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Monday, March 1




Ideas

America's Deaf Ear To The Rest Of The World America sells more and more to the rest of the world. And more and more of its good are manufactured abroad. But increasingly the country is closing its eyes and ears to foreign culture - movies, books, music... all are having a more difficult time getting into the country and being seen/heard/read. Los Angeles Times 02/29/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 5:42 pm

Visual Arts

Wrong Building, Wrong Place, Wrong Time How is it that a new £34 million community sports center was so badly planned that it had to be closed down? "if you seek political hubris, overarching architectural ambition, millennial folly and evidence of the decline of local authority expertise in one building, this is where you should come. This is the sad yet instructive story of the municipal swimming pool that sank." The Guardian (UK) 03/01/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 9:32 pm

The Getty's $70 Million Titian? The Getty doesn't report how much it paid for art. But the London Telegraph last week reported that the Getty paid $70 million for a Titian in November. "If the report was accurate, the Titian is also the second most expensive Old Master painting ever sold, topped only by Rubens' 'The Massacre of the Innocents,' sold to Lord Thomson of Fleet for $76.7 million at a 2002 auction." Los Angeles Times 02/29/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 5:46 pm

A Stolen Cezanne No One Knew About? John Opit says art worth $67 million was stolen from his home in New South Wales. And he says one of the paintings stolen was a Cezanne worth $50 million. "None were insured. The claim has sent the art world into an understandably cynical spin. Some of the nation's leading art experts say there is no record of the Cezanne painting and question its authenticity. They claim there are only five known Cezannes in the country and it is not one of them." The Courier-Mail (Australia) 02/29/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 5:18 pm

  • On The Search For A... Cezanne? "Art experts have been unable to find a record of the missing Cezanne, but Mr Opit defended the painting's authenticity to the Murwillumbah-based Daily News, saying it had been examined under ultraviolet light and had the artist's signature all over it. He said the painting had been in a private London collection before coming to Australia." Sydney Morning Herald 02/29/04
    Posted: 02/29/2004 5:18 pm

Calatrava - Will Athens Make Him Tops? "Whatever else happens at the Athens Olympics this summer, one way or another the games are going to make Santiago Calatrava the most famous architect in the world, pushing aside Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind. If the Greeks get his extraordinary design for the main stadium finished on time, his blue glass dome will be the most spectacular setting for the games in three decades..." The Observer (UK) 02/29/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 5:15 pm

Walker Center Attendance Down 30 Percent Attendance at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in the past two years was down more than 30 percent from a record 636,000 visitors in 2001. It's a dismaying trend, but then, the Walker still outdraws other museums of similar size in other cities... The Star-Tribune (Mpls) 02/29/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 5:00 pm

Music

What Minimalism Hath Wrought Twenty years ago Minimalism was everywhere. It's not heard so often anymore. But it's had a major influence on music of the recent past. "Ultimately, the question isn't whether this kind of music is still viable in the 21st century, but if what we have to say now can be adequately expressed by it. You see parallels in every epoch." Philadelphia Inquirer 02/29/04
Posted: 03/01/2004 8:05 am

Cleveland Orchestra Boss Steps Down After 17 Years After 17 years as executive director, Thomas Morris leaves the Cleveland Orchestra. "Morris' tenure in Cleveland strikingly reflects the paradoxes that surround world-class orchestras. Sublime artistic accomplishments are accompanied by endless financial challenges and sometimes heated relations between musicians, conductors and management." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 02/29/04
Posted: 03/01/2004 7:19 am

The ENO's New Era Begins (Haltingly) Friday night, the English National Opera finally got to play in its newly refurbished home, after a long delay. "The good news is that the performance finally went ahead, the first building block in the first ENO Ring for more than a quarter of a century. The bad news is that, at the last moment, ENO told opera critics to stay away, citing inadequate stage preparation time since the company reclaimed its home theatre this month after an eight-month refit." The Guardian (UK) 02/28/04
Posted: 03/01/2004 7:12 am

Pop Music's Changing Demographic Used to be that kids bought the most music. But "for the first time, people in their 40s are buying more albums than teenagers. According to recent figures from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the 12-to-19 age group accounted for 16.4% of album sales in 2002, a sharp fall on 2000 (22.1%), while 40- to-49-year-olds went the other way, rising from 16.5% to 19.1%. Buyers in their 50s (14.3%) are not far behind. Soon, half of albums will be bought by people who have passed their 40th birthday." The Guardian (UK) 03/01/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 9:27 pm

Dancin' In Miami At The Winter Music Conference Miami Beach is hosting the 19th Winter Music Conference for thousands of dance music fans. "More than 3,000 deejays and musicians perform at some 250 events - some tied to the official event, but most of them not." New York Post 02/29/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 6:05 pm

