The Whitney - Digging Out Of A Hole The Whitney Museum is deep in trouble. "Adam Weinberg, its former curator of collections, recently director of Andover's Addison Gallery, returned as its director on October 1. Weinberg is an encouraging choice; he's smart, convivial, knows the board, and loves art. In order to save this ailing institution, however, he must do several thorny things while standing up to its pesky trustees." Village Voice 10/08/03
Posted: 10/08/2003 12:09 am
Turners Rescued By Newspaper Reader A fan of JMW Turner gives £13,000 to the Victoria & Albert Museum to repair two of the artist's paintings after reading in the paper that they were disintegrating. The BBC 10/07/03
Posted: 10/07/2003 10:29 pm
Rice Wins Shortlist "Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice took home the third annual Shortlist Music Prize, beating out acts such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Floetry and The Black Keys for an award that celebrates the best non-commercial music artists." Chicago Tribune (AP) 10/08/03
Posted: 10/08/2003 6:24 am
Lebrecht: Diversity Is A Red Herring In the last several years, the language of diversity has begun to creep into the lily-white world of symphony orchestras, and it's a big mistake, says Norman Lebrecht. "Diversity, or the policy that speaks its name, is a means of diverting orchestras from what they ought to be doing, making music, to what the Government ought to be doing, creating social harmony... It amounts to a mirror image of Hitlerite policy which entailed the removal of non-aryan races from German music, even though this would relegate the art to the margins of civilisation." La Scena Musicale 10/07/03
Posted: 10/08/2003 6:00 am
Embracing the Future "As the major record companies scramble to put a lid on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like Morpheus and Kazaa, an upstart California record label is trying to revolutionize the industry by taking the opposite approach: making file sharing the heart of its business. Berkeley-based Magnatune calls its approach 'open music,' a blend of shareware, open source and grass-roots activism. The idea is to let users try music before they buy, and when they do, to give half of every sale to the artist. Magnatune's motto: 'We are not evil.'" Wired 10/08/03
Posted: 10/08/2003 5:26 am
- And How Much Did This Wonder Of Technology Cost? The much-ballyhooed MediaMax CD3, a copy-protected disc which was designed to prevent its contents from being 'ripped' to computers and converted into digital music files, apparently needs fewer loopholes. The discs operate by launching a driver onto any computer into which they are inserted, and the driver blocks the ability to copy the disc. But the driver doesn't work on Mac or Linux machines, and a college student is already publicizing his discovery that the driver can be bypassed on Windows machines, simply by pressing the key. Wired (Reuters) 10/08/03
Posted: 10/08/2003 5:25 am
Music Encourages Spending "The strains of Mozart, Bach and Beethoven played in restaurants makes diners feel more affluent and encourages them to spend, according to research released by the University of Leicester in central England on Tuesday." Andante (AP) 10/07/03
Posted: 10/08/2003 12:16 am
A Carnegie, NY Phil Merger That Never Made Sense? "To many minds, the merger never made sense. Looked at solely from the perspective of the New York Philharmonic, the primary advantage was obvious: instead of being a tenant in the acoustically challenged Avery Fisher Hall, the orchestra would have become a co-resident at America's most storied and acoustically excellent auditorium. But it was much harder to see how Carnegie Hall was supposed to benefit from the merger, unless you viewed it essentially as a business venture that would have combined two endowments and two subscriber bases at a time of economic uncertainties." The New York Times 10/08/03
Posted: 10/07/2003 11:50 pm
SF Conservatory's New Home The San Francisco Conservatory is entering a new era with a new building. "The new building, designed by the San Francisco architectural firm Simon Martin-Vegue Winkelstein Moris with the involvement of acoustician Lawrence Kirkegaard, will mark a huge expansion for the Conservatory. The plans call for a building nearly twice the size of the existing facility, with no fewer than three performance spaces and a wealth of new classrooms, practice rooms and teaching studios. And all at a cost of only $80 million." San Francisco Chronicle 10/07/03
Posted: 10/07/2003 11:38 pm
NY Phil & Carnegie - Calling Off The Marriage "The much-heralded union between America's oldest orchestra and its most prestigious concert hall - announced for the 2006-07 season - would have created a gigantic nonprofit corporation with an endowment of around $350 million. But there were problems from the beginning, both legal (Lincoln Center had indicated that it would seek to hold the Philharmonic, its tenant for the past 41 years, to a contract that ran until 2011) and aesthetic (the merger would have greatly diminished the variety of programming at Carnegie Hall)." Washington Post 10/08/03
Posted: 10/07/2003 10:47 pm
NY Phil, Carnegie, Call off Merger Carnegie Hall and the New York Philharmonic have decided to call off their proposed merger. "Rumors that the deal was unraveling had been circulating in recent days after weeks of growing doubt about whether the boards of these two proud organizations would ultimately sanction the move. Lincoln Center officials said today that they were pleased to have the orchestra remain. `If you were to capture our feelings about this, they could be succinctly stated: Welcome home. All is forgiven. We have a lot to discuss." The New York Times 10/07/03
Posted: 10/07/2003 3:59 pm
An Old Debate Renewed In Canada, as in the U.S., battles over controversial images have often been waged with the definition of the term "artistic merit" at the center. Now, a bill is being debated in the Canadian Parliament which would remove the "artistic merit" defense from the federal law banning child pornography, in favor of a requirement that an artwork be proven to be a "public good." Kate Taylor says the change would have a crippling effect on Canadian art and freedom. "The artistic-merit defence can at least be argued by bringing artistic peers, critics and academics into court, but how do you prove the public good of an individual art work -- no matter how much you might believe in the public good of art in general?" The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/08/03
