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Weekend/Monday, August 4




Visual Arts

Fool's Gold "A gold bar at the National Museum of American History, long thought to be a sample from the 19th century California Gold Rush, is a fake, according to a well-known geologist. Bob Evans, the scientist who examined the five-ounce bar, said the ingot is indeed gold but was not made in 1857, the date stamped on it. He said it was probably made in the 1950s and was purchased unknowingly by Josiah K. Lilly, the pharmaceutical industry executive who willed his enormous collection of gold coins to the Smithsonian in 1968... the museum will move the two bars into a section of the coin exhibit that deals with counterfeiting." Washington Post 08/02/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:37 pm

The Ownership Conundrum Museums are not generally in the habit of acquiring stolen goods intentionally. But in the long, shady history of public and private art acquisition, countless works of art may come to a museum with little in the way of a paper trail. Most museums accept such works without question, and proceed to claim them as having been legitimately acquired. But with the drive to 'repatriate' artworks looted by Nazis gathering steam, and governments fighting over ownership of cultural artifacts, museums are increasingly under pressure to take an active role in stemming the unchecked flow of stolen antiquities. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is currently on the horns of just such a dilemma. The New York Times 08/02/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:29 pm

Bringing Art To Mass Transit It was nearly 50 years ago when the city of Minneapolis tore up one of the most extensive streetcar systems in the world, in return for a one-time payoff from the auto industry. Now, with traffic reaching crisis levels, the city is spending millions to build a single new light rail line, a project which is viewed as a long-overdue public good by some, and a money-sucking folly by others. In an effort to make the rail line a desirable method of travel for a populace used to climbing into SUVs for their daily commute, the station stops are being designed by local artists and architects with an eye to reflecting their surroundings. In particular, the station rising outside the MetroDome in downtown Minneapolis is "rich with symbolic references to the site's past." Minneapolis Star Tribune 08/03/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:27 pm

Harvard Museums Brace For Layoffs "Employees of the Harvard University art museums are bracing for a round of cuts as the museums try to shrink a projected operating-budget deficit of almost $1.5 million. Workers were told by memo last week that layoffs would be part of a larger plan to balance the budget." No one is talking in hard numbers yet, and museum administrators have criticized a student paper for hyping the layoffs, but with more than 70% of the museum budgets funded by endowment funds, which have been hard-hit by the continuing economic slump, few expect the staff cuts will be minor. Boston Globe 08/02/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:22 pm

The Universe Revolves Around... Maine? Nearly everyone spent at least some amount of time as a student cobbling together some sort of dubious model of our solar system for science class. But in rural Maine, residents have taken such projects to a whole new level. "A community endeavor four years in the making before its completion in June, the Maine Solar System Model is a three-dimensional roadside scale model of the solar system, stretching from the Northern Maine Museum of Science in Presque Isle 40 miles southward to the hamlet of Houlton. The scale is 93 million to 1." The sun is represented by a huge mural at the museum, whereas Pluto is a 1-inch diameter ball, in accordance with proper scaling. Boston Globe 08/02/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:21 pm

Music

Designer Muzak... For the most part, background music played in elevators, stores and other public spaces is an irritation of modern life. But it's not going to ever go away. Now some designers are using background music as a branding opportunity. Designers try to match music to the brand image a store wants to project... Toronto Star 08/03/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 7:33 pm

Lies, Damned Lies, And Statistics A new study suggests that more American adults listen to classical music than conventional wisdom would lead you to believe. Peter Dobrin points out that every piece of reliable evidence about classical audiences points to a larger audience. "While skepticism about any survey is a good thing (after all, what qualifies as classical these days, the Three Tenors?), the fact is that Americans clearly like classical music and they're willing to admit it - in large numbers." Philadelphia Inquirer 08/03/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:42 pm

The Model Of Orchestral Success With dismal news floating out of orchestral offices across North America, aren't there any major orchestras out there that can offer a proven strategy for the future? The answer, says William Littler, is yes, and one need look no further than the San Francisco Symphony. In the early 1990s, the orchestra found itself in an artistic rut, a fiscal mess, and a managerial malaise. Fifteen years later, the SFS is a model of both financial sanity and artistic integrity, and the ensemble is now regularly grouped together in print with the traditional "Big Five" orchestras. There were no miracles in San Francisco, just hard work by dedicated individuals in all parts of the organization, and there's no reason why other orchestras can't follow the same model. Toronto Star 08/02/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:34 pm

Unrepentant Pirates A new survey estimates that more than 35 million adults spend at least some amount of time downloading copyrighted material online without paying for it. The vast majority of these amateur pirates also claim to be indifferent to copyright law, saying that the legality of file-sharing 'doesn't concern them.' But the recording industry points out that the study was conducted before the industry announced plans to sue individuals found to be illegally downloading. BBC 08/01/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:20 pm

