Conceptualism Comes of Age, Finally The notion that art is about more than objects, and that artists and their ideas are as significant as the works they create for public display, came of age in the 1960s and '70s, and a new exhibit in Baltimore aims to deconstruct the movement which would eventually become known as 'conceptual art.' "Forty years ago, a small group of artists challenged the idea that works of art were about showing off the genius of a maker's hand -- a notion that had lasted right from Raphael and Rembrandt through to Jackson Pollock. The works they used to make that challenge still feel powerful and exciting, sometimes even radical and unsettling, all this while later. Sometimes they look gorgeous, too." Washington Post 10/19/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 10:35 am
Goya's Secret Self-Portrait Siri Hustvedt was as surprised as anyone when he realized that he had discovered an apparently unknown self-portrait of Goya hidden in the corner of on of the artist's best-known works. The painting, titled "The Third of May," depicts a bloody peasant massacre conducted by Napoleon's soldiers, but a shadowy portion in the lower left of the canvas hides an unmistakable image of the artist. "It's a simple rendering - large eyes, flat nose and open mouth, but it includes the artist's signature leonine hair flowing out from around his jawline. I turned away, thinking I had really gone crazy. After a moment, I looked back. He was still there." The Observer (UK) 10/19/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 9:47 am
Bactrian Hoard Uncovered In Kabul "It lay hidden for 2,000 years in Afghanistan, eluded the Taliban and escaped dozens of adventurers and bounty hunters. Now the Bactrian hoard, one of the world's greatest archaeological collections, has been found. President Hamid Karzai discovered the 20,000 gold coins and artefacts, worth tens of millions of pounds, in a sealed vault under the main palace in the capital, Kabul, after ordering it to be opened earlier this year." The Observer (UK) 10/19/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 9:42 am
Well, That's One Way To Get Exhibited A well-known British graffiti artist snuck one of his own works into the Tate Britain museum this week, and glued it to the wall, along with a typical title card describing the work. "The picture consisted of a rural scene with an image of police tape stencilled on to it," and the card explained that the artist "argues that ruining the work in this way reflects how our nation has been vandalised by an obsession with crime and paedophilia." No one at the Tate noticed the unscheduled addition to its collection until the painting came unglued and crashed to the floor several hours later. BBC 10/17/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 8:55 am
Keeping The Nasher Collection Local One of the world's finest collections of sculpture is located in Dallas, Texas. This is a fine thing for Dallasites, but such remote outposts of great art have a way of rankling the artistic glitterati in New York, London, and other 'glamour cities,' and for years, various museums and collectors have schemed and plotted various courses of action by which they might acquire the Nasher Collection. "But to the relief of home fans, Mr. Nasher, having thoroughly enjoyed the wooing, rejected the suitors... [This week,] the $70 million Nasher Sculpture Center, a smashing combination of indoor museum and outdoor environment built and owned by the Nasher Foundation, opens to the public." The New York Times 10/19/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 8:16 am
- Nasher's Garden: A Story Of Love & Art "On the one hand, the opening of the magnificent Nasher Sculpture Center and garden is a public event of international significance... But the sculpture center is also an intensely personal story of the marriage of Patsy Rabinowitz, daughter of a Dallas businessman, and Massachusetts-born Raymond Nasher, a self-made man, the son of Russian immigrants. It is the culmination of their remarkable collecting partnership that ended prematurely with Patsy Nasher's death from cancer in 1988 at age 59." Fort Worth Star-Telegram 10/19/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 8:15 am
Is Classical Music Racist? The audience for traditional classical music is overwhelmingly caucasian, whether in Europe or North America, and despite paying frequent lip service to the vague concept of "diversity," few practitioners of the art have made any serious attempts to widen the appeal of the genre. So why does classical music receive such a huge percentage of available public arts funding? "This has always been the case, but now that cultural diversity has moved to the top of the funding agenda, it's become a serious political embarrassment. There's something disquieting, in 2003, about the sight of an all-white orchestra playing to an all-white audience." The Telegraph (UK) 10/18/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 10:19 am
Sydney's Icon Turns 30 The Sydney Opera House celebrated its 30th anniversary this weekend. Initially plagued by construction delays and cost overruns, the sleek, swooping building has become an icon for the entire continent, and the first image many foreigners imagine when they think of Australia. The Age (Melbourne) 10/19/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 9:37 am
Has Montreal Chosen Dutoit's Successor? Rumors are swirling that the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, which was left headless following the abrupt resignation of Charles Dutoit in 2002, has already chosen a new music director, and is simply waiting for the right time to announce. "Security is high. No one with authority has let a name slip... Still, there are some suspects worth re-examining." Any serious conductor who is fluent in French could be a candidate, but the names Eliahu Inbal, Emmanuel Villaume, and Yan Pascal Tortelier are among those who are frequently spoken of as serious contenders. Montreal Gazette 10/18/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 9:30 am
Spoleto's Surprise Surplus "Spoleto Festival USA's board of directors has learned that the 27th season of the arts festival ended up $10,007 in the black. The unaudited results for the fiscal year ending Aug. 31 showed that the festival's $6.3 million budget got a strong boost from a record $2.5 million in ticket sales, according to a statement released by the festival Friday following a board meeting in New York. Not only was this year's festival the highest-grossing ticket sales season in its history, but about half of its performances also were sold out." Charleston (SC) Post & Courier 10/19/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 9:15 am
