Why The Guardian Takes Arts Coverage Seriously "Between them the Guardian and the Observer now employ about 60 critics backed by a similar number of editors and subeditors. The Guardian arts desk has about a dozen commissioning editors and subeditors to call upon (about twice the number of 10 years ago). The largely literary Saturday Review, which did not exist 10 years ago, has a similar number. There are good reasons for the high level of commitment to the arts." The Guardian (UK) 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 8:01 pm
We All Like Books... Same Books?... Hmnnn More books are being published than ever before. But. "The book has become a product like any other - that is the price of the marketization of culture. Unwilling or unable to put time and effort into educating ourselves about the options, we end up buying what everybody else buys. Worse, we start enjoying the books we are manipulated into buying - even defending them against pretentious jerks who dare criticize them. In exactly the same way that we slowly become Ikea-people, we also become Booker Prize-people, Harry Potter-people, Stephen King-people." Boston Globe 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 5:36 pm
Banned DH Lawrence Paintings Go On View "In June 1929 a squad of embarrassed policemen raided the Warren gallery in London, and seized 13 paintings by DH Lawrence. They were spared from being burned on condition that they were never exhibited in Britain again." Guess what - here they are... The Guardian (UK) 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 7:43 pm
Free Museums - So Successful, We're Broke Millions of new visitors have been streaming into the UK's museums since admission fees were abolished two years ago. So the free admission policy has been a big success, right? Maybe not. Museums are broke. They don't get enough money to pay for operations. "Times are indeed so hard for our national museums - who have never had so many visitors - that they are being forced to go cap in hand to pay for bog-standard two-ply tissue." Yes, that's toilet paper... The Guardian (UK) 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 7:34 pm
Prejudice Against Pots (And Potters?) Grayson Perry is the hottest British potter ever. But "what is it about Grayson Perry that makes critics rummage in their tool boxes for monkey wrenches and lump hammers? Partly, it is because he is a potter. What, say critics down their noses, are ceramics doing in an art gallery? People don't seem to have a problem with Picasso's ceramic art, but they do with Perry's." The Guardian (UK) 11/21/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 6:45 pm
The Atheneum's New Plan Is Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum Museum $120 million expansion still on track? Museum officials aren't saying for sure. "One can understand why some people at the museum have been a little testy the past year. You would be cranky, too, if you had lost one museum director, one board president, and five trustees in a matter of weeks because of conflicts over the direction of the capital-endowment drive." Hartford Courant 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 6:08 pm
Museum As Profit Center Can a private art museum make money? Charles Saatchi's new London galleryseems to be doing well. "The gallery has had 320,000 visitors since relocating to its new premises in County Hall and opening to the public on 17 April. Ticket prices are £8.50 for adults, £6.50 for concessions and £5 for pre-booked groups. Assuming that just over half pay full price and the remainder pay an average of £6, then, according to our estimate, this adds up to an income of around £4 million a year." The Art Newspaper 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 5:24 pm
Van Goghs - Real Or Fakes? "For the past 100 years, countless pictures in Van Gogh’s style have surfaced in the Breda [Netherlands] area, but except for those bought in the very early years, none have been accepted as authentic by specialists. Now, for the first time, a museum is bringing together 40 of the most important questionable works to give both experts and the public an opportunity to see them and pass judgement." The Art Newspaper 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 5:21 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
Why European Conductors Prefer European Orchestras Josh Kosman ponders why conductors such as Simon Rattle prefer to lead European orchestras than American bands. "The crucial distinction is that American audiences still need to be sold - constantly, repeatedly, and with tireless effectiveness - on the very premise of orchestral music. No conductor of an American orchestra, not even in the bastions of old-world Europhilia along the East Coast, can ever entirely take for granted the importance of what he's doing. For many music directors, especially the Europeans who still constitute nearly the entire conductorial population of the United States, that uncertainty can rankle." San Francisco Chronicle 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 8:36 pm
Sing-along Software New software can make anyone sound like a (good) singer. "The software, which is due to be released to consumers in January, allows users to cast their own (or anyone else's) songs in a disembodied but exceedingly life-like concert-quality voice. Just as a synthesizer might be programmed to play a series of notes like a violin one time and then like a tuba the next, a computer equipped with Vocaloid will be able to "sing" whatever combination of notes and words a user feeds it. The first generation of the software will be available for $200. But its arrival raises the prospect of a time when anyone with a laptop will be able to repurpose any singer's voice or even bring long-gone virtuosos back to life." The New York Times 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 8:11 pm
A Glass Harmonica Debut For the first time, a glass harmonica is being played as part of a performance at Covent Garden. "Even in Donizetti's day, glass harmonica players were so scarce, and the original performer was looking for such an outrageous fee, that by the second production the composer ditched him and re-scored it for a flute." The Guardian (UK) 11/24/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 7:29 pm
Is The Cello The Next Big Pop Instrument? The cello is showing up a lot more in popular music. "Unlike guitar or drums, the cello in popular music is definitely a visitor from another place, and comes wrapped in a cloak of romance and serious purpose."
