World Turning Away From American Products American-made consumer products have been popular all over the world. Partly, they're sold as embodying an American lifestyle. But with America's image declining worldwide, a new study reports that "the number of people who like and use US branded products has fallen significantly over the past year, while brands perceived to be non-American have remained relatively stable." The Guardian (UK) 05/11/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 5:25 pm
Explore Your Inner Greekness "Perhaps due to the rise of cultural anthropology or, more recently, to a variety of postmodern schools of social construction, it is now often accepted that the lives of Socrates, Euripides, and Pericles were not similar to our own, but so far different as to be almost unfathomable. Shelley’s truism that “We are all Greeks” has now become, as we say, inoperative.” The New Criterion 05/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 4:51 pm
AGO Looks For An Image Makeover "The troubled and besieged Art Gallery of Ontario is about to get some major help fixing its tarnished image. To mastermind a turnaround, the AGO has hired Susan Bloch-Nevitte — one of the behind-the-scenes stars of the University of Toronto's [$1 billion fundraising] success story. During the past year, the AGO has endured every plague a museum could have: falling attendance; budget-slashing; labour strife; a security problem that surfaced with the theft of Ken Thomson's miniature ivories; a public uproar over the closing of the Group of Seven galleries; conflict with residents of its neighbourhood, and, most sensationally, the defection of major benefactor and board member Joey Tanenbaum over Frank Gehry's makeover design." Toronto Star 05/12/04
Posted: 05/12/2004 6:51 am
Art Auction Prices Spiralling Upward A Jackson Pollock painting from 1949 fetched $11.65 million at auction this week, a record for a post-World War II American artist. The total take from the auction, which also inlcuded works by Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol, was more than $102 million, also a record. BBC 05/12/04
Posted: 05/12/2004 5:23 am
Jencks Wins Gulbenkian Prize Charles Jencks' "wriggly earth bank set around three sinuous ponds, which transformed a flat patch of scrubby grass in front of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, has won the £100,000 Gulbenkian museums prize, the richest single prize in the arts. The £380,000 design, Landform is based on chaos theory. Loved by visitors almost to destruction in less than two years, parts have had to be returfed already. Jencks's inspiration was La Grande Jatte, Seurat's painting of a Paris park." The Guardian (UK) 05/12/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 10:12 pm
The Power Of Pictures Why have the pictures from Abu Ghraib provoked such a big reaction? "The illusory immediacy of the medium no doubt accounts for some of its power. The event depicted may have taken place minutes or years ago; and yet each time we look at a photographic image it’s as though we are actually there at the moment the shutter was clicked. By capturing the light of the past and embedding it into the chemical fabric of its own production, photographs offer convincing, “scientific proof” that something happened or once existed. Unless we actually see a picture of a female reservist holding a naked Iraqi man on a leash, most of us would have difficulty believing that it had taken place, and those in charge would have a far easier time denying it." American Prospect 05/11/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 5:20 pm
Hitler Statue Rattles Berlin "A Russian-made waxwork of Adolf Hitler exhibited by a survivor of the Siege of Leningrad has caused a storm of protest in Berlin, where city politicians said the figure could attract the wrong kind of visitor." Moscow Times 05/12/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 5:09 pm
Lawsuit Filed Against New Orleans Museum A $1.9 million lawsuit against New Orleans'new museum of Southern art accuses its founder of using Louisiana taxpayer money to build a private museum on public land, sidestepping the state's conflict-of-interest laws and illegally naming it after himself. The museum opened last August and has about 2,700 paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings and pieces of pottery. Museum officials say Ogden donated more than 1,200 of the works came his personal collection. However, the suit also says Ogden uses his relationship with the museum for his own financial gain." New Orleans Times-Picayune (AP) 05/07/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 4:55 pm
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Apple Looks To Expand Its Library With Apple's iTunes service an unqualified success in the lucrative music-downloading business, the company is setting its sights on a massive expansion of the library of music available digitally. Consumers are coming to expect that iTunes will be able to come up with the music they want to hear, even if it's obscure or out of print, and the company's team of song-hunters are determined to convince record companies to open their vaults and license more songs for digital release. Wired 05/12/04