At The Chicago Symphony - What Next After Barenboim? There is ambivalence about the Chicago Symphony's Daniel Barenboim stepping down as music director. "Unsettling questions remain to be answered. By allowing Barenboim to walk out the door - a musician with a unique combination of intellectual curiosity, profoundly creative engagement with the process of making music and wide involvement with the world beyond the podium - the CSO has redefined, for better or worse, the role of music director." Chicago Sun-Times 02/29/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 5:04 pm

Arts Issues

Art Of The Terminally Ill A new British festival staged by the terminally ill involves 250 people "ranging in age from 20 to 80, sufferers from cancer, HIV/Aids, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis and other incurable conditions. "Among the works awaiting audiences at the Rosetta: Live! festival will be 15 videos made by amateur film-makers, most of whom are no longer alive. There will be performances, music, a mural, installations, workshops, collaborations with established artists including Mike Figgis, the director of Leaving Las Vegas, and talks by experts such as Dr Oliver Sacks." The Observer (UK) 03/01/04
Posted: 03/01/2004 7:15 am

Campaign To Give More For The Arts A campaign to try to convince wealthy people in Britain to give more money for the arts is about to launch. "Britain lags behind other countries. In the US 5.7% of philanthropic giving went to the arts, against 3.4% in Britain." The Guardian (UK) 03/01/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 9:18 pm

Cleveland Voters Vote On Arts Funding Measure Cleveland voters go to the polls tuesday to vote on a measure that would provide $100 million for economic development. "Half the money would underwrite job creation, worker training and retraining, brownfield cleanup and business start-ups. The other half would go to cultural groups and artists through a county-run grant process involving the review of applicants by panels of community leaders and out-of-region arts experts." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 02/29/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 5:21 pm

People

Daniel Boorstin, 89, Former Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin was Librarian of Congress, won a Pulitzer, and wrote "two dozen books, which were translated into at least 30 languages. Millions of copies have been sold around the world. The best known include a trilogy on American history, a trilogy on world history and a 1962 social and cultural commentary titled The Image." Washington Post 02/29/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 5:51 pm

Publishing

SF Public Library To Convert To RFIDs The San Francisco Public Library intends to change its book tracking system from bar codes to RFIDs. "Several consumer and public interest groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, oppose the widespread introduction of RFID without careful limitations on how and where it is used." San Francisco Bay Guardian (UK) 02/26/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 6:17 pm

Some Rights Reserved A few years ago it was rare to hear authors and publishers talking about alternative copyrights. But thanks to success stories and the efforts of copyright reform groups like the Creative Commons organization, the publishing industry is beginning to warm to the idea of some rights reserved." San Francisco Bay Guardian 02/26/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 6:09 pm

That Difficult Second Book - It's Stacked Against You "Apart from the justly renowned big guns, there are two kinds of writer at work in the English-speaking world today. First, there is the 'writer', who enjoys wide media coverage and is an expert manipulator of soundbite culture. The 'writer' has virtually no readership and keeps him or herself in play by the constant massaging of the literary media. Then there is that almost-forgotten figure: the writer, who stays at home, keeps regular hours, does the work, accumulates a readership and is virtually invisible." The Observer (UK) 02/29/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 5:10 pm

Media

Lord of the Rings Cleans Up Lord of the Rings scores 11 Oscar wins - tying Ben Hur and Titanic for most wins ever. Other than that, it was a tame, uneventful Academy Awards broadcast. The New York Times 03/01/04
Posted: 03/01/2004 8:02 am

A Matter Of (Broadcast) Decency (Or Politics) The call for new laws governing "indecency" in the media is gathering heat, and last week Howard Stern was dropped from six radio stations. "One central question is whether the heat generated by these issues will subside without producing lasting change, as it has before, or if a new era of government regulation and media restraint has begun. Despite the current political momentum, nightly programming on the major networks continues to include numerous flash points involving language, sexuality and violence." San Jose Mercury-News 02/29/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 6:02 pm

"Passion" Takes In $117 Million Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ has taken in as much as $117 million in its first five days. "The Passion," which debuted on Ash Wednesday, rocketed to the No. 1 box-office slot for the weekend with $76.2 million from Friday to Sunday. It was the seventh-best three-day opening ever, behind "Spider-Man" at $114.8 million and such Hollywood franchises as "The Matrix Reloaded" and the first two "Harry Potter" movies." Baltimore Sun (AP) 02/29/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 5:40 pm

The Next Big Thing - Web Critics? Some online movie critics have hundreds of thousands of readers, more than many print publications. But "though their readership is growing, online film critics remain at the bottom of the movie-publicity food chain -- far below daily newspaper critics, magazine writers and broadcast reporters. They are the last to be invited for preview screenings, are seldom quoted in movie ads and remain largely off the radar for Hollywood studios." Wired 02/29/04
Posted: 02/29/2004 4:56 pm


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