IDEAS
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas
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Discrimination On The Basis Of... Not all generalizations are wrong. "Lawyers, philosophers and others have long pondered the legal and moral distinctions among discrimination, stereotyping and statistical probabilities, but they have not reached broad agreement. Beyond suspicions about rounding up the usual suspects, how do we know whether generalizations are based on sound empirical information or are a jumble of pop culture shorthand and bad science? What kinds of broad judgments are right and what kinds are wrong? How are categories constructed in the first place?" - The New York Times 12/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas/redir/20031214-35362.html
Theory Is Dead? "In the 1970's and 80's, legions of students and professors in humanities departments embraced the view that the world was a 'text' - that the personal and political were shaped by language and that literary and cultural critics possessed tools as powerful as those of, say, political scientists for understanding the world and effecting social change. While outside observers have long inveighed against theory's abstruse argot and political pretensions, this year theory seems to have lost much of its cachet, even among its would-be defenders." - The New York Times Magazine 12/14/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas/redir/20031214-35343.html
ARTS ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues
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Evolving Palate - When Critical Tastes Expand Wouldn't you expect a critic to narrow in tastes as the years go on? Surprisingly not, observes Terry Teaachout. "One of the most surprising things that has happened to me in recent years is that I now like far more music, as well as a wider range of interpretative styles, than I did as a young man. This is not at all what I expected to happen as I grew older." - About Last Night (AJBlogs) 12/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20031214-35385.html
Charitable Giving Down In US For First Times In 12 Years "Private contributions to US charities declined last year for the first time in 12 years, according to an annual survey of the 400 largest charities in the country. The report, compiled by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, indicated that donations in 2002 fell 1.2% (adjusted for inflation) compared with an average gain of 12% during the previous five years. The total dipped to $46.9 billion from $47.5 billion the previous year." And how'd the arts do? Down 26 percent, says the report, but the drop is exagerated because of big one-time gioftes recorded the year before. - The Art Newspaper 12/12/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20031214-35368.html
MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/media
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What's Christmas Without A Big 'Ol War Movie? What's with all the war movies set out in prime movie season, wonders Frank Rich. "Intentionally or not, three of the four new Christmas war movies play on our current fears rather than reprise the slam-dunk triumphalism of "Top Gun." And they do so even though most of them are top-heavy with creative talent (actors, directors, screenwriters) who hail from countries in the coalition of the willing (England, Australia, Japan, even Romania)." The New York Times 12/14/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20031214-35341.html
Italians Stage TV Viewers' Strike A TV viewers' strike was organized over the weekend in Italy. "Television is one of the principal causes of dullness and isolation, and is a drain on precious commodity of human time" say the organizers. We want to say to people that there are better ways of spending their free time than to stay home staring at television. "The strike's organisers have arranged discounts at a range of venues for people who bring their remote controls with them. Organisers say they are expecting around 400,000 people to join the strike against what they call Trash TV." BBC 12/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20031214-35360.html
Why Some Movies Aren't Out As DVDs Yet DVD's are the standard for watching video these days. And there is a flood of movies newly released with every passing week. "More than 36,000 films are now available on DVD and nearly half of those were released in just the last two years. So why, among this vast stockpile, is there not a single Marx Brothers comedy or Astaire-Rogers musical?" The New York Times 12//14/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20031214-35384.html
MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/music
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Canada Enacts Tax On MP3 Players Canada is imposing a new tax on MP3 players. "A price increase of between $2 and $25 will come into effect after the Copyright Board of Canada gave the go-ahead Friday on a new levy for digital audio recorders, including Apple's hot-selling IPod. The move is part of several efforts underway to combat music downloading and copying." Canada.com (CP) 12/12/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20031214-35383.html
Why Has Berlioz Been So Ill-Treated? The Berlioz bicentennial has hardly made a dent in the standing of France's greatest composer. "The diplomatic contagion of French ambivalence has encouraged the rest of the musical world to treat Berlioz as an objet trouve, an acquired taste instead of an established one. Two centuries after his birth, Berlioz is not espoused by concertgoers with the confidence they attach to Brahms, whose revelations were minor by comparison. The bicentennial year is ending without a perceptible improvement in Berlioz appreciation. The innate pettiness of France has condemned its greatest composer to perpetual disavowal, his bones to a peripheral tomb." La Scena Musicale 12/10/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20031214-35380.html
Fenice Rises In Glittering Gala A glittering assortment of international luminaries attended this weekend's reopening of Vencie's La Fenice opera house, eight years after it burned down. "To Venetians and opera lovers throughout the world, the 18th century theater represents the soul of this unique lagoon city, and its resurrection from the ashes - Fenice means phoenix - was cause for celebration across Italy. Fans lined up throughout the day to admire the newly polished marble facade, with the Fenice symbol, a gilded phoenix, hanging in the entranceway." The Guardian (UK) 12/14/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20031214-35367.html
