Visual Arts

Kamin: Koolhaas Could Have Done Better "Five years ago, when the celebrated Rotterdam architect Rem Koolhaas won a much-hyped design competition for a campus center at the Illinois Institute of Technology, there was breathless talk about the sexy new building, and how it would devise a new architecture for the 21st Century... Now the future has arrived, complete with a sensuous, 530-foot-long, stainless steel tube that wraps around the elevated tracks and swallows Chicago Transit Authority trains. It's a wild, often wonderful vision of urban life, a bit like entering an oversize pinball machine. It is, as advertised, full of brilliant concepts. But it is not a brilliant work of architecture." Chicago Tribune 09/28/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 10:33 am

The Politics Of Architectural Renderings We've all seen them, the glossy, glittering "architectural renderings" of buildings yet to be built. They leap off the page, dazzling us with the promise of a skyscraper which will blend seamlessly with its surroundings, and yet add a brilliant new dynamic to the city skyline. It all seems too good to be true, and it often is. Architect's renderings are, by necessity, targeted to the audience to whom they are presented, with the overall aim of getting everyone with a say to sign off on a project that they otherwise might not view favorably. It would be too strong to call it manipulation, perhaps, but at the very least, it is architecture's signature marketing device. The New York Times 09/28/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 10:15 am

Expansion And Contraction In Detroit As the Detroit Institute of the Arts plows ahead with a major expansion project, slated to be completed in 2006, the museum is also undergoing some major changes behind the scenes. Earlier this year, the DIA laid off 55 staffers, and now, a shuffling of curator positions is reportedly causing some grumbling. The curatorial changes will see some departments combined, and others expanded. Some longtime curators are being reassigned to positions which could be seen as less prominent. DIA's chief curator says that the changes are merely meant to streamline the museum's operations. Detroit News 09/27/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 8:40 am

Music

Philadelphia Looks To Shore Up The Future The Philadelphia Orchestra is indisputably one of the world's great musical ensembles. But behind the scenes, the much-admired Philadelphia Sound has often been eclipsed by a perception that the orchestra is perpetually mismanaged on the financial side. Its fund-raising machine has always lagged far behind those of other "Big 5" orchestras, and in fact, Philadelphia's endowment is more comparable to those of second-tier orchestras in Minneapolis and Washington than it is to its peers in New York and Boston. This year, the Philadelphians have announced plans to change all that, with a massive endowment drive off to an impressive start. Peter Dobrin has heard this type of boast before, but the early results show that Philly may finally have its eye on the ball. Philadelphia Inquirer 09/28/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 10:52 am

Classical Crossover: The Fabricated Genre This week, New Zealand teenager Hayley Westenra became the latest classical singer to muscle her way onto the pop charts with an album of so-called "crossover" tunes. But what is crossover, really? We're talking about a genre of music that exists mainly to please the musically retarded, a market-driven style that depends on trend research and technological innovation to churn out pap that appeals to the lowest common denominator of music consumers. "Crossover once took place on a peaceful side-road. Now it swirls round a vast Spaghetti Junction. There are no traffic lights, and a shocking number of fatal pile-ups…" The Telegraph (UK) 09/27/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 10:41 am

Clearing The Pipes Boston's Symphony Hall is widely regarded to be one of the finest concert halls in the world, both acoustically and architecturally. And this past summer, one of the most distinctive features of the hall, the 1900 Hutchings organ, underwent a historic tuneup. "In February, [organ builder] Foley-Baker removed the innards of the organ, took apart the electro-pneumatic engine that makes the whole thing work and has been analyzing and rebuilding the elegant old machine. It's the first major reconditioning since '49, and includes installation of many of the pipes [that a previous restorer] planned to use in the first place." Boston Herald 09/28/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 10:27 am

Inventing American Music In the 19th century, as America began to grow from an infant nation into a world power, its musical development lagged far behind that of Europe, and no one had yet succeeded in capturing the distinctive musical voice of the New World. It took the keen ear of the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak to identify the native melodies which would become the American Sound, and to begin incorporating them into his own music. "In a famous interview, he declared: 'Inspiration for truly national music might be derived from the Negro melodies or Indian chants.' The response from some composers was racist outrage," but the next century of American music would eventually belong to Dvorak's populist vision. The Guardian (UK) 09/26/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 9:51 am

