Who's This? So the Tate mis-identified a portait in a painting last week. And it was embarrassing. And insulting. But "how do you identify portraits, anyway? The names often come down by tradition, and if a portrait was named as such and such a person in an inventory a hundred years after it was painted, historical fact is hard to separate from myth. The best mistakes have some plausibility, and some are inevitable, even poetic." The Guardian (UK) 11/13/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 8:08 pm
- Previously: Tate's Muslim Gaffe The Tate has offended many Muslims with a Pre-Raphaelite painting in a current show. "First, the picture's caption described it as depicting one of the wives of the prophet Mohammed. It was a concept that many Muslim visitors condemned as an act of blasphemy - since the Muslim faith prohibits human representations of the prophet, his wives or relatives." The Guardian (UK) 11/11/03
Up With Southern Art (Whatever That Is) The Ogden Museum of Southern Art opens in New Orleans. But just what counts as "southern" art? "I'm not aware that there is such a thing as Southern art, at least not if you're defining it by technique. If there's something distinct about it, it's subject matter and also inner heritage. All Southerners who try to express themselves in art — whether it's writing or painting or anything else — are very much aware that they are party to a defeat, which is something most other Americans didn't feel until Vietnam." The New York Times 11/12/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 7:39 pm
Digging Up "Little Rome" "After 10 years of digging, 'Little Rome,' as the great Roman orator Cicero called it, is coming to light near Naples, in what could be the most important discovery of an ancient Roman town since the excavation of lava-entombed Pompeii and Herculaneum in the 18th century." Discovery 11/12/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 7:35 pm
SPONSOR
From One Generation To The Next Some of the world's most distinguished artists gathered at Lincoln Center on November 10 to celebrate the completion of the inaugural year of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. www.rolexmentorprotege.com
Baltimore Symphony Prez To Step Down John Gidwitz, president of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 1984, has announced that he will step down from the position at the end of the current season. During his tenure with the BSO, Gidwitz (along with music director David Zinman,) was credited with building the orchestra's reputation from that of a small, regional ensemble to one of America's top orchestras. Baltimore Sun 11/13/03
Posted: 11/13/2003 5:10 am
New Composers' Prize Created In Evanston Suburban Chicago-based Northwestern University has established a new $100,000 prize for composers, instantly making it one of the most lucrative awards in the industry. "The winner of the biennial Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Musical Composition, one of the world's largest awards for composers, will also be given a four-week residency at the School of Music and a performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in addition to the cash prize." The Daily Northwestern 11/13/03
Posted: 11/13/2003 5:02 am
Mozart Mass Reconstructed A lost setting of a mass Mozart wrote for his wedding, has been reconstructed and will be performed for the first time since the ceremony. "Passages plundered for later works, after Mozart decided not to finish the piece, have been re-assembled and a final section written. The jigsaw puzzle has taken two years of research and composition, using records of Mozart's work." The Guardian (UK) 11/13/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 7:55 pm
Culshaw: The Real Problem With Jazz? Peter Culshaw thinks he knows: "The real problem seems to me the disappearance of spontaneity and fun from the world of jazz. Marsalis's attempt to turn jazz into America's classical music often produces work that is respectable and bourgeois to the point of dullness. Yet take a look at the greats of jazz history, from Fats Waller to Billie Holliday and Miles himself, and you will nearly always find a sleazy undercurrent of sex and drugs." The Telegraph (UK) 11/12/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 7:14 pm
Money For The Arts? Get In Line. The city of Cleveland is trying to get voters to support the idea of putting public money into the arts. But even in a city which which desperately needs to reinvigorate its cultural scene, that sort of ballot measure is a tough sell, and the levy which arts supporters are seeking to bring before the public seems to be stuck in a complex set of negotiations over timing and budget priorities. Specific levies for individual projects are common in Ohio, and the arts levy may have to wait its turn behind levy requests for schools, parks, and a convention center. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 11/13/03
Posted: 11/13/2003 6:03 am
