Ideas Conceptual Retreads - Who Needs It? "Clearly Britain is in a bad way. A watered-down conceptual art is the current orthodoxy. Much of what looked new and radical when it first emerged in the 1960s is now being run past us again, and it’s limping badly. And so much of it is the same. It really looks as if art students were issued with a pattern book of how to come up with a show — six ideas on the back of an envelope: good tried-and-tested old concepts that won’t cause anyone too much trouble. How has this come to pass? The decline of one of our greatest glories — the art schools — has much to answer for." The Spectator 05/24/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 4:41 pm Visual Arts Iraq's Archaeological Treasures Are Being Plundered Iraqi's say widespread looting of archaeological sites is continuing, despite please for help to the Americans. "On a visit Sunday, three sites near here were pocked with freshly dug holes and littered with hastily abandoned shovels, indicating looting in the last day or two. At one spot, about two dozen people ran off when they saw approaching trucks. At Isan Bakhriat, site of the ancient city of Isin to the north of here, more than 100 looters were openly digging out and selling urns, sculptures and cuneiform tablets. 'It's happening at almost every site. They are smart. They take the antiquities that they know have value, and they know how to get them out of the country'." The New York Times 05/27/03 Posted: 05/27/2003 8:09 am A Digital Library To Preserve Artifact Records The recent looting at the Iraq Museum has bolstered a project to digitize images of ancient artifacts. The looting "has graphically shown the need to make images of these tablets. The digital library is arguably the most important project in our field. Digital initiatives should be used aggressively to buffer ourselves against natural or man-made catastrophes. What happened in the Iraq museum is really an object lesson in why it is important." Los Angeles Times 05/27/03 Posted: 05/27/2003 7:51 am If Museums Ruled The World... Should museums take a hand in running British schools? That's a proposal made last week education secretary, Charles Clarke to representatives of major London museums. "Most museums already work closely with schools through outreach and education programmes. But Mr Clarke's proposals go further, and involve giving museums, which have charitable status and receive government and local subsidies, a role in the management and running of schools." The New York Times 05/27/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 8:24 pm Canada Announces New Political Museum The Canadian government plans to "turn a near century-old train station in downtown Ottawa into a museum on Canadian history and politics. 'Our political history is a rich one that needs to be told. This centre will be a meeting place where academics, students and visitors will be able to learn how Canada came about'." The project is expected to cost $90 million, and museum critics are complaining that the money coule be better spent helping museums that are already struggling for funding. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/26/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 3:49 pm Previously: New $100 Million Canadian Museum Opposed By Museum Community The Canadian government intends to announce a new $100 million museum of Canadian history and politics. But critics including opposition MPs and the museum community say that "the money would be better spent helping cash-strapped institutions across the country. 'Museums in Canada are desperately underfunded. Some even are verging on bankruptcy." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/24/03 Art Students To Implant Human DNA In Trees? A pair of art students in London plan to implant human DNA in trees and grow them. "If an apple tree was used, it would provide an edible as well as a visible reminder. Like the rest of the tree, the fruit would contain human DNA. 'Implanting your grandmother’s DNA into an apple tree brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Granny Smith’. But would you eat an apple from your grandma’s tree'?" The Scotsman 05/26/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 3:09 pm Music The Case Of The Conductor Who Stabbed Himself Onstage "David Tilling, of Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, thrust the baton through his hand while rehearsing Land of Hope and Glory, by Elgar. He finished conducting the piece but then collapsed. Some of his bandsmen feared he was having a heart attack. A few may even have been aware of a disturbing precedent: at a concert in a Parisian church in 1687, the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully stabbed himself in the foot while conducting. Gangrene set in and killed him..." The Guardian (UK) 05/27/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 10:14 pm Lure 'Em In With Something New When times are