Bayreuth's Legacy: Building Big In A Good Cause Opera fans are known for their devotion, and it's a good thing they are. What other art form regularly requires entire buildings to be erected, solely to stage the work of a single composer? Such is frequently the situation confounding anyone who wishes to put on a truly impressive production of Wagner's infamous Ring cycle. In fact, the composer himself had to convince his benefactor, King Ludwig, to build the famous opera house in Bayreuth before he could stage the first Ring. As Toronto prepares a similar undertaking, William Littler paid a visit to Bayreuth to see how the monument to operatic self-indulgence has held up. Pretty well, as it turns out. Toronto Star 09/27/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 9:22 am

Musicians Walk Out Of Charlotte Talks Striking musicians of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra returned to the bargaining table on Friday, but walked out again two hours later, when it became clear that the CSO's management had made no substantive changes to their original proposal, which included wage cuts and a shortened season. No further talks have been scheduled, and the Charlotte strike is now three weeks old. Charlotte Observer 09/27/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 8:20 am

Arts Issues

A Nation Of Artists Divided In his short time in power, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has led his country in what some call a leftist revolution, and what others call a needless class war. As clashes between Chávez supporters and opponents intensify, the nation's artists have found themselves in unexpected conflict with each other. "Once faithfully leftist and mostly detached from political life, Venezuela's modern art community is now deeply divided over Chávez and his populist program. A new brand of political art has emerged in Caracas, produced by acclaimed painters best known for vast abstract canvases and murals. In recent months, the protest that has played out in a haze of tear gas has become clearly visible in paintings." Miami Herald (WPS) 09/27/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 8:47 am

The Arts As Urban Renewal As cities go, Detroit does not have a good reputation. Decades of urban blight and civic mismanagement left the city in a hole which it has only recently begun to climb out of. But when the Detroit Symphony opens its new $60 million expansion of Orchestra Hall this week, it will represent the latest push by the community to revitalize the urban core. For the DSO, the project means a chance to continue playing downtown, and to do so in one of the finest performance complexes in the nation. For the project's major benefactor, who admits that he was never much of a music fan, it means an opportunity to jumpstart the turnaround in one of Detroit's most blighted neighborhoods. Detroit News 09/27/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 8:25 am

People

George Plimpton, 76 "George Plimpton, the New York aristocrat and literary journalist whose career was a happy lifelong competition between scholarly pursuits and madcap attempts — chronicled in self-deprecating prose — to try his hand at glamorous jobs for which he was invariably unsuited, died yesterday at his home in Manhattan. He was 76." The New York Times 09/27/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 9:10 am

• The Well-Rounded Intellectual George Plimpton was an icon, but that's not what makes his life so impressive, says Linton Weeks. What made Plimpton special was the way in which he could effortlessly bridge gaping cultural and societal divides, and in the process, become a respected figure to so many disparate elements of American society. He could hold his own in any intellectual discussion, and yet he had a rollicking sense of humor which is so often lacking in intellectuals. He could relate to the blue-collar nature of the NFL lineman, even as he prepared to lead a panel discussion on the New York literary scene. In short, Plimpton was a man for all seasons, in an era when such figures are increasingly rare. Washington Post 09/27/03
  Posted: 09/28/2003 9:07 am

Skrowaczewski's Musical Protest Stanislaw Skrowaczewski is 80, and looks it. But the wiry little man, who has built a reputation as one of the world's preeminent composers and conductors, is as full of energy as ever, and his latest symphony, which premieres this week in Minneapolis, has a decidedly angry bent, reflecting his frustration with the current lot of the arts in America. "For Skrowaczewski, the symphony reflects matters both public and private. In a recent conversation at Orchestra Hall, the conductor nearly exploded on hearing the name of President George W. Bush. 'Stupid! He has spoiled the position of this country for decades,' he said." Minneapolis Star Tribune 09/28/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 8:53 am

Theatre

The Red/Blue Divide Takes Center Stage As America's political divide grows ever wider, with the right wing in control of the government and the left settling into its familiar role as vocal minority, the theater world is struggling with the question of how to engage its audience on a political level. Behind the scenes, many theaters have had to get conservative, slashing expenses in the face of a crippling recession and the decreasing governmental commitment to the arts. "But as the nation and the state have shifted rightward on the political spectrum, local theater people with progressive political agendas are coming off the sidelines and putting their beliefs on the stage." St. Paul Pioneer Press 09/28/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 11:03 am

