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Thursday, March 11




Ideas

How The 60s Changed The Way America Communicates "Not only did we come to regard political speech as manipulative, but we started to see formality in general as old-fashioned and insincere. The culture that bred casual Fridays and microwave dinners came to value 'doing your own thing' over older standards of propriety, and this attitude has shaped our language." Chicago Tribune 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:15 am

Visual Arts

The Best-Selling Artist Of All Who is the best-selling artist of all time? Picasso? Van Gogh? "The truth could hardly be more different or more surprising, at least according to the publisher HarperCollins, which says the world's bestseller is a Swiss religious artist by the name of Annie Vallotton. Even if the name is unfamiliar, chances are you may have seen her work or own an unopened copy of one of her books." BBC 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:08 am

Greece Halts Acropolis Museum Construction Greece has put a halt to building the Acropolis Museum. "The country’s highest administrative court ruled that a Culture Ministry decision approving plans for the 94-million-euro building could cause irreversible damage to ancient building remains found on the plot in Makriyianni, under the Acropolis." Kathimerini (Greece) 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:04 am

NY Dealer Charged In Art Fraud A Manhattan art dealer has been arrested on fraud charges for "a multimillion-dollar international art scam in which he bought up works by 19th century French artists, forged them and sold off the fakes through prestigious auction houses. The brazen forgery racket, which spanned the globe from New York to Paris, London and Toyko, involved more than 25 paintings by masters such as Monet, Marc Chagall, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Gaugin, court documents charge." New York Post 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:00 am

UK Museums - Victims Of Their Own Success So UK museums want a big block of added government funding. There's something horribly familiar about this cri de coeur, heard again and again from different parts of the arts community over the years. But they do have a strong case. Since the government-directed abolition of admission charges in 2001, museums have become victims of their own success." Millions more are coming through the doors, and it's put a strain on museums. London Telegraph 03/11/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 9:09 pm

Art From The Racist Point Of View There is plenty of art done from the victim's point of view. But what about art from the racist's point of view? A Seattle artist has made work explores racism from the oppressor's point of view. His "flat style -- a blend of American Pop and Japanese ukiyo-e or "floating world" graphics -- gets inside his hot subject and gives it a deadpan edge." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 03/11/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 8:25 pm

The Case Of The Overlapping Board Member Software magnate and collector Peter Norton has recently found himself split in two - as a member of the boards of directors of the Whitney and the Museum of Modern Art. ."In recent years, the Whitney, founded as a showcase for American art, has featured more international art, putting it in more direct competition with MoMA. Mr. Norton now serves on committees at both museums. What happens if both are bidding on the same acquisitions at the same galleries, or vying to get the same exhibitions? In the social order of generations past, it would have been unheard of to serve on the Whitney and MoMA boards at once." New York Observer 03/10/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 3:05 pm

Music

Dance Music - The Challenge The dance music industry gathered in Miami Beach this past week for the annual Winter Music Conference. "New technologies and the Internet were identified by panelists throughout the conference as key in various aspects of dance music's future. According to Forrester Research, the online music market will soar from about 3 percent of sales currently to about 30 percent by 2007." Miami Herald 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:49 am

L'Affaire Voigt - Covent Garden Responds A spokesman for the opera in London's Covent Garden confirmed on Sunday that Voigt had been dropped from the lead role in a summer 2004 production of Richard Strauss' "Ariadne on Naxos" and that the reason was her size. The spokesman, Christopher Millard, said Sunday that casting director Peter Katona had selected a black evening dress for the part and believed Voigt would not look right in it." Still, says the company, Covent Garden hopes Voigt will consent to perform there again in the future New Jersey Online (AP) 03/10/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 9:21 pm

Hip-Hop Under Police Stakeout "The Miami and Miami Beach police have a black ring-binder six inches thick that starts with 50 Cent and ends with Ja Rule. In between come photographs, arrest records and other information on all the other major rappers in the US, from P Diddy to DMX. The police photograph them arriving at Miami airport, stake out hotels and video shoots and scrutinise their lyrics and connections in search of hints of potential violent conflict. It is the latest development in a nationwide effort to place every aspect of hip-hop culture under state surveillance." The Guardian (UK) 03/11/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 9:05 pm

Welsh Opera Slashes Ticket Prices When an arts organization moves into a shiny new home, it often takes the opportunity to boost ticket prices. Not the Welsh National Opera, though. They're lowering the tariff to get in. "Top price tickets will be cut by 25% to £35, while cheapest seats will cost as little as £5, a reduction of 37%. The WNO say the increased seating capacity at the new venue makes this possible." BBC 03/10/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 8:49 pm