Arts Issues

American Culture - Winning Hearts And Minds? America is going on a culture offensive in the "War on Terrorism." Singer Toni Braxton is "in a new kind of army, standing at attention with Celine Dion, Eric Clapton, Ace of Base and the rapper Coolio, making up a Trojan-horse brigade drafted to seduce young Arab adults into admiring the United States. Their staging ground is Radio Sawa, a Washington-based Arabic-language radio network heard in most Middle Eastern countries. This is the funky side of America's war on terror." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 08/02/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 7:11 pm

The Creativity Factor A new study by Ann Markusen and David King argues that the arts are a core piece of a local economy. "Good schools, parks, recreation and housing are important, but also lively streets and ample opportunities for entertainment and artistic enrichment. It's not surprising, then, that cities with high concentrations of artists - San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis-St. Paul - tend to be better economic performers than cities with lower concentrations - Dallas, Cleveland, Pittsburgh. Markusen is right to suggest that nurturing clusters of artists is a sound investment for governments, foundations and other donors." The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis) 08/03/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:54 pm

Get Diverse Or Lose Your Funding Arts organizations have often struggled to draw diverse audiences, and it can be even more difficult to achieve true diversity within the ranks of performers and managers. Ordinarily, this is one of those problems that everyone talks about from time to time without really doing anything to solve it. But in San Diego, where the city takes the diversity of an arts organization into account when divvying up available funds, the lack of ethnic and racial diversity on area arts boards is becoming a big financial problem, particularly for the city's celebrated Old Globe Theatre. San Diego Union-Tribune 08/03/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:41 pm

Union Rejects Pay Cuts The union representing performers at America's opera and ballet companies says it is ready to help managements address ongoing budget problems within their organizations, but says that pay cuts should not be on the table. According to union officials, too many companies think that their fiscal woes can be solved simply by slashing payroll, and do not have an adequate long-range plan for financial success. Backstage 08/01/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:40 pm

Is Porn Mainstream? "Not long ago, consumers of 'smut,' as it was derisively called, were considered to be, well, amoral sleazebags. The word 'porno' elicited seedy images of 'peep shows' and dilapidated video stores in beastly parts of town, where chain-smoking, raincoat-wearing deviants congregated behind papered-up windows amid the stench of vicarious stimulation. Today, right or wrong, 'adult entertainment' has lost most of this depraved veneer. Somehow the explicit has shed the illicit; the marginal has assumed the centre. The fornicating freaks are welcome on Main St. Call it 'carnal chic.' Or 'gutter glam.' Or, maybe, 'pop porn'." Toronto Star 08/02/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:33 pm

San Jose Artists Decide To Stick With the Status Quo In an effort to find new strategies for local arts funding, San Jose's mayor recently proposed that the area's arts groups opt to switch the source of their funding from a hotel-occupancy tax to the city's general fund. But the deal didn't look too good from the artists' perspective, and the mayor's proposal will likely be officially rejected this week. "Three coalitions of arts organizations and the San Jose Arts Commission unanimously agreed that such a change in funding would put their institutions in competition with critical city services for the same funds." San Jose Mercury News 08/02/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:32 pm

People

Barenboim Leaps Into The Fray Again Conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim has once again placed himself in the center of Mideast politics, playing a recital in the West Bank town of Ramallah, and criticizing the Israeli government's policies towards the Palestinians living in the occupied territories. "Barenboim, 60, an Argentine-born Jew who grew up in Israel, has long campaigned for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, and has extolled music's power to break down barriers. Since the early 1990s, he and Palestinian academic Edward Said have run a summer workshop for young musicians from Israel and Arab countries in places like Germany, the United States and Spain." Washington Post (AP) 08/02/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:38 pm

The Summer of Lang Pianist Lang Lang is only 21 years old, and this summer, he is everywhere in the world of classical music. Recordings, TV specials, and a seemingly endless series of performances have turned the young Chinese-born phenom into the Next Big Thing in the industry. But David Patrick Stearns warns that if there's one thing classical music buffs hate, it's the notion that an artist is being forced on them. Lang is as good as the hype, says Stearns, but he needs to start watching out for the inevitable backlash. Philadelphia Inquirer 08/02/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:30 pm

Theatre

A Lament For The American Musical What's happened to the Broadway musical? Has it lost its ability to capture the imagination? Today's most succsessul shows are derivitive or revivals. "Even today's very few legitimate musical theater stars seem exhausted or ambivalent." San Francisco Chronicle 08/03/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 7:30 pm

Edinburgh Fringe Opens "The 57th Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world's biggest arts event, is under way. Thousands lined the route as the traditional opening cavalcade snaked past the castle walls in an eruption of colour. The city's streets filled with festival goers, performers, celebrities, tourists and the media as the spectacular procession got into full swing. This year's three-week programme offers more than 1,500 shows across the spectrum of the performing arts." BBC 08/03/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:39 pm