Posted: 05/12/2004 5:31 am
Jazz As Institution (Lincoln Center) "Jazz at Lincoln Center's first season in its $128 million new home in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle will be a dialogue between the music and where it will be played. It's a program — starting in the fall and to be announced today — that has been carefully thought out from the moment the organization began to conceive the hall's physical space six years ago." The New York Times 05/12/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 10:20 pm
- A Home For Jazz Jazz at Lincoln Center is "the world's first performance center built for jazz, and the hall represents a milestone for jazz as an American art form. Construction is scheduled to be completed in July, and opening night, after a summer of private "tuning" concerts and adjustments, is set for Oct. 18. The project commits $128 million and prime real estate to recognize the lasting importance of music that was born in the streets." The New York Times 05/12/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 10:08 pm
Attack Of The Alien Atonality Why is it, all these many years after atonality was introduced into music, that it still seems to shock listeners? And what is it about tonality that makes it seem familiar and easy to like? NewMusicBox 05/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 4:35 pm
Degrading Experience - CD's Rotting Some consumers are finding that older CD's in their collection are degrading, suffering from "CD rot," a gradual deterioration of the data-carrying layer. It's not known for sure how common the blight is, but it's just one of a number of reasons that optical discs, including DVDs, may be a lot less long-lived than first thought. 'We were all told that CDs were well-nigh indestructible when they were introduced in the mid-'80s. Companies used that in part to justify the higher price of CDs as well." Washington Post 05/11/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 9:34 am
Dohnanyi's Cleveland Deficit Conductor Christophe von Dohnanyi has a busy international schedule. But curiously, his schedule conspiculously does not include Cleveland, where he was the orchestra's music director for 18 years. "Oddly, the Dohnanyi situation is a chilling case of Cleveland deja vu. For reasons sometimes clear and often not, the Cleveland Orchestra has a terrible record of bringing former music directors back to town." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 05/11/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 9:21 am
Last-Minute At The Met "You can spend a decade singing minor roles in residence at a major opera house. And another 10 years in the hinterlands, perfecting major roles with minor opera companies. And by the time your ducks are lined up, you're lucky to have a few years of good singing left, since opera stars, like professional athletes, have careers circumscribed by age and time. Too much too soon can kill a young voice. But too little too late can waste a singer's prime." So when a singer gets an opportunity to step in on short notice to sing at the Met... Philadelphia Inquirer 05/11/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 9:16 am
Minnesota Mayor Wants More $$ For Arts The mayor of St. Paul has responded to a study which showed the city's arts groups stuck in a cycle of deficits by proposing a new annual infusion of cash into the arts scene. Mayor Randy Kelly's proposal, which was crafted in consultation with several arts leaders, calls for a $25 million bump in annual support for St. Paul's cultural sector, including $6.5 million in new public subsidies. St. Paul arts groups have been struggling in comparison wth those across the Mississippi River in larger, more cosmopolitan Minneapolis. St. Paul Pioneer Press 05/12/04
Posted: 05/12/2004 6:45 am
Pooling Resources in Glasgow A new umbrella organization backed by many of Glasgow's high-profile arts organizations has been created to attract audiences to cultural events in the city. Glasgow Grows Audiences (GGA) is funded in large part by the Scottish Arts Council, and "will act as a marketing organisation for the theatres, galleries and companies based in the city." GGA's first project will be to undertake extensive audience research to determine where the city's residents are spending their entertainment dollars. Glasgow Herald (UK) 05/12/04
Posted: 05/12/2004 5:52 am
- Previously: Scotland's Meager Arts Funding A new report says that Scotland spends less than a half per cent of its public funding on the arts. A review of the government's arts funding is underway. BBC 05/10/04
He Cuts Because He Loves? San Francisco's new mayor recently announced that the city's arts grant program would be taking a 25% hit in his new budget, infuriating arts supporters. But Gavin Newsom insists that he loves the arts, and plans for them to be a major part of his administration's goals for the city. The mayor got together for a meeting with 200 area artists last week, with author Dave Eggers moderating the discussion. San Francisco Chronicle 05/12/04
