be largely abolished. The budget proposal calls for the $47 million allocated to her office to be cut by 87 percent. This will effectively shut down the State Council on the Arts, leaving New Jersey the only state without one, according to Ms. Thomas's office. It will also mothball the Historical Commission and the New Jersey Cultural Trust, although, like the council, each would continue to exist in name." The New York Times 05/08/03
Posted: 05/08/2003 8:57 am

NEA Fundraising Plan Runs Afoul Of Arts Advocate The National Endowment for the Arts want to fundraise privately, but one of New York's most important arts advocates - Norma Munn Chair of the New York City Arts Coalition - is strongly opposed. "As a matter of principle, I'm opposed to government using fundraising in the private sector to supplement an agency budget at the city, state, or federal level. It means they're competing directly with not-for-profits for precisely the same funds; and their clout and ability to publicize their efforts is a lot greater than other arts groups. It's a substitute for public funds and a move for privatization of funding that isn't appropriate." Backstage 05/07/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 10:20 pm

New York State Cuts Arts Budget 15 Percent New York State lawamakers have cut the state's arts council grants budget by 15%, or $6.6 million. "Legislators also cut NYSCA's administration budget by $196,000. The funding was contained in the education portion of the budget bill. Gov. George Pataki is expected to approve the cuts because he had recommended them in his proposed state budget introduced in January." Backstage 05/08/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 10:19 pm

Reimagining Lincoln Center (On A Budget) All that wrangling about how Lincoln Center would get a $1.5 billion makeover seems so far awaay now. "Now the City Opera has decided to move downtown. Avery Fisher Hall is likely to be renovated rather than rebuilt. New York City, in perilous fiscal straits, appears unlikely to be able to fulfill the $240 million pledge that Rudolph W. Giuliani made for the project when he was mayor. The private sector is feeling the economic pinch before fund-raising has even begun. What's left of the redevelopment project? What part of it can Lincoln Center hope to accomplish? With the economic downturn, all the grand plans now seem like pipe dreams. The 11 private and public groups involved in the redevelopment have been forced to reassess." The New York Times 05/08/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 10:18 pm

Korea: Giving Up On The Humanities? A professor at Seoul National Universityt laments that the humanities are not being studied in Korea. Humanities and literature have turned to 'cultural studies' that emphasize the interrelationship of ethnic identities, gender studies, postcolonial studies, and film studies. This means that the humanities and literature are now almost always explored and discussed in relation to their cultural and social implications, hegemony, ideology, and history. In many countries this cultural approach seems to succeed, at least partially, in bringing students' interest back to the humanities and literature. But alas! Not in Korea, where highbrow culture and traditional values are esteemed more than any other country on earth. Korea Herald 05/07/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 6:45 pm

People

Baghdad Blogger Back Online Salam Pax is back, and none too soon for the Baghdad-based blogger's legion of fans in the West. Pax, who writes an online diary about life in the Iraqi capital, stopped posting after the U.S. invasion began, causing many to fear the worst. But now, Pax is filling in the gaps in his story, and doesn't seem overly pleased with his country's 'liberation': "Let me tell you one thing first. War sucks big time. Don’t let yourself ever be talked into having one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow when the bombs start dropping or you hear the sound of machine guns at the end of your street you don’t think about your 'imminent liberation' anymore." Wired 05/08/03
Posted: 05/08/2003 5:36 am

  • Previously: Iraqi Blogger Goes Silent The weblogger known as "Salam Pax" has a lot of readers worried for him. "For months, the mysterious Blogger of Baghdad, whose pseudonym translates as 'peace' in Arabic and Latin - and who is suspected by some of being a secret agent or a hacker - had chronicled the minutiae of life in a city on the edge of war... On Friday, Pax - a gay man in a repressive society, an atheist in a Muslim land, a lover of democracy but a hater of war - filed a worried dispatch as he awaited the first shock-and-awe assault on the city he cherishes." A short time later, the blog, one of the most widely-read on the web, went dark. So far, no one seems to know if Pax is dead or alive, free or imprisoned, or if he ever really existed at all. Philadelphia Inquirer 03/27/03

Geoffrey Bardon, 62 "Geoffrey Bardon, the artist credited with teaching Australian Aborigines to paint commercially, creating a multimillion-dollar Aboriginal fine art industry, has died aged 62." Sydney Morning Herald 05/08/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 10:14 pm

A Tale Of Two Men With £1 Million One takes £1 million in banknotes and burns them in an existential statement - an act of art. The other invests in trying to save the beleaguered English National Opera. "Why does Bill Drummond get cult status for burning a million and Martin Smith villain status for giving a million? The answer is simple. Drummond, as a rock hero, appeals to our instinct for anarchy. Martin Smith, and many of his friends, are bankers - or stockbrokers, financial consultants, and the like. They deal in money. To some sections of the arts world, the persona of 'banker' is villainous." London Evening Standard 05/07/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 7:12 pm