Giving Weight To The Issue Of Opera Singers Does being fat help opera singers? "Despite the success of a few far-from-slender singers—Luciano Pavarotti being the most conspicuous example—there is no scientific evidence to suggest that greater mass allows for better range, breath control, or projection without microphones. Nevertheless, heavy opera singers tend to believe their weight aids them. And since singing, like any other human talent, is greatly affected by the performer's comfort and state of mind, a soprano who believes that her heft helps her with tricky arias may actually give a better performance." Slate 03/10/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 8:37 pm

Arts Issues

The Culture Capital Is... And the "American Capital of Culture" for 2005 is... (what? You didn't know there was such a thing? Me neither... shhh, just listen...) the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. OK. "The province has been elected as the American Capital of Culture for 2005 by an organization of the same name with headquarters in Barcelona, Spain. A news release from the group says the designation was made to coincide with the province's 100th anniversary. But it's not clear how much money the province would have to spend for that recognition." Canada.com (CP) 03/10/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 9:25 pm

Artists For Livingstone How many politicians do you know that artists will get behind and support? So London mayor Ken Livingstone must be one special guy. "With mayoral elections just three months away, a prestigious group of artists have banded together to get Ken Livingstone re-elected as mayor of London." The Guardian (UK) 03/11/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 9:00 pm

Florida On Road To Restoring Arts Funding Cuts Florida, which took a big bite out of its arts funding last year, may be ready to restore it. "A House budget panel voted 40-4 for a proposal to allocate $21 million in fees collected annually from corporations to fund state grants to local arts and historic preservation projects." Lakeland Ledger (Florida) 03/10/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 2:30 pm

Guilty Or Not, It's A Damned Creepy Way To Make A Living "A German scientist who created an exhibition of human corpses has been cleared of allegations that he illegally obtained some of the bodies. Gunther von Hagens was accused in several press reports last year of using bodies from China and Kyrgyzstan. But prosecutors in Heidelberg, Germany, said the corpses had been sold legally by institutions such as hospitals... Dr von Hagens was allowed to buy the corpses from such institutions because they were legal custodians of the bodies if the relatives of the dead had not claimed them." BBC 03/10/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 5:36 am

Publishing

Tanenhaus Named NY Times Book Review Editor Sam Tanenhaus has been named editor of the New York Times Book Review. "Before joining Vanity Fair in 1999, Tanenhaus was an assistant editor for the Times' Op-Ed pages. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1998 for his biography "Whittaker Chambers" (Random House), about a key figure in the Alger Hiss spy trial. The book won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography. Tanenhaus has a master's degree in English literature from Yale University." Los Angeles Times 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:42 am

Amis Available - No Big Bidding War Martin Amis is a certified literary star. But his latest book was a critical failure and a dud in the bookstore. And now? Amis is without publisher, and available... The New York Times 03/11/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 9:15 pm

Epics On The Fringe "Like a house on the borderlands, epic fantasy is haunted: by a sense of lost purity and grandeur, deep wisdom that has been forgotten, Arcadia spoilt, the debased or diminished stature of modern humankind; by a sense that the world, to borrow a term from John Clute, the Canadian-born British critic of fantasy and science fiction, has 'thinned.' This sense of thinning—of there having passed a Golden Age, a Dreamtime, when animals spoke, magic worked, children honored their parents, and fish leapt filleted into the skillet—has haunted the telling of stories from the beginning." New York Review of Books 03/25/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 3:01 pm

"And you too, Brutus?" Some school districts are now using "simplified" language versions of Shakespeare to teach the Bard. "It's nice because all those ancient words aren't there. It is a cool story — what with people making plans to kill one another. It can be difficult because everyone has strange names, but at least it isn't using any of those old words anymore." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 03/07/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 2:34 pm

Media

Retirement = Big Changes At CBC The retirement of a longtime senior exec at Canada's CBC signals major rethinking of the public broadcaster's programming. "The news of Harold Redekopp's departure, expected later this year, has given rise to a groundswell of talk that a major shakeup is in the works at the public broadcaster - one that will affect a number of key executive positions as well as many facets of its programming, from arts and entertainment to news and current affairs." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:30 am

US Congress Moves Toward Media Crackdown "A Senate panel has paved the way for a broad crackdown on offensive radio and television programming, including extending stiff fines to artists, limiting violence and temporarily preventing broadcasters from owning more stations until potential links between media consolidation and indecency on the airwaves can be studied." Washington Post 03/09/04
Posted: 03/10/2004 2:37 pm

Dance

Ballet Pacifica Lives Southern California's Ballet Pacifica isn't dead after all. The company is going to present a new story ballet and is looking for a new artistic dirctor. "This is the first news about the future of the 42-year-old chamber-size ballet troupe since late January, when Christina Lyon, a former dancer with American Ballet Theatre, resigned as artistic director. Lyon had been in the job only seven weeks. Her departure came just days after the board canceled Ballet Pacifica's spring repertory season and its respected Pacifica Choreographic Project." Orange County Register 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 7:02 am


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