No Such Thing As A Stupid Question Have you always wondered what the difference is between a violin and a viola? Or pondered exactly who it is that has to completely overhaul a museum's galleries between exhibits? Or puzzled over how exactly that dancer is able to hold that other dancer in the air by her big toe without either of them sustaining serious injury? Well, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is here to help: from now until August 1, the paper's arts section is accepting all the questions about the arts that you've never asked for fear of sounding stupid. And they promise to answer them, too. Go on - you know you've got one... Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 07/19/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 10:49 pm
It Just Ain't Culturally Significant Until It's In The Dictionary "Artistic expression has a special meaning for lexicographers at Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Every decade or so as they prepare an overhauled edition, they decide which new words from the world of culture, among other domains, are suitable for inclusion." Among the words making the cut in this year's revision: 'burn,' as in burning a song onto a CD; 'gangsta,' being the preferred hip-hop pronunciation of an already-common word; 'zine,' a homemade magazine; and 'soukous,' which you'll just have to look up. Chicago Tribune 07/20/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 9:17 pm
The Map Pirates "Armed with nothing more than pencil sharpeners and baggy jumpers, Melvin Perry and Peter Bellwood plundered unsuspecting libraries across Europe, razoring thousands of priceless maps from medieval atlases." How they did it, and why, is a fascinating and horrifying tale of grossly inadequate museum security, crooked dealers, and simple human greed. The Observer (UK) 07/20/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 11:58 pm
Gambling With A National Treasure "The National Gallery has taken a giant gamble in its battle to keep Raphael's Madonna of the Pinks in Britain, slashing by a third the amount it will offer to stop the picture going to the Getty Museum in California. Heritage lottery fund trustees must decide on the issue tomorrow... The gallery had become convinced that the heritage lottery fund would never meet its original bid for £20m. However, the gulf between the National Gallery's potential £21m [with other funding sources included] and the Getty's £29m still seems ludicrously wide." The Guardian (UK) 07/21/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 11:51 pm
- And We Thought They Just Liked Art! Regardless of the decison the heritage lottery fund makes in the Raphael case, the larger problem will remain: at the moment, there is nothing to prevent wealthy citizens who happen to own artworks with 'national import' from selling them to foreigners. For several decades, the high levels of inheritance tax, from which such art is exempt, forced the aristocrats not to sell simply as a matter of investment strategy. But in the last 25 years, "all tax rates have come down, and the dukes have changed their tune. It is once again worth their while to sell, so they want to sell." The Telegraph (UK) 07/19/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 11:50 pm
- Previously: Saving Art For The Nation? Next week the UK's National Gallery will learn if it can get the money to buy a Raphael before it is sold to Americans. "Arguments have been raging over the fate of the painting with varying degrees of hysteria, sentimentality and anger since October. The Getty has been accused of 'baby-snatching'; there has been talk of "raids on the British patrimony". The language employed - including the nakedly over-emotional, quasi-evangelical notion of 'saving' - has not been helpful. Anyone would think that the National Gallery is protecting the picture from a gang of criminals, masterminded by evil geniuses in the guise of aristocrats, Sotheby's experts and ruthless foreign curators, intent on grabbing the Raphael and hurling it into the Thames." The Guardian (UK) 07/16/03
Taking On The Blockbuster Culture "A few decades ago, art lovers visiting an art museum for the first time would invariably ask, 'Where are the best pictures that you own?' But over the last 25 years or so, they've been trained to ask instead, 'What exhibitions do you have on view right now?' Museums have become more and more preoccupied, even obsessed, with their rosters of temporary shows... The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian Institution's repository for modern and contemporary art, has caught on to this new reality, acknowledged it as a problem, and set out to do something about it." Washington Post 07/20/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 11:32 pm
Urban Architecture, Sydney Style "Australia's biggest city might finally be mastering the art of medium and high-density living with a 'characteristically Sydney' style of housing. This is the verdict of the jury for this year's Royal Australian Institute of Architects' awards. But sometimes you have to look in unlikely places for this brave new face of Sydney." Sydney Morning Herald 07/21/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 11:16 pm