Remembering Mr. Laff Box Is anyone mourning the death of Charles Douglass, inventor of the TV "Laff Box?" "The question of where the first laughs in Charlie's Laff Box came from is still subject to debate in TV geek circles. Some say they were sampled from a Marcel Marceau concert; others claim they came from a classic Red Skelton performance; still others say he recorded live audiences from early 'I Love Lucy' shows. All of these shows relied heavily on sight gags, which would have simplified the recording process." OpinionJournal 05/08/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 4:35 pm

Publishing

Congressman Proposes Rollback Of Patriot Act Snooping On Library Patrons US Congressman Bernie Sanders introduces a bill to roll back some of the government snooping into libraries allowed under the Patriot Act. "We need law enforcement to track terrorists down before they do their evil deeds. But if we give up some of our most cherished freedoms — the right to read what we want without surveillance; the need for 'probable cause' before searches are made — the terrorists win, for their attacks will have struck at the very heart of our constitutional rights. To remedy the excesses of the Patriot Act that threaten our right to read, I have introduced the Freedom to Read Protection Act. The bill, which has the support of Democrats and Republicans, progressives and conservatives, will establish once again that libraries and bookstores are no place for fishing expeditions." Los Angeles Times 05/08/03
Posted: 05/08/2003 9:13 am

New Electronic "Paper" Ond of the complaints about electronic publishing is that it doesn't have the "feel" of a book. Now, "in a paper published in the British science journal Nature, E Ink executives said they have successfully developed a prototype display just three-tenths of a millimeter thick, using stainless steel and a plastic covering, that can display words and pictures at up to 96 pixels per inch. Besides being lightweight, the display can be rolled into a half-inch-wide scroll without damage, E Ink said." Boston Globe 05/08/03
Posted: 05/08/2003 9:10 am

You Couldn't Wait One More Month? The Harry Potter craze is apparently causing a rise in one of the more traditional 'black arts': stealing. Author J.K. Rowling has been fighting court battles worldwide to stop unauthorized installments in the series from being published, and now it appears that someone is attempting to get their hands on the latest 'legit' Potter adventure a bit early. "Two copies of the forthcoming novel by JK Rowling were found in a field earlier this week - a quarter of a mile from where they were being printed. Two 16-year-old boys, an 18-year-old man, and a 44-year-old man, were arrested in connection with the theft of the books from a printworks, and on suspicion of obtaining property by deception." BBC 05/08/03
Posted: 05/08/2003 5:29 am

Media

TV Sucks Everywhere, Apparently Americans bemoaning the lack of quality television programming often point to Canada as an example of a superior system of production and funding. But at the moment, the Canadian system is in a financial pinch, and perfectly good programs are getting killed off as a result. James Adams says it isn't just the economic times that are to blame. His assessment: "The Canadian television industry is stupid." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/08/03
Posted: 05/08/2003 5:53 am

  • Zukerman: Where's The Focus On Quality? The problem with the Canadian TV funding system is that quality is almost never taken into account, says one of Canada's highest-profile producers. Bernard Zukerman claims that funding is given to established shows rather than new ones, regardless of how old and tired the funded shows might be. Zukerman is demanding a meeting with Canada's finance minister to discuss the industry's problems. Toronto Star 05/08/03
    Posted: 05/08/2003 5:52 am

Digital Is Hot - Just Not In America Digital radio continues to struggle in the U.S., with few listeners being willing to pay for the subscription-based service, even to get hundreds of stations featuring a much wider range of music and talk than can be found on traditional radio. But in the U.K., digital radio seems to be taking off. Many radio stations have introduced digital incarnations of themselves, and the BBC has added several new digital-only networks, and listeners appear to be responding, especially since low-cost sets became available last year. 155,000 digital sets are known to have been sold, and estimates have that number growing to a million by the end of 2004. BBC 05/08/03
Posted: 05/08/2003 5:23 am

Hensons Buy Back Miss Piggy In a surprise move, heirs of Jim Henson have bought back the Muppet creator's company for the discount price of $78 million. "The Henson family decided only two weeks ago to bid for The Jim Henson Co., which they will buy for a fraction of what Munich-based EM.TV paid for it, according to Brian Henson, the son of the company's late founder. Munich-based EM.TV bought the company, and the rights to characters such as Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, in February 2000 for $680 million in cash and stock." Nando Times (AP) 05/07/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 10:16 pm

Dance

Study: Philly Dancers Should Wait Before Building New Home Philadelphia is home to nearly 2,000 professional dancers who use about 20 rehearsal spaces and 45 different performing venues. Those dancers and the small companies they work with want to build a home where they can work. Wait for it, warns a new study. "The primary issue, the study said, is that most of the city's dance groups are tiny and do not have the business side of their operations in order." It advises waiting three to five years to get better established. Philadelphia Inquirer 05/07/03
Posted: 05/07/2003 4:43 pm


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