Seattle Fringe In Danger The Seattle Fringe Festival is in crisis, and must raise $120,000 in the next six weeks in order to survive, according to its executive director. The fiscal crunch will apparently not affect the separate FringeACT theater festival presented each spring in Seattle, but the main FringeFest has suffered mightily in recent years from slumping ticket sales and a drop in corporate and individual giving. Seattle Times 11/13/03
Posted: 11/13/2003 5:55 am
More Swiss Misses Needed A new report from Switzerland's national arts council has concluded that there are not nearly enough women with prominent roles in the country's cultural scene. “Women artists have not yet caught up completely. Numerically speaking, in fields such as literature where they are well represented, they account for one-third, while the proportion of women orchestra musicians is no more than about one-fifth.” However, the authors of the study say that the tide is already turning for female artists, and suggest that the problem will likely take care of itself in time. swissinfo 11/13/03
Posted: 11/13/2003 5:17 am
Miami: We're Banning Giant Puppets. Really? "Over 100,000 protesters are expected at next week's Free Trade Area of the Americas summit in Miami. In anticipation, the city is considering an ordinance that would, according to Reuters, ban "glass bottles, slingshots, signs on wooden sticks and giant puppets." Can Miami really ban giant puppets?" Slate 11/12/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 7:00 pm
Nat'l Medals of Arts Handed Out The National Medals of Arts, the U.S. government's highest honor for artists, is leaning heavily towards the music industry this year, with conductor Leonard Slatkin, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, country star George Strait, and bluesman Buddy Guy being selected to receive the award. Among other NMA recipients are director Ron Howard, and PBS's live music showcase, Austin City Limits. Washington Post 11/13/03
Posted: 11/13/2003 5:42 am
Zorba The Anti-Semite? Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis, best known for writing the film score for Zorba the Greek, is being taken to task by politicians and activists in Greece and Israel after saying at a public ceremony that Jews "are the root of evil." BBC 11/13/03
Posted: 11/13/2003 4:45 am
Mario Merz, 78 Merz was a leading member of the Italian Arte Povera movement. "Merz and his colleagues, who included his wife Marisa, used ordinary, 'poor' materials, both natural and manufactured, to create the most poetic, extraordinary effects. Their work gained international prominence in the late 1960s The Guardian (UK) 11/13/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 7:58 pm
Billington: Don't Trifle With Classics Michael Billington is distubed by a "disturbing European trend that Britain has largely escaped: one where the director is an unassailable monarch and classic texts are pieces of clay to be shaped to his often infantile needs." The Guardian (UK) 11/10/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 8:13 pm
UK Theatre: What About The Littlest Among Us? Regional theatre in the UK is having a great year. But (and isn't there always a but?) "What about Britain's smallest theatres - those that have to balance their books on seating capacities of 300 or less, those that receive little or no core funding, never see a national reviewer and are still waiting for some of the Arts Council's £25m injection of cash?" The Guardian (UK) 11/13/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 8:04 pm
Why Non-Profit Theatre Doesn't Belong On Broadway John Heilpern says the Manhattan Theatre Club's latest offering is just more evidence why it's a bad idea for non-profit theatre to go to Broadway. "The Manhattan Theatre Club’s expansion into Broadway at the Biltmore as another dangerous example of nonprofit-theater "Broadwayitis." In my view, the entire purpose and lifeblood of the uncommercial theater isn’t to become part of Broadway, but to offer a radical alternative to it." New York Observer 11/12/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 7:08 pm
Lloyd-Webber: West End Theatres At Disadvantage Andrew Lloyd-Webber tells a parliamentary committee that London's commercial theatres are at a big disadvantage to non-profit theatres. " 'We are not on a level playing field with the public sector'. He said central London's theatres were crumbling while state-backed venues picked up grants to fund revamps." There is a proposal to grant tax breaks to the theatres to help refurbish them. BBC 11/12/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 6:21 pm
No Books About Chimneysweeps In the Works Just Yet Who better to launch a children's book imprint than Mary Poppins? Julie Andrews, the actress who played Poppins, has contracted with mega-publisher HarperCollins to launch just such a project. Andrews has written multiple children's books herself, and the new imprint will feature only books which have her personal stamp of approval. Philadelphia Inquirer (AP) 11/13/03
Posted: 11/13/2003 6:11 am