If You Can't Beat It, Use It For too long, says Simon Beer, museums have viewed technology as an unfortunate competitor for their high-minded offerings, and computers as the brain-sucking mechanism that was forcing them to 'dumb down' their exhibits. But "the misconception that technology simply means computers is giving way to the realisation that using technology creatively can bring the nation's past to life and communicate with a much wider audience." The Telegraph (UK) 07/19/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 10:40 pm
They're Old, But They're Smart, Too A new study by the National Endowment for the Arts finds that audiences for live classical music events grew slightly in the last ten years, but that a slightly smaller percentage of the public attended concerts than in 1992. "At 49, classical music audiences have the highest median age of any of the categories in the survey... Classical and opera audiences have also become more educated. About 85 percent of concertgoers had at least a partial college education in 2002, up from 77 percent in 1992." Andante 07/21/03
All Music Is Local, And It May Just Be Ethnic, Too One of the biggest challenges of programming an orchestra's season is finding a reliable way to gauge the interest's of a local audience. Even in an industry so dominated by a "standard repertoire," the tastes of concertgoers vary widely from city to city, and what goes over brilliantly in New York may well flop 100 miles down the road in Philadelphia. "Theories abound about what formulates and maintains local taste - theories nearly as disputable as they are defendable. The collective consciousness of any community isn't all that collective and is constantly shifting. The theory that seems to carry the most weight is ethnicity." Philadelphia Inquirer 07/20/03
Madame Mao Goes To The Opera Jiang Qing led the type of life so dramatically implausible, so full of power and corruption and disgrace and misery, that it could only ever be fully realized on the operatic stage. The wife of Mao Zedong, who was known in China as the White-Boned Demon, was already memorialized in song by John Adams in his opera, Nixon in China, but now, composer Bright Sheng has made her the title character in his latest work, Madame Mao, which premieres this weekend in Santa Fe. Sheng's opera presents Jiang Qing as a conflicted and multifaceted woman, to the degree that she is actually portrayed by two different singers representing the two distinct stages of her life. The New York Times 07/20/03
- Why Most Companies Just Do Aida Every Year "Presenting a new opera always comes with higher costs and higher risks than showcasing the tried-and-true. Even though the opera combines the familiar history of China's Cultural Revolution with fictionalized events, Madame Mao remains an unknown quantity. The production, which employs eight dancers and elaborate costumes, has a budget of $1.5 million, half again as much as the Santa Fe Opera average." Los Angeles Times 07/20/03
Music The Healer, Music The Benevolent Even in our post-religious society, music is frequently described with the sort of reverence generally reserved for prayer, says composer James MacMillan. Of course, the ties between religion and music are long and well-documented, but isn't there a more fundamental reason why we view serious music with such awe? "It is not only theologians who see a wider context for the discussion of music. The English composer and agnostic Michael Tippett several times made the bold claim that there was a connection between music and compassion. This is fascinating since that was precisely the belief of the medieval music guilds of Europe, which venerated Job as the patron saint of music before Saint Cecilia came along." The Guardian (UK) 07/19/03
The Only Opera That Requires Rocket Scientists Next year, Australia will stage its first ever performance of the complete operatic cycle of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen in the southern city of Adelaide. The Ring Cycle is not just a lot of music to perform in a short time period, it is arguably the most massive physical production any opera company could ever attempt to stage. "The size of the backdrops... is so vast and their technical demands so complex that they are being worked on in Adelaide, Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Technical expertise has been brought in from... the University of Adelaide and United Utilities Australia, a major water company. They are being designed by the team that constructed the cauldron that launched the 2000 Sydney Olympics." Sydney Morning Herald 07/21/03
Everything But The Cash The city of Orlando wants to build a new performing arts center, and everything has been falling into place lately. The mayor is on board, and a prime plot of land in the downtown district has been acquired and earmarked for the project. There's just one thing missing: $200 million. So far, not a single donor has come forward to offer assistance for the project, and one official has suggested that "presenting a community such as Orlando with a fund-raising goal as large as $200 million can be overwhelming." Orlando Sentinel 07/20/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 9:50 pm