Posted: 05/12/2004 5:40 am
A Jazzer's Circuitous Route Saxophonist Oliver Lake is a big name in jazz circles, having made his name as a founding member of the St. Louis-based Black Artists Group, and as 1/4 of the World Saxophone Quartet. So what is he doing hanging out with a bunch of middle school kids in inner-city Minneapolis? City Pages (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 05/12/04
Posted: 05/12/2004 6:19 am
Noble: My "Vile" Last Year At The RSC Adrian Noble speaks about his bumpy last year and resignation as head of the Royal Shakespeare Company: "Of course, there were things that went dreadfully wrong at the RSC, and I deeply regret them. The principal mistake was announcing everything at the same time. I did not leave the RSC in a mess. For one thing, the deficit was £1 million less than what I inherited in 1991, and all the big successes that have come to fruition in the last couple of years - the Jacobean season, Judi in All's Well - are the result of the changes I was setting up." The Telegraph (UK) 05/12/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 5:58 pm
Coach House vs. Student Housing Coach House Books, an icon of countercultural Canadian literature, is in danger of being taken over by a University of Toronto student coop, unless it can negotiate a lease soon. "It's the first formal lease that the pioneer of small presses will have had since Coach House sprang up in 1965 as part of the wild cultural experiment that characterized Toronto's literary sixties. It's a lease that will likely sign off on the historic literary landmark where the early careers of writers such as Michael Ondaatje and bpNichol were nurtured, in the name of creating new residence space for students... Even if a lease is signed, the precise fate of the Coach House building, now rickety due to years of absorbing vibrations from the printing presses, is up for speculation." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/12/04
Posted: 05/12/2004 6:29 am
Who Says We Can't Launch A New Magazine? "Due to the rather dire current state of the print media, launching a new magazine goes against the grain of conventional wisdom. But when the Montreal-based creative team of Daniel Charron, Jean Blais and André Ducharme decided to create a new publication, they had a solid previous success in their favour. And with Manoeuvres, their ode to Montreal style, design, fashion and creativity launched tonight, the trio has maintained the principle rule they obeyed during their first print run of 1987-91: Ignore as many rules as possible." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/12/04
Posted: 05/12/2004 6:27 am
Cannes Under A Cloud "The Cannes International Film Festival, which usually counts on big-name stars and underdressed starlets to provide the excitement, will open on Wednesday under a cloud, as thousands of French actors and technicians prepare to carry a bitter dispute over unemployment benefits to this ritzy Côte d'Azur resort." The New York Times 05/12/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 10:25 pm
Glass: FCC Crackdown Is Crazy The FCC's crack down on "obscenity" should worry us all, writes Ira Glass. The rules are so arbitrary, and the enforcement even more so. And, "what's craziest about this new indecency witch hunt is that it's based on the premise that just one exposure to filthy words will damage a child." What kind of policy is this? The New York Times 05/09/04
Posted: 05/11/2004 5:05 pm
Spurned Steppers See SPAC Sales Soar "A campaign to increase ticket sales for the New York City Ballet's summer residency at The Saratoga Performing Arts Center appears to be paying off. As of May 9, SPAC had ticket orders totaling $511,464 for 17,240 tickets to the ballet, compared with $429,297 for 15,611 tickets through the same date last year." The ticket sales initiative was undertaken after the SPAC board announced that the ballet would be booted from its schedule after this summer, then reversed course in the face of public criticism. SPAC's other major summer tenant, the Philadelphia Orchestra, has not apparently benefitted from the sales push: orchestra sales are down from this time last year. The Business Review (Albany) 05/12/04
Posted: 05/12/2004 6:04 am
Pittsburgh Ballet Exec Steps Down Steven Libman, whose 17 years at the helm of the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater make him one of the longest-tenured dance executives in the U.S., is resigning from the company and will depart later this summer. Libman is credited with raising the PBT's endowment to become the fourth-largest in the country among ballet troupes, but since 2001, the company has struggled, and several of Libman's decisions have been questioned by members of the company and the public. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review 05/12/04
Posted: 05/12/2004 5:46 am