PEOPLE
http://www.artsjournal.com/people
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Rigler, Classic Arts Showcase Founder, 88 Lloyd Rigler founded Classic Arts Showcase, an "eclectic television service that distributes performing arts films at no cost to public television stations. His Classic Arts Showcase, started in 1994, shows archival and contemporary film clips from all over the world, made available via satellite to an estimated 50 million homes. With its scenes from opera, ballet and early television, it has been called MTV for classical music fans." The New York Times 12/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20031214-35365.html
PUBLISHING
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing
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Critic's Lament: Santa - How About Fewer Self-Published Books? Book critic Patti Thorn makes her Chrsitmas list. And what does she long for? "A good, juicy scandal. Jonathan Franzen's tiff with Oprah was so much fun, but that was two long years ago. In 2003, the best you brought us was a few disgruntled literati upset that Stephen King was feted at the National Book Awards ceremony despite his - gasp - commercial success." Rocky Mountain News 12/14/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20031214-35379.html
St. Petersburg - City Of Writers St. Petersburg is a great writer's city, with its sophisticated culture and cramped bustling streets. You can visit the homes of some of Russia's great writers: Dostoyevsky, Akhmatova, Nabokov, Pushkin... an what do these places tell us of their former occupants? The New York Times 12/14/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20031214-35342.html
THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre
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The Hard Road To Reinventing The RSC The Royal Shakespeare Company has fallen on hard times. "Millions of dollars in debt, scrambling for London outlets for its work and hungrily in pursuit of a vigorous new aesthetic, the company is in the midst of an ambitious attempt to reinvent itself under a new artistic director, Michael Boyd, the fifth man to hold the job since the company's inception in 1960. Each step taken by this new administration is being watched closely, especially since it's encountered obstacles in exporting productions from Stratford." Washington Post 12/14/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20031214-35354.html
Frozen In Time - When Literary Estates Say Hands Off Are protectors of literary estates too protective of the work they watch over? "In a theatrical age where the director is king and the quickest way to make your mark and your reputation is to let your ego run rampant on an established text, it is perhaps not surprising that estates and literary executors feel bound to protect the reputations of those who can no longer protect themselves. Unfortunately, these guardians often behave like ferocious guard dogs and are in danger of deterring directors and theatre companies from tackling classic works in new ways and keeping those texts alive." The Guardian (UK) 12/13/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20031214-35376.html
The Year Theatre Shrank The essential act of theatre is that it is live and that it happens in front of an audience. But what audience? In the past year, theatre artists have been playing with the idea of theatre created for audiences of one (or two...), theatre created special-sized for those willing to experience it. New York Times Magazine 12/14/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20031214-35346.html
VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/visualarts
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Big Art = Big Box Office Modern sculpture has become big box office. Not just any sculpture though. The great big oversized sculpture found recently in the enormous turbine room at Tate Modern. "None of these works are necessarily great art. They have nothing much to do with Moore or Donatello. They are made not of bronze or marble but of ignoble materials such as plastic and neon. But they fit triumphantly into the 21st-century urban scene." The Telegraph (UK) 12/13/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20031214-35339.html
I Don't Get It - Why Is This Guy's Art Suddenly Hot? Painter John Currin is hot at the moment. But Blake Gopnik wonders why. "Within the art world, where Currin's career and reputation have been forged, he can get praise as an original not because he's doing anything new or special but simply because some vanguard curators and collectors don't get out enough. It's as though the elites of contemporary art are so engrossed in their own world that they're not aware of what's already going on in the American mainstream - at shopping malls, on boardwalks and in Sunday painting classes." Washington Post 12/14/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20031214-35357.html
Art By Celestial Navigation Portable GPS locators are being used for art. One "technique involves holding a G.P.S. device, which records their path as a kind of line drawing, and then posting the results on the Web (www.gpsdrawing.com)." The artists travels in a shape as his progress is tracked by the GPS unit. "As G.P.S. receivers have become smaller and cheaper, a growing number of digital artists are exploiting the technology. Like much digital art, the ideas are often spiffier than the visuals." New York Times Magazine 12/14/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20031214-35352.html
Italy On Sale A bill likely to pass in the Italian parliament would allow the state to sell off state assests - including buildings and possibly artworks. "Although the Colosseum and the Uffizi, for example, are both State property, no one believes that these will be carrying For Sale signs. Most people agree that the State owns vast numbers of former barracks, redundant post offices and stations, holiday homes for civil servants, and other unimportant buildings that can usefully pass into private hands. There might, however, be unrecognised treasures among these." The Art Newspaper 12/12/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20031214-35370.html