Minnesota's Biggest Arts Benefactor Dies It is not an overstatement to say that without Ken Dayton, Minneapolis would never have gained a national reputation as a city of the arts. "He and his wife, Judy, were key players in a small group of wealthy, socially prominent Minneapolis families who remade the city's artistic life in the last half of the 20th century. They helped it evolve from a Midwest city with a few robust old civic institutions into a national model of thriving contemporary and traditional culture, renowned for its philanthropic support... [They] contributed more than $100 million to the Minnesota Orchestra, the Walker Art Center and other civic, social and cultural causes." Ken Dayton died this weekend, one day shy of his 81st birthday. Minneapolis Star Tribune 07/21/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 11:06 pm
Hopefully, He's A Better Singer Than He Was A GM Over the years, fans of the Boston Red Sox have become accustomed to watching their players bolt Beantown, and take up a bat for the hated New York Yankees. But former team general manager Dan Duquette may be the first Red Sox to land on a stage with the Bronx Bombers. Duquette (who was fired by the Red Sox last year during an ownership shuffle,) is scheduled to appear in a Western Massachusetts production of the Broadway musical, Damn Yankees, portraying the manager of the Washington Senators. The show will go on in an actual ballpark in Pittsfield, and yes, Duquette will be singing. Washington Post 07/20/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 11:22 pm
Land of 10,000... Theaters? A national gathering of theater critics took place in Minnesota recently, and Celia Baker came away from her week in the Land of 10,000 Lakes wondering why more American metropolises can't be like the Twin Cities. "More than 2 million seats were sold by Twin City theaters in 2000, equal to the combined season attendance of the Minnesota Twins, Vikings and Timberwolves. More theater tickets per capita are sold in the Twin Cities than any other place in the United States outside of New York City... The area's cultural life helps lure business to the area, and many large corporations with headquarters in the Twin Cities are generous in funding arts programs and the buildings that house them." Salt Lake Tribune 07/20/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 9:34 pm
If The Emmys Didn't Suck What if the Emmys were handed out based on the quality of the nominated shows, rather than (apparently) based on what was really popular two years ago? Well, then, they'd be the Television Critics Association Awards, which were dispensed this past weekend. The big winners were NBC's Boomtown, which didn't rate a nomination from the Emmy folks, and Comedy Central's Jon Stewart, host of the satirical Daily Show, which has been frequently cited by critics as virtually the only "news" outlet willing to be openly critical of American foreign policy since the 9/11 attacks. Toronto Star 07/21/03
Posted: 07/21/2003 12:05 am
Docs Get Their Due The documentary is suddenly big business in the film industry, and filmmakers specializing in the form, who couldn't even get a meeting in Hollywood a decade ago, are enjoying unprecedented success. Part of the reason for the new popularity of the form is financial, of course - documentaries are much cheaper to make than feature films - but it is also true that there are simply a lot of great docs getting made these days. "It would be easier to put together a list of 10 good documentaries for the year than it would be to come up with a list of 10 good fictional movies." Toronto Star 07/20/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 11:17 pm
No Pencils Required The future of animation is here, and it is computer-generated. This is no surprise, of course: CG movies have been cleaning up at the box office ever since Toy Story, and cutting-edge companies like Pixar Animation have upped the technology ante considerably in recent years. But for those who were still hoping that old-school line animation and CG technology might be able to coexist in Hollywood, the current goings-on at Disney will be quite disheartening. "The company, whose very name is synonymous with cartoon castles and ink-and-paint dwarves, is going digital." Philadelphia Inquirer 07/20/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 10:56 pm
TV and ADD: A Match Made in... Well, Hollywood, Probably At a recent industry gathering on the future of television, the president of TiVo declared that "Attention Deficit Disorder is not just a disease, it's a lifestyle." And if Americans - particularly young Americans - are determined to watch what they want, when they want it, and to surf the 'net for 'extras' and discuss what they're watching in a chat room while the program is still on the air, who is anyone to stand in their way? Joanne Ostrow doesn't particularly like the way this type of thinking points: "Judging by the panel, those in charge of capturing our attention in coming years are blind to any unpleasant sociological fallout." Denver Post 07/20/03
Posted: 07/20/2003 10:12 pm
