Library of Congress To Receive 4,000 Artifacts The Library of Congress will announce today that it is to be the beneficiary of a major gift from Florida real estate mogul Jay Kislak, which includes a $4 million map of the New World dating from the 16th century, as well as 4,000 other early American artifacts. The map, known as the Carta Marina, is a matching piece to another similar map purchased by the library last year. "Items in the collection date back as far as 1200 B.C. and primarily involve what is now the southeastern United States, the Caribbean and Mesoamerica." No official monetary estimate of the value of the donation has been released, but Kislak's complete personal collection has been assessed at over $100 million. Washington Post 04/07/04
Posted: 04/07/2004 7:01 am
So That's $450,000 Per Centimeter, Right? "One of the art world's most significant -- and expensive -- trials... concluded yesterday at the High Court in London with the judge reserving decision until later this month. The trial, which began March 10, pitted Taylor Thomson, 45, (née Lynne Lesley Thomson), the only daughter of Toronto businessman Kenneth Thomson, who is one of the world's 15 wealthiest men, against venerable Christie's auction house and the 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley, 43. The British media estimates legal costs of the trial exceeded $4.5-million. The dispute has revolved around a pair of allegedly 18th-century urns, each about 5 centimetres tall." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/07/04
Posted: 04/07/2004 6:38 am
The New Old MoMA Takes Shape The Museum of Modern Art will reopen November 20 after its $858 million makeover. "The new museum encompasses about 630,000 square feet of new and renovated space on six floors. The total exhibition space will increase to 125,000 square feet from 85,000 square feet, with galleries nestled around a 110-foot-tall atrium, which has views of the city from each floor." The New York Times 04/07/04
Posted: 04/06/2004 9:14 pm
Where Are The Women? Women artists are badly represented in British museum collections. And they don't fare much better in the contemporary art markets either. "Only eight women are responsible for 12 paintings in the National Gallery: they are outnumbered by around 400 male artists responsible for more than 2,300 works. And while women artists may appear, at first glance, to be a strong presence in Tate galleries - a survey of the entire collection undermines this view. In 2000, Tate owned work by 316 women, and nearly 2,600 men. A total of just under 11% of Tate artists are women, and their works make up approximately 7% of the collection (leaving out the 30,000 Turners)." The Guardian (UK) 04/07/04
Posted: 04/06/2004 8:05 pm
Philly Summer Season Looking Awfully Pops-Heavy The Philadelphia Orchestra's summer series at the city's Mann Music Center is taking a decided turn towards light pops programming, reports David Patrick Stearns. While orchestral summers are frequently lighter than winter programming, there's no mistaking the direction the orchestra is taking, with fully 40% of the concerts scheduled for the Mann categorized as more pop than classical. Attendance figures from the last several summers seem to suggest that the orchestra, which is coping with a nearly $6 million deficit, will benefit financially from the increase in lighter fare. Philadelphia Inquirer 04/07/04
Posted: 04/07/2004 6:50 am
Looking To The Bottom Line in Baltimore As orchestras around North America struggle to adapt to a harsh new funding climate, a dividing line is appearing between those ensembles which choose their leaders based mainly on their perceived business savvy, and those which prefer to be led by individuals with experience in the arts and non-profit sectors. This week, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is expected to take the former course, promoting its 49-year-old marketing director James Glicker, who had never worked for an orchestra before being hired to his current position in January, to the post of executive director. Baltimore Sun 04/07/04
Posted: 04/07/2004 5:31 am
The Royal Opera's £10 Revolution Royal Opera House boss Tony Hall says a sponsorship that will reduce some of the best seats in the house to £10 is revolutionary. "The adjectives are extreme, but it is hard to argue. Best seats in the house to see some of the biggest opera and ballet stars in the world - including Plácido Domingo, Cecilia Bartoli, Bryn Terfel, Darcey Bussell, Carlos Acosta - for less than the price of a West End cinema ticket. In some cases, that represents a saving of £165. Hall can scarcely contain his enthusiasm. 'This is really opening up the opera house'." Financial Times 04/07/04
Posted: 04/06/2004 7:24 pm
Would It Be Illegal To Just Beat Them With Sticks? The Shanghai Grand Theater, which spent over $36,000 on an electronic jamming system to disable cell phones and wireless pagers in its performance space, is being forced to turn off the system after being told that using it is illegal. The theater says that it will begin politely asking patrons to turn off their mobile devices, which performers claim ring "from start to finish," but some theatergoers insist that they should have the right to stay in touch with the outside world, even if it means disrupting the show. XinhuaNet 04/07/04
Posted: 04/07/2004 5:42 am
Is Short Art Short Value? "Does great art always have to be a feat of endurance? Is there something aesthetically unsatisfactory about a play that is over in 35 seconds, a short story that contains only seven words, or an opera that can be performed in the time it takes to boil an egg? Fortunately for the culturally hungry with little time on their hands, all these things exist. The issue is whether you think you would be getting your money's worth." The Guardian (UK) 04/07/04
Posted: 04/06/2004 8:15 pm
The Death Of American Arts Education Arts education is quickly disappearing from schools across America. "Art and music classes have become secondary to more traditional subjects such as math and science, which means that when budgets are tight, the arts are among the first to be cut from curriculums." CNN.com 04/06/04
Posted: 04/06/2004 7:17 pm