tough, how do you lure in audiences? "Two theories are doing the rounds. One says the only way to lure back the crowds is by going shamelessly populist. The other, unhelpfully, states the opposite: that you are most likely to prise open wallets when money is tight if you offer them something unusual, unrepeatable and unmissable. There can be no argument as to which camp the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra belongs in. In an amazing four-day festival in Birmingham from Thursday it offers (in conjunction with its sister ensemble, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group) no fewer than 18 big, bold, bracing blasts of contemporary music, most of them composed in the past five years." The Times (UK) 05/27/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 4:10 pm Moving San Francisco Across Europe What does it take to move the San Francisco Symphony across Europe on its $1.8 million tour? "In between transatlantic flights on commercial airliners, the tour schedule includes six chartered flights, two train rides (including one on Eurostar, the new high-speed train that runs from London to Brussels through the Channel Tunnel) and three bus trips for short run-outs to cities such as Brighton and Dusseldorf. But that's just the humans. Running in tandem, in two climate-controlled trucks, is the cargo - almost 11 tons of evening clothes, cellos and basses, trombones and bassoons and harps and cymbals." San Francisco Chronicle 05/26/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 3:29 pm Britons Agonize Over Why No One Liked Their Song Britain has won five Eurovision Song Contests. So Britons are furious that their representative this year didn't pick up a single vote. politics to blame? Maybe a "post-Iraqi backlash"? Or were viewers in Europe "engaging in political voting against a country out of step with the rest of Europe?" Maybe there an "element of vote-rigging going on, with geographical allies voting for each other." The Scotsman 05/26/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 3:14 pm Eurovision - Did We Not Try Hard Enough? "We are still left with a bad song that was not as bad as some other songs, but nevertheless everyone liked the least. We are still left wondering why, with our thriving industry of schlock pop and so much prime-time telly given over to the creation of more of it, we can't compete with Bosnia Herzogovina. I think the answer lies in the very timbre of our outrage. We know we can make good pop. Everyone else knows we can make good pop. But when it's just for Europe, we don't see why we should bother. We aim low, and we never field our biggest hitters." The Guardian (UK) 05/27/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 3:10 pm Arts Issues Poor Artist? Lemme Help Most artists are poor. "Imagine the dissonance your average starving poet feels surrounded by moneyed book-lovers and big-wig sponsors at your local writer's festival. Or the supreme weirdness of the novelist nominated for a glitzy award like the Giller Prize, with its debauched evening of champagne, tuxes and gowns. I have heard the experience likened to being a street-level prostitute, yanked into a limo by a group of corporate man-gods, and treated to the good life for one queenly booze-and-bonbon-addled night. Before, of course, a bouquet is shoved into your arms as you are simultaneously shoved back into the street to face cold, familiar reality." Lynn Coady proposes a small "corrective measure" to help. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/27/03 Posted: 05/27/2003 7:42 am Scotland's Funding Crisis Scotland's major cultural groups are warning that "without a substantial cash injection in the autumn, national companies and some of the country’s best-loved theatres will be forced to cut productions and could even face the prospect of closure. 'Inevitably you come to a point where certain organisations - including the national companies - are forced to cut back on the number of productions'." The Scotsman 05/26/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 4:56 pm Some Brain Disorders Might Improve Artistic Abilities New research suggests that "some types of dementia may release new areas of creativity, which grow and develop as language skills decline." An artist in her early fifties was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, a rare type of inherited dementia, but though some of her other abilities declined, her work as an artist got markedly better. "Whatever the mechanism, our patient represents a remarkable example of how a truly talented individual can continue to evolve and create in the face of a degenerative brain disease." The Independent (UK) 05/26/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 3:54 pm People Artist Thrown In Jail Over Bush Comment A Bay Area artist upset about George Bush's war on Iraq got into a heated political argument in an Emeryville furniture store. When he mentioned the words "kill Bush" it was the "wrong move in a place filled with American flags and run by military veterans who support the president. Store employees called police, who alerted the Secret Service. Hours after entering the furniture store to buy cubicle partitions for a fellow artist's project, Barry Schwartz was sitting in a small room in the Emeryville police station, being interrogated by two Secret Service agents." He spent the next two days in jail. San Francisco Chronicle 05/26/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 3:22 pm Theatre Guthrie Gets Money To Expand After delays, the Minnesota legislature passes funding for construction of a new Guthrie Theatre and the Xhildren's Theatre Company. "Guthrie leaders had warned that without state support the theater's planned $125 million three-stage complex on the Mississippi riverfront, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, would be derailed. The theater has privately raised $65 million, officials said." The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis) 05/27/03 Posted: 05/27/2003 8:02 am Publishing Bad Boys, Bad Boys....What You Gonna Do? Okay, so we all enjoy a good scandal book to one degree or another. But will disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair make his fortune on a tell-all book? "The success of a mea culpa manuscript is as much a case of where as of who, how, or when. 'A story about someone who's been in a scandal or any sort of bad experience of whatever kind, for it to be an effective story the person has to have come out on the other side. The problem with Jayson Blair, he's still right in the middle of whatever he's going through. Clearly, he's thrashing around. To be an effective story, a book has to have a post-thrash perspective." Boston Globe 05/27/03 Posted: 05/27/2003 7:25 am Australia's Writer's Favorite Books The Australian Society of Authors conducts a poll of its members to decide on a list of 40 favorite Australian books. "While it includes some of the big names in our national canon - Christina Stead, Henry Handel Richardson and Patrick White all make the top 10 - there are no books by Henry Lawson and none by Banjo Paterson. Nor are there any by Les Murray, Thomas Keneally or Robert Drewe. There are some surprise inclusions..." Sydney Morning Herald 05/27/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 3:05 pm Media Timid New Report Fails To Address Canadian TV Woes Canadian TV is in a crisis, but you'd never know it from a new report on Canadian television. The McQueen Report "smacks of a contrived and unworkable pseudo-solution to a crisis. ACTRA, the organization that represents Canadian actors and performers, has already dismissed McQueen's report as 'all carrot and no stick' for private broadcasters. The time for intricate therapy is long gone. In the past four years, the number of continuing drama series airing on Canadian TV has dropped from 12 to 4. That figure screams for action now, not for the prolonged prodding and nudging of broadcasters." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/26/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 4:20 pm Australian TV Makes Cuts In Kids Programming The Australian Broadcasting Company has shut down two channels aimed at children, saying that the government had not funded the broadcaster sufficiently and that cuts needed to be made. "ABC managing director Russell Balding told a Senate estimates committee in Canberra that apart from the children's channels, up to $25 million in programming or jobs would be be cut by mid-year. "I don't cry wolf. This is very serious. The ABC needs to be properly funded, and when we put the arguments to the Government that we needed additional funding for content it was not a matter of crying wolf - it was serious." The Age (Melbourne) 05/27/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 2:02 pm Dance Royal Ballet Beams To The Great Outdoors London's Royal Ballet is broadcasting a performance of "Manon" to a giant outdoor screen in Liverpool. Viewers will be able to watch for free. "Throughout the summer, other opera and ballet performances will be relayed live to Liverpool and four other UK cities." BBC 05/26/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 3:46 pm Boston Ballet Fires Ballet Mistress Eva Evdokimova, brought to Boston Ballet last year by new Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen as ballet mistress, has been fired for "economic reasons." "Undisputedly one of the world's finest ballet teachers, Evdokimova is also one of the most acclaimed performers in recent history. Born in 1948, she was the first American to win a gold medal at the 1970 International Ballet Competition in Varna, Bulgaria. She went on to dance with such prominent companies as the Royal Danish Ballet, The Kirov, Paris Opera Ballet, American Ballet Theater and National Ballet of Canada, to mention only a few." Boston Herald 05/26/03 Posted: 05/26/2003 2:15 pm