The Silent Drama of the Catalan In Barcelona, where Catalan language and culture dominate, the theatrical community is at an interesting crossroads. "Despite the fact that the Catalan language is central to identity here, most of the major Catalan theatre companies either banish the spoken word entirely or relegate it to a very distant and neglected second place." Such wordless theater began under the brutal reign of Franco, who banned the Catalan language. And while the ban led to the development of a uniquely image-based theater tradition, no one can quite explain why that tradition has continued to dominate Barcelona's drama scene, even as the rest of the world has moved on. The Guardian (UK) 09/27/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 9:44 am

Forgey: Build It, And They Will Come "Arena Stage, the 53-year-old godmother of Washington's lively theater scene, is getting ready to change its architectural personality from introvert to extrovert in one huge, but perhaps not-so-easy, step... Making it happen poses a formidable challenge. The price tag is estimated to be a cool $100 million, exactly 100 times the original cost of Arena's 42-year-old building at Maine Avenue and Sixth Street SW." Still, says Benjamin Forgey, the Arena renovation is a crucial project in the District's ongoing renewal efforts, and architect Bing Thom's design is deserving of completion. Washington Post 09/27/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 9:16 am

Media

Debating The Passion Most people don't think of Mel Gibson as a controversial movie star. But his new tribute to the last days of Jesus has the religious world in an uproar. "The Passion has unleashed one of the bitterest disputes to envelop the filmmaking industry for years, with many leaders of the Jewish community in the US, as well as many Christian leaders, describing the film as an all-out attack on both the Jewish community and the teachings of the mainstream Catholic church." The Observer (UK) 09/28/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 9:58 am

• God, The Devil, and Hollywood The religious controversy swirling around Mel Gibson's Christian opus, The Passion, is remniescent of the furor that enveloped another famous film, writes Geoff Pevere. "Thirty years ago, William Friedkin's adaptation of William Peter Blatty's 1971 bestseller not only touched off a fire-storm over the film's depiction of a 12-year-old girl's horrific possession by an ancient demon, it contained possibly the most graphic juxtaposition of sacred and profane ever seen by a mass audience — the image of a crucifix being violently shoved into the possessed girl's vagina." The Exorcist may have had far different aims than Gibson's devotional flick, but the pious outrage that greeted its release was awfully similar. Toronto Star 09/27/03
  Posted: 09/28/2003 9:28 am

Battling Piracy, At The Expense Of Oscar? "The race for this year's Academy Awards has been thrown off stride by a move by the major Hollywood studios to curb movie piracy. The studios hope to halt the distribution of thousands of DVD and VHS copies of Oscar-contending films to those whose votes decide the winners. Such a move may hurt the Oscar chances of smaller, independent studios, which have come to rely on the videos as a means of getting their films seen by Academy Award voters." The New York Times 09/27/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 9:03 am

The Ethics Of The Biopic At those times when truth is stranger than fiction, you can bet that Hollywood is going to want to make a movie about it. In fact, the film genre known as the 'biopic' - a movie based on the facts of a real life situation, but not necessarily adhering to them strictly - has gained increasing popularity with both filmmakers and moviegoers in recent years. But the subjects of these films are almost never compensated for having a fictionalized account of their lives playing at the multiplex. Worse yet, many media outlets sell the film rights to biographical articles, without ever consulting with the subject. It's legal, sure, but is it ethical? More importantly, does anyone care? The Christian Science Monitor 09/26/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 8:32 am

Dance

Barbie Ballet "In her 44 years, Barbie has appeared in more than 80 guises, from dentist to astronaut to rap star. One of the most popular dolls has been Ballet Barbie. So small wonder that two years ago, when the company decided Barbie was ready to make her video debut, the vehicle they chose was The Nutcracker, with Barbie playing Clara in an animated adaptation of the E. T. A. Hoffmann ballet classic. The video and DVD have sold 3.5 million copies." Now, Barbie has been cast in Swan Lake, and the New York City Ballet has been enlisted to provide the very human movement behind the computer-generated dance sequences. The New York Times 09/28/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 10:06 am

FINDing Direction Montreal's Festival International de Nouvelle Danse gets underway this week, and as usual, there is expected to be plenty of debate over the direction of modern dance, and the efficacy of choreographers who continually push the envelope. "What's ironic is that FIND is a structured, conventional-style gathering of dancemakers who consciously work against structured conventional thinking." Montreal Gazette 09/27/03
Posted: 09/28/2003 9:00 am