Boyle Reups With Scottish Arts Council "The chairman of the Scottish Arts Council, James Boyle, is set to remain in the post for a second three-year term, the Scottish Executive said yesterday... The move caused surprise and interest across the Scottish arts scene yesterday. The arts council’s own future is said to be in doubt, with the Executive promising to reshape arts policy and funding in Scotland in its forthcoming cultural review. As recently as this January, it was thought that Mr Boyle might renew his contract for only a year. Many in the arts world had the impression he was ready to leave the council, but he signalled in a recent interview that he would be happy to stay on." 04/07/04
Posted: 04/07/2004 6:04 am
'Blue Metropolis' Comes Of Age "Montreal's Blue Metropolis writers' festival, which ended on Sunday, has ballooned into a major Canadian literary event in just six years. With a million-dollar budget, and headliners including Paul Auster, Yann Martel and Pico Iyer, the Blue Met is now an event on the scale of the International Festival of Authors in Toronto or the Vancouver International Writers' Festival." The festival still has a hard time drawing the superstar authors who roam the Toronto and Vancouver fests, but the lack of star power is made up for with the distinctively 'Montreal sensibility' of the whole event. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/07/04
Posted: 04/07/2004 6:34 am
New Kipling Story Published "A recently-discovered story by Rudyard Kipling has been published for the first time. The tale, part of the Stalky & Co saga, is called Scylla and Charybdis, and sees Stalky and his friends catch a colonel cheating on the golf course. The manuscript was uncovered by an archivist at the Haileybury and Imperial Service College in Windsor, the successor to Kipling's old school." BBC 04/07/04
Posted: 04/07/2004 5:15 am
Ruling: US Publishers Can Edit Foreign Manuscripts New US regulations might have prevented American publishers from editing manuscripts from countries such as Iran. But the policy has been reconsidered. "U.S. publishers would be free to edit scholarly manuscripts from Iran and some other off-limit countries without fear of running afoul of economic sanctions, the Bush administration has determined." San Jose Mercury-News (AP) 04/06/04
Posted: 04/06/2004 11:05 pm
What Happened To Petrarch's Skull? Scientists who have been examining what they thought were Petrarch's remains have discovered that the skull belongs to someone else. And they suspect it could be that of a woman. 'This must have been robbery. It is not, frankly, a nice business'." The Guardian (UK) 04/07/04
Posted: 04/06/2004 8:30 pm
BC Film Shut Down The provincial government of British Columbia has dealt a crippling blow to the province's once-thriving film industry, declining to fund BC Film, a non-profit agency providing CAN$4 million a year in equity financing for Canadian films, in this year's budget. The demise of BC Film will likely have a profound effect on the entire country's film scene, since filmmakers typically assemble funding from a variety of sources, creating a money tree which, "like a delicate house of cards," can collapse if one of the key components is missing. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/07/04
Posted: 04/07/2004 6:30 am
Nielsen Delays New Ratings Technique Responding to concerns that its new "people meter" ratings technology would significantly undercount minority viewers, Nielsen Media Research, which tracks TV viewership in the U.S., has announced that it will delay the new product's national rollout, even as it insists that the numbers generated by the meters are accurate. "In tests of the new system, almost all of the most popular shows in black households dropped in the ratings, some by as much as 60 percent." TV stations don't like the system either, largely because the meters do a more accurate job of recording how often viewers flip between channels than the traditional handwritten viewer diaries ever did. Boston Globe (AP) 04/07/04
Posted: 04/07/2004 6:12 am
Aussies Turn Off TV For DVDs "The television networks have suspected all year that Australians were watching less TV. They thought their problem was younger viewers distracted by computer games and the internet. Now they know the truth. Viewing by Australians aged 16 to 24 is up 4.4 per cent on last year. Australians aged 25 to 54 have been turning off the most, and the distraction seems to be the family's new DVD player." Sydney Morning Herald 04/07/04
Posted: 04/06/2004 10:15 pm
History Channel Apologizes For Documentary Last November the History Channel broadcast a documentary that alleged that Lyndon Johnson was complicit in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A storm of protest ensued, and the History Channel asked historians to vet the program. "In a statement the History Channel acknowledged that the historians determined that the accusation against Johnson was insupportable and that the documentary should not have been broadcast." The apology will be delivered in a new program. The New York Times 04/07/04
Posted: 04/06/2004 9:04 pm
Anti-Piracy Tactic: Hollywood Cuts DVD Prices In Russia In Russia, nine of every ten DVD's sold are pirated copies. So Hollywood is fighting back - by cutting its prices. "The idea is to get Russian consumers used to buying licensed material, but at a price that most of the population can afford." The New York Times 04/07/04
Posted: 04/06/2004 8:58 pm
Stone Cold Movies In the Norwegian arctic, residents have built a unique drive-in movie theatre. But instead of watching in your car, patrons come in snow mobiles. And "the entire cinema is made from snow. We've built a snow amphitheatre, with reindeer skins to sit on, and the actual screen is also made from snow." BBC 04/06/04
Posted: 04/06/2004 7:07 pm
Indian Movie Theatre Strike Ends A thousand movie theatres in India have been on strike for three weeks. Now the strike has ended after "cinema bosses said the state government had accepted their demand for a 10% cut in tax levied on tickets. But they said other demands including permission to convert failing cinemas into other businesses had not been met. During the shutdown cinemas lost an estimated 10m rupees (£130,000) per day - twice as much as the government." BBC 04/06/04
Posted: 04/06/2004 7:04 pm
Oakland Ballet Cancels Season Facing a $250,000 shortfall on a budget of $1.25 million, the Oakland Ballet has decided to scrap its 2004-05 fall season to save money. The company, which is known for the diversity of its dancers, is hoping to raise $500,000 in the next few weeks, and will focus on finding a secure financial footing before launching its 40th anniversary season in fall 2005. San Francisco Chronicle 04/07/04
Posted: 04/07/2004 5:24 am
