Probing The Middle Mind Curtis White's new book on what ails our cultural life is a sharply aimed critique. He writes that "our films, our news media, even the academic world of which he's a part, have all conspired to eliminate the space for imagination and thought, the space in which people could envision a better life or any alternative to the status quo. The creations of Spielberg, Disney, and their ilk, "are pre-emptive efforts to saturate the field in which the imagination might do its work. This is the televisual deluge. This is communication as domination. We drown at the bottom of Hollywood's ocean, and all we ever wanted was a single glass of pure water." Seattle Weekly 11/28/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 7:46 pm
Inspiration By Design "Ever since the Romantics, we have thought of artists as following their muses and of designers as chasing the market. An artist preoccupied with sales will risk being written off as a mercenary, while a designer neglectful of his audience will soon be out of work. In reality, designers and artists aren't separated by so sharp a line. When a designer sets out to improve an existing product, or to create a product that fills a newly perceived (or fabricated) need, she does not usually call in a focus group. She thinks, she tinkers, she reassesses - much like an artist." New York Times Magazine 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 7:30 pm
Ex-Stedeljk Museum Director Cleared Of Fraud "The investigation into alleged fraud by Rudi Fuchs, the recently departed director of the Stedeljk Museum in Amsterdam, and the artist Karel Appel has been concluded, and there is no evidence of criminal activity by them." The Art Newspaper 12/01/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 7:19 pm
Ten-Minute Art "Twenty years after this all began in Mexico City, spray-paint art has an international client base, even though few people in the established art trade have noticed it. Most large cities, in North and South America and in some parts of Europe, have at least one spray-paint artist. Fort Worth has one. Dallas has one. Las Vegas supports two. Club crawlers are prime customers for the $20-$30 pieces of art. And vacationers buy the work as a keepsake of their travels." The Star-Telegram (Fort Worth) 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 7:03 pm
Figuring Out The Great Universal Museums What are the great museums for? Talk to the directors of those museums and you get some very different ideas. The British museum, for example... The Guardian (UK) 11/27/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 6:53 pm
Saving Art Without Buying It This idea of "saving" art from being sold and taken out of the UK is unsustainable. "If our museums are going to continue collecting - and everyone agrees that "frozen collections" are a denial of what museums are about - priorities must be set. We cannot save everything." The Guardian (UK) 11/29/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 6:48 pm
Italy To Return Ancient Obelisk Italy is finally returning an ancient obelisk to Ethiopia. "In a move that sends a message to all nations attempting to recover looted artifacts, and to the governments and private collectors that hoard them, Italy is finally making good on a promise to return the Aksum Obelisk, capping decades of bitter dispute over the monument's fate and home. The 1,700-year-old obelisk is ranked by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization as an outstanding historic and artistic object and is cherished by Ethiopians as a pillar of their civilization. Aksum was the cradle of Ethiopian Christianity. Benito Mussolini's forces seized the 75-foot-high monument in 1937, during Italy's invasion of Ethiopia, and transported it to Rome as a trophy of fascist imperialism." Los Angeles Times 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 6:02 pm
WTC Memorial In New 3D Finalists for the World Trade Center memorial were presented with new technology. "With the chance to view the designs in this dynamic, strikingly 'cinematic' way, the public was given its first glimpse of a revolution that has been under way for the past few years. Indeed, the memorial competition itself accelerated that revolution, harnessing the explosion in broadband Internet access to allow millions of people around the world to view the animated presentations, more or less at once — something that was never before possible." The New York Times 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 5:35 pm
St. Louis New Contemporary Gem St. Louis' new Contemporary Art Museum is an $8 million gem. "The museum's architect, Brad Cloepfil, eschewed such gestures in a simple but sophisticated design that consists of interlocking concrete planes, not unlike a house of cards. But this house of cards is anything but flimsy. It's at once solid and permeable, a skillful geometric exercise that blurs the divisions between inside and outside, creating a serene but dynamic environment without the benefit of grand stairs, towering atriums or flapping wings." Chicago Tribune 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 11:05 am
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
Insta-Recording - The Ultimate Concert Souvenir Fans record concerts. How to make them quit? Offer better instant recodings and sell them. "Those enthralled by a performance will seek mementos and there are few more appealing than a recording of the event, an audible aide de memoire. The way to persuade them to leave their Minidiscs at home and to shun those who peddle noisy, distorted, unbalanced piracies is to offer them that memento as they leave — under terms which reward not only the audience but the artists and the company." San Francisco Classical Voice 11/026/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 10:32 pm
Venice's La Fenice Finally To Reopen After years of delay La Fenice, the famous Venetian opera house destroyed by fire in 1996, reopens next month after a seven-year multi-million-euro restoration. Andante (AFP) 11/28/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 7:23 pm
Hip-hop As A Brand Hip-hop is big business, and full of branding opportunities. "It's a pop culture phenomenon because it's receptive to brands as opposed to other music genres which are diluted when commercial interests come in. With hip hop, it's almost the reverse - they feed one another." The Observer (UK) 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 6:20 pm
Everything Tchaikovsky "Over the next month, the Kennedy Center will present an ambitious Tchaikovsky Festival as part of a celebration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of St. Petersburg. Among the participants will be the Kirov Opera, Ballet and Orchestra, straight from Russia, under the direction of Valery Gergiev; the Suzanne Farrell Ballet; cellist Yo-Yo Ma; pianist Yefim Bronfman; violinist Gil Shaham; the Vermeer Quartet; and the National Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Leonard Slatkin and Emil de Cou." Washington Post 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 3:57 pm
Better CD's, Better Sound If regular CD's aren't selling so well now, how about super enhanced sound CD's? "Introduced four years ago, SACD boasts superior fidelity and surround-sound capability when played on an SACD player. Though the format is not widely established, a renewed interest in rock classics and a considerable uptick in SACD sales have given its supporters reason to be optimistic." Chicago Tribune 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 10:55 am