The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 4:53 pm
Restaurants, Culture - Let's Rate 'Em All The Zagat restaurant guide has branched into rating culture in a big way. "For the Zagats, the new surveys offer a chance to satisfy an A-list of recent investors who would like to see revenues keep growing at a time when the restaurant guides have all but blanketed the country. For Broadway, Hollywood and the music world, the new guides could lend statistical proof to the old lament that the public appreciates some work far more than the critics do. For the culture as a whole, the guides are yet another way that public opinion, once it has been measured and disseminated, is now doubling back to influence the public itself." The New York Times 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 8:08 pm
Iraq Needs An Arts Plan Iraq's artists are having a tough time. "Funding the arts may seem like a luxury in a country where many families still lack dependable access to clean water. But if the US is serious about building a model Middle Eastern democracy in Iraq, say some experts, it's going to have to rebuild the country's intellectual infrastructure as well as its buildings and roads." Christian Science Monitor 11/24/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 4:40 pm
Twyla Tharp - Beyond Dance "In the last 35 years, Twyla Tharp has created 126 dances, choreographed 5 movies (including Milos Forman's "Hair" and "Amadeus"), won two Emmys for her television special "Baryshnikov by Tharp," written an autobiography, worked on four Broadway shows and, this year, won a Tony for "Movin' Out," a narrative ballet set to Billy Joel's music. Now she has completed her second book, "The Creative Habit." And she wants to be very clear that it is not about dance. The New York Times 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 8:29 pm
The O'Neill's Needs - An Artistic Director Connecticut's O'Neill Center is close to choosing a new artistic director. "The artistic director (wanted: a dynamic, inspiring leader with a large Rolodex) will be expected not only to save but to seize the day, to give the O'Neill something it has lacked: a clear, comprehensive and persuasive case for its existence. And to help bring in more money." Hartford Courant 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 5:59 pm
Jump In Bookstore Chain Sales Major bookstore chains posted another big gain is sales for the quarter ended Nov. 1. Sales "rose a healthy 8.7%, to $1.84 billion. It was the largest increase for the chains in a non-Potter quarter in at least two years." Publishers Weekly 11/24/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 9:33 pm
Dale Peck: Extreme Book Reviewing Dale Peck is a human hatchet disguised as a literary critic. He's unequivocal: "Novels and memoirs are on a wrong course. They are either inward-gazing, solipsistic and impotent or unconscious and rarefied, written by recidivist realists who pretend the twentieth century didn't happen." And America's other book critics? "They are back-scratchers, afraid for their own careers - novelists reviewing their friends' works. It is very dishonest." The Observer (UK) 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 7:48 pm
When Dali Drew For Disney "An extraordinary cartoon drawn by Salvador Dalí for Walt Disney in 1946 is now being screened for the first time in 57 years at film festivals around the world. “Destino”, a six-minute cartoon that was abandoned by Disney before its completion, has already won the grand prize for best short film at the Melbourne International Film Festival." The Art Newspaper 11/22/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 5:29 pm
The Limited Vocabulary Of Up And Down The dancers of Project Bandaloop work on the vertical as much as the horizontal. But once you've seen the ups and downs... "It's not that the dancers can't dance, or can't climb, or can't do both exceedingly well. They can. It's that after watching them skitter up and down their riggings like spiders on steroids, and twirl and spin in midair, you've pretty much seen the whole lexicon. Their movement vocabulary is limited, the choreography even more so." Washington Post 11/23/03
Posted: 11/23/2003 9:26 pm
