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Weekend, December 13, 14
Stop Explaining My Art! Astronomers in Texas have determined that the famous figure in Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Scream, is meant to be reacting to a frightening, fiery Norwegian sunset, caused by the eruption of an Indonesian volcano. Kate Taylor would like these astronomers, and all other art-explaining scientists, to kindly take a seat and stop telling her what her favorite paintings are about. "The eager detectives who ferret out the scientific details of these artistic experiences always argue they don't mean to diminish the art, but that is the effect, however unintended, of their discoveries." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/13/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 9:40 am
A Museum With No Art Three years ago, the Calder Foundation announced that Philadelphia would be the site of a $70 million museum dedicated to showcasing the work of sculptor Alexander Calder. "But what looked in early 2001 like a done deal has turned out to be just the beginning of an intricate courtship. Unlike other foundations devoted to the work of a single artist, such as the Warhol Foundation, the Calder Foundation does not have unilateral control over the artist's estate. Six family members, including Rower, his mother and his aunt, control the artworks that would anchor the museum." So far, the museum hasn't managed to reach any agreements with the family to display Calder's work. Philadelphia Inquirer 12/14/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 11:49 am
The Rise Of Miami Beach "At first glance, Art Basel Miami Beach may seem an incongruous group of words. But this bizarre-sounding conjunction of ice-cool Swiss business and hot-blooded Latino glamour is fast becoming the biggest event in the art-world calendar. Now in its second year, the ABMB sees a massive influx of collectors, dealers and global operators converging on the luxury, art-filled hotels of South Beach... While the Florida climate is clearly an attraction, what has made Miami the art world's most magnetic new destination is its impressive infrastructure." The Telegraph (UK) 12/13/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 11:34 am
Is It Or Isn't It? "Van Gogh" Auction Delayed "The auction of a controversial painting attributed to Vincent Van Gogh has been delayed to re-examine its authenticity. The work was spotted at a Paris flea market in 1991 and bought for 1,500 euros ($1,800). It was expected to fetch more than 1 million euros ($1.2m) at auction on Saturday, but was withheld to allow further scrutiny by experts." BBC 12/12/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 10:14 am
Mies House Goes To The Preservationists The legendary "Farnsworth House" designed by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, has been purchased at auction by a group of preservationists backed by the National Trust, which intends to open it to the public. "The sale lays to rest months of fear that the 1951 steel-and-glass house in Plano, Illinois, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago, would be sold to a developer and moved from its site." The winning bid was for $7.5 million, and followed a quick but intense bidding war between the preservationists and an anonymous telephone bidder. The New York Times 12/13/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 9:57 am
Desperate Times Call For Desperate PR Missteps When the Art Gallery of Ontario announced, at the end of November, that it would be temporarily shuttering its Canadian wing, it took some time for the significance to reverberate with the public. But now that it has sunk in that the public will no longer have access to one of Canada's most important collections, negative reaction is building. Sarah Milroy writes that the AGO has some legitimate business motives behind its decision, but that it is making all the wrong moves for all the right reasons. What could AGO have done differently? "The contrast to Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum is instructive," says Milroy. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/13/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 9:07 am
The Savior Of Saint Louis? David Robertson's appointment as music director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra seems to be solidifying the notion that the SLSO, so recently on the brink of financial collapse, is back as a major player on the national orchestral scene. "A lot was riding on the identity of the new music director. The wrong conductor could have derailed the orchestra's forward momentum, artistically and financially. But the right conductor - and there can be little doubt that Robertson's the one - will build on what his predecessors left him and then help the orchestra on to even greater things." St. Louis Post-Dispatch 12/14/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 11:23 am