Detroit's New Digs: Spending Money To Make Money The Detroit Symphony Orchestra could very well have chosen to spend the last few years hiding under a pile of the Motor City's ever-present downtown rubble, and hoping that the financial roof wouldn't fall in. After all, orchestras are in terible shape just about everywhere, and Detroit is hardly a model for the type of forward-looking urban development that orchestras must embrace to make strides in an increasingly diverse entertainment universe. Instead, the DSO took a big, beautiful chance, and invested millions in a newly revitalized concert hall in one of the city's most blighted neighborhoods. No one yet knows if the plan will succeed, but thank God someone is still trying, says William Littler. Toronto Star 10/18/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 8:35 am
Why Must Music Be Transcendant? Classical music, and opera in particular, is often held up as a beacon of transcendant, other-worldly beauty, in a culture obsessed with speed and reduced to communicating through sound bites. But that perception doesn't often square with reality, says Anne Midgette, and the fact that listeners aren't being transported to a higher realm on an average night at the Met doesn't mean that the music has failed, simply that our expectations are misplaced. "Opera deals in human emotions, not divine and ethereal ones. When singing is sublime, it's partly because it amplifies those emotions with a kind of inner purity." The New York Times 10/19/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 8:24 am
The NEA's Misguided Populism The National Endowment for the Arts is taking an ambitious but misguided step with its plan to bring Shakespeare to the hinterlands, says Michael Phillips. "Class is a commodity like any other, and with the Shakespeare touring projects the NEA is spending more than $2 million on a classy image makeover. These days the NEA does not concern itself much with tossing seed money to artists or companies who may be controversial or risky or untested. In [NEA chairman Dana]Gioia's words, the agency intends to focus on bringing 'art of indisputable excellence to all Americans.' It sounds right. It sounds inclusive, and unassailably democratic. Yet somehow a Shakespeare initiative sounds like an investment in yesterday's culture, not tomorrow's." Chicago Tribune 10/19/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 9:59 am
Rebuilding Iraq's Artistic Infrastructure It may seem a bit premature for a country in which large chunks of the population are still without power, private homes, and schools, but a group of U.S. arts leaders have been dispatched to Iraq to survey the damage caused to the country's cultural scene. Iraq's global cultural significance cannot be overstated - this is the cradle of civilization, after all - but at a time when the future could not be more uncertain, many arts leaders are concerned that even the country's most venerable institutions will have a hard time making the transition to a post-Saddam Hussein reality. Boston Globe (Reuters) 10/18/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 9:25 am
D.C. Arts Center Facing Eviction A seemingly endless battle between the city government of Washington, D.C. and a small arts center housed in a former junior high school came to a head this week, as the District served the Millenium Arts Center with an eviction notice. Accusations are flying back and forth - the MAC doesn't pay its rent; the city doesn't keep its word; etc. - but both sides seem almost eager to force a public confrontation over a dispute which has been simmering quietly for several years. Washington Post 10/18/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 8:46 am
Crime Does Pay, Apparently "It's not every day that you meet the winner of Britain's biggest literary prize and end up conducting the kind of forensic interview you might with a yob on an antisocial behaviour order. But in the past week, astonishing things have been said about the enigmatic, 42-year-old Mexican-Australian who penned his debut novel, Vernon God Little, under the pseudonym, DBC Pierre." In fact, the author's shady past goes far beyond even the rumors which have dogged him recently, and Peter Finlay (Pierre's real name) isn't apologizing for any of it. London Evening Standard 10/17/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 10:12 am
Catalan Author Dies at Airport "Manuel Vazquez Montalban, one of Spain's most celebrated writers, has died aged 64. Mr Montalban died of a heart attack as he changed flights at Bangkok international airport on Friday, Spanish diplomats said... The Catalan author and left-wing political commentator was famed for writing 50 books - translated into 24 languages - as well as creating the fictional detective character, Pepe Carvalho." BBC 10/19/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 8:51 am
Missing The Substance: Can Morrie Make the Jump? Sportswriter Mitch Albom's tender memoir of a friendship with an old college professor was a surprise hit when it shot to the top of the bestseller lists a few years back. But the elements that make Tuesdays with Morrie a great book may be the very elements which are making a new theatrical version somewhat disappointing, says Chris Jones. "It has so little shading and such limited thematic complexity. One could make a decent argument that the shamelessly sentimental Tuesdays With Morrie is to Hamlet what Dr. Phil is to Sigmund Freud. It uses the same language, but it emphasizes simple, accessible communication rather than difficult truths." Chicago Tribune 10/18/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 8:08 am
Show Me A Man... Philip Marchand thinks that the world of Canadian literature could do with a good, healthy shot of testosterone. "I don't know if there is any wider significance to this year's rash of novels populated by feminized or ineffectual men. There has always been this tendency in Canadian literature, particularly French Canadian literature, but it has never seemed so blatant as now." Regardless of the cause, Marchand finds himself pining for the strong male characters of Mordecai Richler, or at least the suave calm of Robertson Davies' men. Is Canada in the grip of a newly metrosexual literary tradition? Toronto Star 10/18/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 8:41 am
Now That We've Scared The Pants Off You... The recording industry, pleased with the drop in file sharing activity since it began suing file-swappers this past summer, has announced that it will now begin warning offenders that they are about to be sued, and offering them an opportunity to settle out of court if they respond within ten days. The move is seen as an effort to quiet consumer advocates who decried the industry's heavy-handed tactics after it was revealed that the targets of the lawsuit campaign included a 12-year-old girl and a 71-year-old grandfather. Wired (Reuters) 10/17/03
Posted: 10/19/2003 8:59 am