Mandela's Concert Against AIDS Nelson Mandela was host to a five-hour pop concert in Cape Town in a benefit to fight AIDS. "Mr Mandela, 85, who watched the show alongside his wife Graca Machel and US TV presenter Oprah Winfrey, has said Aids is a bigger challenge than apartheid. In South Africa there are more people living with HIV/Aids than anywhere else in the world, and globally the number of those infected is now more than 42 million." BBC 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 10:36 am
Gay Art And The Margins What kind of art outrages people today? "It's not just obscene art that gets people riled; art with any suggestion of same-sex affection or eroticism will do almost as well. In a more closeted era, gay artists would speak in a subtle and complex code to gay audiences, a code that usually went over the head of the general populace. Today, the general populace is quite good at discerning even the sliest feints in the homophile direction." Washington Post 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 4:06 pm
Kushner, Front And Center Playwright Tony Kushner is 47 and "heading into the most seismically charged week of his career: his latest work, the semi-autobiographical musical "Caroline, or Change," opens at the Public Theater today; the first half of Mike Nichols's six-hour, star-filled, $60 million adaptation of Mr. Kushner's epic "Angels in America" has its premiere on HBO next Sunday. "Angels" will be broadcast and rebroadcast to more than 30 million homes, and the number of people who see it the very first night should easily outnumber those who have seen the play in the several hundred North American stage productions since it opened on Broadway 10 years ago." The New York Times 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 5:40 pm
Roy Disney Out At Disney Roy E. Disney has resigned from Disney's board of directors, "reportedly calling on chairman Michael Eisner to resign also. Disney's resignation may be a pre-emptive move to avoid being forced off the board of The Walt Disney Co. The board's governance and nominating committee has decided not to recommend Disney for another term because he is over the mandated retirement age of 72. The Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale) (AP) 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 4:47 pm
Boyd: Saving The RSC Michael Boyd has a tough job trying to re-energize the Royal Shakespeare Company. The RSC is full of problems, logistical, artistic, and perceptual. Yet Boyd has a plan. "It is based on the very old-fashioned belief that sustained collaborative work can produce theater of more lasting value, of more profound values, than any other way of working. I believe that with a core ensemble of around 40, I can provide rigorous, exciting training for everybody, including the old lags who still want to learn." The New York Times 12/01/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 10:12 pm
Seattle And New York - Fringe Problems The New York and Seattle Fringe Festivals are facing crises of money. They won't survive without an infusion of support. Backstage 11/28/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 7:11 pm
Miller: Can great Plays Be Produced Any More? "Arthur Miller believes that if a young playwright wrote "Death of a Salesman" today, it wouldn't have a chance of getting produced. Not that there isn't an audience for it. But the producers would not be interested, largely because of the finances involved." Backstage 11/28/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 7:09 pm
"Angels" On TV In A New Context Getting "Angeles in America" from the stage to the TV screen puts it in a different context. "The arrival of "Angels" on television now puts this work into new frames of reference and understanding. First and primarily, because this adaptation preserves so much of the play's thematic complexity, bracing intellect and ravishing language, both its panoramic sweep and visionary intensity come through. That was by no means a given." San Francisco Chronicle 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 5:03 pm
The Shaw Festival's Rotten Year Ontario's Shaw Festival had a terrible year. "From a creative point of view, it was not a season without high points, but from a financial perspective, this was the kind of year in which everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The result: after 10 consecutive years of budget surpluses, the once invincible Shaw Festival will be looking at about $2 million of red ink. The bottom line: A big chunk of the regular audience failed to show up — especially Americans. SARS was one big factor, but not the only one. There was also the war in Iraq, the power blackout and the declining value of the U.S. dollar." Toronto Star 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 4:17 pm
Getting Angels From Stage To Screen "Too often, big stage deals have hit the screen, large or small, with an audible thud, making viewers wonder what was so special about the originals anyway. For some of us, "Angels in America" is a happier story. Building on his astute and graceful 2001 HBO adaptation of the Margaret Edson play "Wit," director Mike Nichols has taken the hospital bed so prominent in that drama, about a cancer patient, and wheeled it over to another, more expansive wing." Chicago Tribune 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 11:14 am
How Women Look On TV (And Why) A new study of the television, analyzing the 2002-3 prime-time season, "found that women made up 22 percent of all creators, executive producers, producers, directors, writers, editors and directors of photography, a percentage that has remained virtually unchanged for the last four seasons. Meanwhile, on screen, male characters outnumbered females by almost 2 to 1 (62 percent males, 38 percent females). The women were also younger than the men: 70 percent of all characters in their 40's and 80 percent of those in their 50's were men. Among major characters, only men held political office or were military or religious leaders. A total of 93 percent of business owners were men." The New York Times 11/29/03
Posted: 11/29/2003 1:01 pm
Rambert On Track The Rambert Dance Company looks better than it has in years. "Rambert's dancers, always good, are taking possession of their repertoire in a way they haven't dared for years. A spirit of inquiry has replaced their iron discipline, freeing each one to be a soloist. Even when they dance en masse they're thinking for themselves. A company for choreographers to love." The Observer (UK) 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 6:33 pm
Nutcracker's Rocky Start Nutcracker might be one of the most popular ballets, but when it was first presented, it didn't fare well. "The reviews that stuck to it are the really bad reviews. That's because the really bad reviews say, "This is not even a ballet," and "If the Imperial theater keeps doing shows like this it will go downhill." We will all go to hell in a handcart, in other words. And also that Tchaikovsky's music was not danceable - they said that about it." Orange County Register 11/30/03
Posted: 11/30/2003 5:23 pm