Putting Mahler In The Right Order When Mahler wrote his almost unbearably bleak 6th symphony, he broke up the pervasive despair of the score with a beautiful, lush slow movement. Mahler originally intended the slow movement to be played just before the finale, but then switched it with the scherzo movement in the work's first rehearsals. The new order remained the standard until 1963, after Mahler's death, when the inner movements were flipped again, ostensibly because of 'new scholarship' on the work. "Now it has become clear that the transposition of movements was no mere mistake but a willful act of an editor, Erwin Ratz." The New York Times 12/14/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 11:17 am
The Power Of Small-Time Orchestras Major symphony orchestras are cultural treasures, and a point of pride for the cities which have them. But for every big-budget, 95-member symphony orchestra, there are countless smaller, semi-professional orchestras performing across America, feeding the desire of ordinary concertgoers for an affordable night out listening to great music in a more casual setting than the big boys offer. "These orchestras truly live by their own rules, mixing classical and pops on the same program. They often flourish during tough economic times that bring larger orchestras down... At the very least, these orchestras offer the tactile experience of being in the same room with a masterpiece." Philadelphia Inquirer 12/14/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 11:06 am
Won't The Real Slim Shady Please Report To The FBI? You may have missed it, what with the capture of Saddam Hussein and all the recent suicide bombings in Iraq, but rapper Eminem recently threatened the life of the President of the United States. Sort of. A line from an unfinished song off a bootleg recording of an Eminem concert reportedly includes the following: "I don't rap for dead presidents. I'd rather see the president dead." Of course, Eminem is just a pop musician in a frankly thuggish corner of the music industry, and he clearly isn't planning an assasination attempt, so the Secret Service isn't taking it seriously or responding to silly questions about it. Only, wait. Actually, they are. The Guardian (UK) 12/13/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 10:45 am
Why The Met Is Worth The Money $7 million per year. That's what it costs to put the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on the air each Saturday afternoon. With the Met scrambling for new sponsors, there are rumblings in the opera world that the price tag is just too high, and that the broadcasts aren't worth saving. Nonsense, says William Littler. There are other great opera companies, but none that consistently match the Met's high level of performance. "I've visited them all, and I've never encountered in any of them the sustained quality I experienced last weekend during four performances at the big house at Lincoln Centre. As Harold C. Schonberg, late music critic of The New York Times, once observed, The Met sometimes fails, but when it does, it does so on a level of its own." Toronto Star 12/13/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 10:09 am
Whither Canada's Arts Ministry? Canada has a new prime minister, and Paul Martin's choice to head the nation's Ministry of Canadian Heritage is already causing arts groups to wonder about the intentions of the new government. "A first-time cabinet minister, Hélène Scherrer is largely unknown among Canadian arts groups... The heritage minister is responsible for a broad range of issues and agencies, including arts and culture, citizenship, multiculturalism and sport." Scherrer's background is almost entirely in sports, and her spokesman has already said that the ministry will no longer be the "bank" for the arts that it was under former minister Sheila Copps. CBC 12/12/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 11:56 am
Bad Time For Nonprofits in Minnesota, Unless You're An HMO A recent summit meeting of Minnesota nonprofit companies was a fairly dismal affair, with executives from the state's biggest arts groups bemoaning the downturn in public and private financing. But at least one corner of the nonprofit sector is raking in the dough - in Minnesota, HMOs and other health care companies are non-profits, too. It makes for an interesting contrast, since the skyrocketing cost of health care is one of the factors causing so much suffering at the state's larger arts groups. Minneapolis Star Tribune 12/14/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 11:28 am
Christianity For The Matrix Generation Increasingly, it seems as if the current generation of teens and young adults is getting its moral guidance in the form of entertainment, rather than from religion. In fact, the line between Christian theology and secular moralism seems to be increasingly blurry, with blockbuster movie franchises like The Matrix and Lord of the Rings presenting morality plays not dissimilar from the ones you might find in the Bible. Some Christians see the pop culture moralists as a threat, of course, but increasingly, non-denominational Christian churches are embracing secular pop as a way to draw in the next generation of devout churchgoers. Minneapolis Star Tribune 12/13/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 9:44 am
Pavarotti's Wedding Superstar tenor Luciano Pavarotti has married his longtime girlfriend, Nicoletta Mantovani, in a star-studded ceremony in Modena, Italy. Mantovani, at 34, is exactly half Pavarotti's age, and the couple have a one-year-old daughter. The marriage took place in a theater, with the mayor of Modena presiding, and Andrea Bocelli performing the Ave Maria in front of an assemblage of celebrity guests. Chicago Sun-Times (AP) 12/14/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 10:56 am