Turf War Raging At Houston Venue Miller Outdoor Theater is "one of Houston's most cherished cultural venues and home to dozens of free concerts and plays every year." But a power struggle between the theater's advisory board and the city's parks department may be jeopardizing the venue's legacy of providing Houstonians with free orchestra concerts, Shakespeare performances, and dance recitals. Miller board members set the theater's schedule and pay the performers out of the money garnered from a local hotel tax. But the parks department staffs the theater, and its financial contribution is crucial. With money tight in Houston, the parks commissioner has slashed the Miller's budget, and there is even talk of privatization, and that has board members up in arms. Houston Chronicle 08/02/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:25 pm

Publishing

Sorting Out Your "Da Vinci's" From "Leonardo" Dan Brown's thriller "The Da Vinci Code" has captured the popular imagination. But interesting as it is, it fails the test of historical accuracy. "Controversial in life, Leonardo still provokes a bewildering range of admirers and detractors. No other artist is burdened with such baggage, but then, the ambiguity and gaps in our knowledge render him a blank sheet onto which almost anything can be projected." The New York Times 08/03/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 7:20 pm

The Rise and Fall of Greg Gatenby Greg Gatenby's life was a series of paradoxes and contradictions, says Philip Marchand, and that's exactly what made him such a valuable figure in Canada's literary society. "Like many amateur scholars, Gatenby resented what he felt was the cushy life of professors blessed with sabbaticals and tenure who didn't do nearly enough, in his view, to advance the cause of Canadian literature... He was certainly an elitist — but within the bounds of his elitism, he was remarkably democratic. Every writer was treated the same way at Harbourfront, whether he was Saul Bellow or a poet from Tonga." Toronto Star 08/03/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:35 pm

  • Previously: A Backstage Drama Worthy Of A Novel "The dramatic parting of Harbourfront Centre and Greg Gatenby, announced Monday, was preceded by months of wrangling, intrigue and attempted fixes. Gatenby and Harbourfront officials are saying nothing, but based on the testimony of other players, the breakdown of the relationship emerges as a tale full of ultimatums, threats, end runs and cameo appearances by well-known personalities." Toronto Star 07/16/03

Great Words of the Depression "Writers are usually unabashed about claiming authorship for their work. So it's curious that many of the alumni of one of the most significant American literary projects of the 20th century were ashamed of it: the Federal Writers' Project, a program of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration. Created in 1935, in the heart of the Great Depression, the Writers' Project supported more than 6,600 writers, editors and researchers during its four years of federal financing." Still, many of the writers involved in the WPA project were ashamed of their participation, and so their work has gone largely unnoticed in the years since the program's demise. A new exhibit at the Library of Congress aims to change that. The New York Times 08/02/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:28 pm

Media

Black Like Me For a long time Hollywood has this idea about what constituted a "black film." But that idea has begun to change as African-Americans take on new roles both in front of and behind the cameras. Denver Post 08/03/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 7:08 pm

California's Other Movie City Loses Its Luster San Francisco may well be the most photogenic city in America, and its seemingly endless supply of landmarks, ocean views, and stunning architecture once made it a favorite of Hollywood filmmakers. But the city's film fortunes have fallen off considerably in recent years, and with California mired in a horrific budget crisis, local leaders are desperate to find a way to draw some of the Hollywood cash they used to depend on back to the Bay Area. San Francisco Chronicle 08/02/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:31 pm

TV Conquers The Universe We've grown accustomed to seeing the flickering light of the television screen wherever we look, but the advertising industry just keeps finding new ways to force us to watch more of their brain-deadening dreck, says Frazier Moore. Whether it's automated video screens in New York cabs, droning ads broadcast from above our heads at Wal-Mart, or the endless lineup of sports, weather, and news blaring at us from every neighborhood bar, the television offensive has become... well, offensive. "Who needs this video force-feeding! If cigarettes can be banned, why no regulation of TV in public places? Why, if not a total ban, at least a mandatory non-viewing section?" Chicago Tribune (AP) 08/02/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 6:24 pm

Dance

Ballet Sobers Up At The Bar "Dancegoers who associate ballet with enchanted lakes and moonlit glades may be surprised to find choreographers fascinated by bars. Yet, over the years, several successful works have concerned bars, saloons, nightclubs or cafes." The New York Times 08/03/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 7:25 pm

Chicago Dance Companioes Fear For Theatre Chicago's Auditorium Theatre is a big grand old historic theatre that has been the center of the universe for dance companies visiting the city. But recent management changes have many in the dance community fretting about what might happen to their piece of the performing world... Chicago Tribune 08/03/03
Posted: 08/03/2003 7:01 pm


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