Posted: 10/08/2003 6:42 am
Detroit's Culture Czar As Detroit continues a concerted effort to remake its image and turn its fortunes, the arts and culture have been playing a big role. But according to Karen Dumas, the city's newly appointed Director of Cultural Affairs, what's still missing is a sense of cohesion among Detroit's arts groups. A marketing specialist, Dumas says that her goal will be to find ways to connect the area's larger arts organizations, such as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, with smaller, more flexible groups, in an effort to craft a cohesive arts strategy for a city on the mend. Detroit News 10/08/03
Posted: 10/08/2003 6:34 am
The Grandfather Of Art Critics Dave Hickey is an unusual icon in the art world, a critic who flatly refuses to embrace either academic jargon, or what he calls the "Art Brit-tabloid sleaze" now in vogue as a way to supposedly reach young people. According to Hickey, art's problems are just society's problems writ small. "Art's just not that important or that fashionable anymore. It's not cool. Not only that, it's not intellectually serious... What do you do with an art world in which the normative work of art is a giant C-print of three Germans standing beside a mailbox? What's that? Stop it, please." Denver Post 10/08/03
Posted: 10/08/2003 6:27 am
A Crisis For Live Theatre "People watch an unprecedented amount of drama today, but they generally prefer to experience it through film and television; the appetite for the 'live' spoken variety is limited now, and there's no going back on that. So a regional theatre must programme across the spectrum - stand-up comedy and modern dance as well as Shakespeare and Pinter. The immediate difficulty here is that there simply aren't enough high-quality acts or shows designed to suit smaller stages." The Telegraph (UK) 10/08/03
Posted: 10/07/2003 11:43 pm
Blogging Your Way To Stardom The phenomenon known as "blogging" is creating a new breed of writer, and a new way for magazines and publishing houses to identify their future stars. "Back in the Dark Ages, starting out in journalism used to mean late nights covering school board meetings or writing features about the circus coming to town." But many young writers are bypassing this early part of the typical journalistic career trajectory by getting themselves noticed with cheap and popular online repositories of their work. Chicago Tribune 10/08/03
Posted: 10/08/2003 6:19 am
Wal-Mart's Magazine Clout Wal-Mart is the biggest single retailer of magazines' newsstand sales, "accounting for what industry executives peg as at least 15% of all such sales. It holds that place despite some selectivity in choosing which magazines to stock in its stores." That "selectivity" includes a "moral" standard that now has a big impact on how magazines are sold. Ad Age 10/06/03
Posted: 10/07/2003 11:59 pm
Why Does An Author's Ethnicity Matter? Booker favorite Monica Ali is the object of much speculation about her ethnicity. "The cult of the ethnic author is infuriating for the simple reason that it takes the focus away from the work. Who cares if Ali is 'black' or 'white,' or whether she was closer to her Mum or her Abba? People have been so wrapped up in Ali that few have bothered with critical examination of the book." MobyLives 10/06/03
Posted: 10/07/2003 11:54 pm
The Rich Get Richer Last year, media giant Vivendi Universal nearly collapsed under the weight of its own acquisitions, and came dangerously close to bankruptcy. Now, Vivendi is selling its entertainment arm to NBC, a move which will make the U.S. network one of the premier power players in an increasingly consolidated industry. BBC 10/08/03
Posted: 10/08/2003 5:53 am
Big Media vs. Big Media The Recording Industry Association of America is demanding that major internet service providers release a list of their customers to the RIAA, to aid in the industry's prosecution of individuals engaged in illegal online file-sharing. But many of the ISPs, perhaps sensing something to be gained in taking "the people's side" in the increasingly divisive debate over file-swapping, are refusing to release the lists and challenging the RIAA in court. The latest to sue is Charter Communications, citing its customers' right to privacy as taking precedent over the requirements laid out in the infamous Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Wired 10/08/03
Posted: 10/08/2003 5:28 am
Indian Cinemas Shutting Down More than 1000 movie theatres in western India are threatening to close later this month in a dispute over taxes... BBC 10/07/03
Posted: 10/07/2003 10:18 pm
No DVD Movies To Oscar Voters - Bad Idea! What? Oscar voters aren't going to get DVD copies of nominated movies this year because of fears of piracy? Critics "claim that a blanket ban on screeners will suffocate independent films, and they're absolutely right. When the crunch comes for end-of-the-year screenings, there'll be no time--and nowhere near enough screening rooms--for Academy voters to see "American Splendor," "Winged Migration" or "Whale Rider," to name but three of the many superb films that lack the budgets to promote themselves. And so the elephantiasis that afflicts the movie business will proceed apace, as the most heavily marketed films--though often the least interesting ones--lumber toward Oscar glory." OpinionJournal.com 10/08/03
Posted: 10/07/2003 10:05 pm
Bolshoi Refuses To Rehire Ballerina The Bolshoi Ballet says it will not bow to pressure to rehire a ballerina fired last month for being "too big." "The labour ministry said the dismissal was illegal and she should be given her job back. 'The Bolshoi Theatre has not changed its decision with regard to Anastasia Volochkova'." Sydney Morning Herald 10/08/03
Posted: 10/07/2003 11:29 pm