Glover Takes Governor General's Award Canadian expat Douglas Glover has won his native country's Governor General's award for fiction, beating out Canadian über-author Margaret Atwood for the $15,000 prize. Glover's winning novel, Elle, is a fictionalized account of 16th-century French noblewoman Marguerite de Roberval's years as a castaway. Other winners in the GG awards, which celebrate the best Canadian writing of the year, were Vern Thiesson (drama,) Tim Lilburn (poetry,) and Margaret MacMillan (non-fiction). Toronto Star 11/13/03
Posted: 11/13/2003 5:48 am
Perhaps A Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down System Would Help? With Chip McGrath stepping down from his position as editor of the venerable New York Times Sunday Book Review, there is an opportunity for the new editor to finally make some much-needed changes to the section, writes Alex Beam. "Books are fun and interesting to read, but the Sunday Book Review is neither... Too often the reviews read like book reports, cooked up using a predictable formula: summarizing the book, inserting some praise, perhaps ending with a guarded reservation or two, carefully phrased so as not to offend... [Furthermore,] the review hardly ever helps you answer the key question: Should I spend $26 on this book?" Boston Globe 11/13/03
Posted: 11/13/2003 5:25 am
Whitbread Shortlist Announced "Booker Prize winner DBC Pierre and three other Booker nominees are on the UK's Whitbread book prize shortlist. Pierre's Vernon God Little is chosen in the first novel category, while Mark Haddon, Shena Mackay and Barbara Trapido compete in the novel category." BBC 11/12/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 6:34 pm
Is The Canadian Bloom Off The Hollywood Rose? "Hollywood studios are threatening to pull all of their film productions from Quebec if they can't resolve their conflict with the Quebec producers association. Local industry players are taking the threat very seriously, given that Hollywood producers spent a record $368 million in Montreal last year. The studios are seeing red because the Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec wants to force them to be represented by the Quebec group when the Americans film there." Montreal Gazette 11/13/03
Posted: 11/13/2003 6:21 am
TV's Eye-dea Of Good Apartment Taste Why is it that all those "fix-up" shows (Queer Eye... et al) make the apartments they redo look more or less the same? "Almost anywhere can be improved with a bit of judicious gardening, a slap of paint and some maintenance. No argument there. But the overarching pretension of some of these programs makes them vastly amusing. They aren't just fixing up a place, they act as though they are saving the world." The Age (Melbourne) 11/12/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 7:45 pm
Greek TV Fined For Showing Men Kissing A Greek TV network has been heavily fined after showing a program in which two men kissed. "The National Radio and Television Council which imposed the fine called the scene 'vulgar and unacceptable'. But TV critic Popi Diamandakou called the decision 'hypocritical' after shots of Britney Spears kissing Madonna at the MTV Awards were repeatedly shown." BBC 11/12/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 6:28 pm
ABT's Sponsor-Loss - Disaster Or No Big Deal? ABT watchers were buzzing Wednesday over long-time angel sponsor Movado pulling out of its support of the company. Major corporate sponsorships aren't exactly easy to come by these days. "Movado has been a principal sponsor of Ballet Theater, one of New York's premier troupes, for almost 20 years, giving what the watch company estimated was more than $400,000 annually. But Ballet Theater trustees said that Movado's withdrawal would be only a dent in the company's $35 million annual budget and that a substitute would not be difficult to find." The New York Times 11/13/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 8:21 pm
Out Of Mao - China's National Ballet Delivers China isn't known for a great ballet tradition. Yet, writes Ismene Brown, she came away this week "dazzled" by the National Ballet of China, now "reinventing themselves after decades of Maoist chauvinism. Here are long-limbed dancers whose grace and attack are knit together with a unison you'd almost call superhuman. But what, asks the suspicious westerner, of personal expressiveness in this oppressive land?" The Telegraph (UK) 11/13/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 7:30 pm
- Crisp: Chinese Ballet Is A Player Clement Crisp writes that Chinese ballet has come a long way from "The Red Detachment of Women." "Chinese ballet has latterly come a long way, and what we saw was a fascinating step on the road to a more modern image. I have long believed that out of China will come an influential identity for classic ballet, born of the dancers' beautiful physiques and dedication, and of the traditions of Chinese theatre." Financial Times 11/13/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 7:15 pm
ABT's Bitchin' Boys Robert Gottlieb is impressed with the quality of male dancers at American Ballet Theatre. "The ranks of dazzling boys just keep swelling. Has there ever been an American company this strong in the male division? I think I’ve suggested it before: How about trading a couple of these guys for a world-class ballerina..." New York Observer 11/12/03
Posted: 11/12/2003 7:03 pm