Writers On The Front Lines "[Culturally] blurred lines between fiction and nonfiction are appropriate for Israeli writers like [Amos] Oz, David Grossman, and A. B. Yehoshua, who are deeply engaged peace activists as well as novelists. All three flew to Geneva two weeks ago to take part in ceremonies surrounding the signing of the Geneva Accord, a new, extragovernmental peace pact negotiated by Israeli and Palestinian civilians. For most of their careers, including the past three years, as the second Palestinian intifada has waxed and waned, these writers have been struggling to address the problems of their country while trying to find the peace and quiet necessary for their literary work." The New York Times 12/13/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 9:51 am
Aftermath: Robert Hughes Looks Back "Everyone is at least familiar with the horror story surrounding Robert Hughes, the renowned Australian art critic and TV talking head: the accident that left him crippled, the threat of extortion that came from some of the travellers in the other car, the dangerous driving charges that were laid, then dismissed, then reinstated, and his subsequent sentencing in a court this year." Hughes, who has written a new book on Goya, seems decidedly embittered by his experiences, and is furious with elements of the Australian press who sought to tar him as irresponsible and bigoted. He also believes that he was a victim of a judiciary run amok in provincial Western Australia. And just for the record, he believes that George W. Bush is "[leaching] any sense of democracy out" of America. In short, Hughes is not a happy man. The Age (Melbourne) 12/13/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 9:18 am
Are Film Defections Hurting Theater? As more veterans of the theatrical stage defect to Hollywood, establishing lucrative film careers, many in the theater world are lamenting the trend. But are stage actors really damaged goods the minute they appear on film? "Is [Judi] Dench less convincing as the Countess of Rossillion in All's Well That Ends Well than, say, Peggy Ashcroft was, because the latter had avoided playing James Bond's boss? Do [Ian] McKellen's decades of speaking the greatest verse ever written help or hinder him and us when he starts spouting piffle about pixies chasing rings?" The Guardian (UK) 12/13/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 10:39 am
You've Got Literature! "Cybersnoops, aspiring Web detectives and electronic voyeurs searching for a new kind of fix might find it in an emerging form of e-book fiction with a twist: the digital epistolary novel, or DEN. Created by Greatamericannovel.com, a DEN reveals its story line through a series of simulated e-mails, Web pages and instant messages." Wired 12/13/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 10:17 am
Since When Is Poetry Not Contentious? Much has been made of the political difficulties being faced by the formerly tiny Chicago-based Poetry magazine, since it was the surprise recipient of a $100 million bequest last year. Philip Marchand is a bit surprised by the tone of some of the press coverage: "According to [one] story, the gift is 'sowing discord in the normally harmonious realm of verse.' Normally harmonious realm of verse! Where did the reporter, Robert Frank, ever get that idea? Read some literary history, Mr. Frank. Poets have been at each other's throats since the invention of the sonnet, and several centuries previous to that." Toronto Star 12/13/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 10:03 am
Tchaikovsky vs. Radio City With the famous Rockettes now touring the country as part of the traveling version of the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular, local dance companies used to cleaning up at the box office with their annual Nutcracker presentations are feeling a bit besieged. Across the country, companies are jazzing up their traditional Nutcrackers, and adding flashy new sets, costumes, and dramatic elements in an effort to compete with the glitzy Radio City crowd. One Denver company even has its toy soldiers lining up to kick their legs over their heads for a while, just like you know who. The New York Times 12/14/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 11:42 am
What's Uglier Than A Dancer's Feet? Her Shoes. Dancers love a nice pair of new shoes as much as anyone. But you'd never know it by the way they treat them. The process of "breaking in" a new pair of pointe shoes begins with ripping them apart, and taking a knife to the innards. From there, it's up to the individual dancer, and some are more, ahem, aggressive than others, but let's just say that Krazy Glue and nails are frequently involved. And when all else fails, you might as well try slamming the shoe in a door hinge a few times before you strap it on. Pretty brutal treatment for such delicate-looking apparel? You bet. But when you spend your whole career on your toes, you'd better be comfortable. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/13/03
Posted: 12/14/2003 9:29 am
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