Kimball: Pining For The Melting Pot Roger Kimball writes that multiculturalism is destroying America. "Multiculturalism and 'affirmative action' are allies in the assault on the institution of American identity. As such, they oppose the traditional understanding of what it means to be an American. This crucible of American identity, this 'melting pot,' has two aspects. The negative aspect involves disassociating oneself from the cultural imperatives of one’s country of origin. One sheds a previous identity before assuming a new one. One might preserve certain local habits and tastes, but they are essentially window-dressing. In essence one has left the past behind in order to become an American citizen. The positive aspect of advancing the melting pot involves embracing the substance of American culture." New Criterion 06/04
Posted: 06/08/2004 7:47 pm
Police Hunt For Person Who Hung Stealth Pictures In Major Museums A nationwide manhunt is underway for someone who hung paintings of presidents Bush and Clinton in the Metropolitan Museum, Guggenheim, National Gallery in Washington DC, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. "The paintings — 15 inches by 9 inches — portray the commanders-in-chief on a background of ground-up dollar bills. The wacky spree has prompted a sweeping investigation by the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI, as well as local police in three cities." New York Post 06/09/04
Posted: 06/09/2004 6:59 am
Art Historians Sue Over Vuillard Catalogues "The authors and publishers of the Edouard Vuillard catalogue raisonné and of the exhibition catalogue of the recently touring Vuillard retrospective are being sued in French and US courts by two art historians who claim the books plagiarise their work." The Art Newspaper 06/08/04
Posted: 06/09/2004 6:36 am
Retelling MoMA Curators at the Museum of Modern Art struggles to retell the story of their collection in the new spaces of their new home. "It is a daunting task: to use the museum's vast collection to tell the history of modern art in new and unfamiliar galleries. Not only has the museum's collection grown and changed enormously since the institution's founding in 1929, but so has the way that people look at art. We're talking to a younger and in many ways better-educated audience but one that is not necessarily more sophisticated" The New York Times 06/09/04
Posted: 06/08/2004 11:11 pm
Art Of The Fake "There isn’t a major gallery in the world that doesn’t house - and in most cases proudly display - works that "aren’t what they seem". There is a joke among art dealers and forgery specialists that of the 324 canvases (or whatever the precise figure) painted by Corot, 562 are hanging in museums and private houses in America. The former Met director Thomas Hoving reckoned 40 per cent of the works offered to the museum were either phonies or so hypocritically restored they were no better than forgeries." The Scotsman 06/08/04
Posted: 06/08/2004 9:47 pm
New Theory: Angkor Destroyed By Its Own Problems Coventional wisdom has it that Angkor Watt was destroyed by a seige in 1431. But researchers now believe that the city was done in by something much more mundane. "They created ecological problems for themselves and they either didn't see it until it was too late or they couldn't solve it even when they could see it." CNN.com 06/08/04
Posted: 06/08/2004 7:30 pm
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Bach In The Clubs Cellist Matt Haimovitz on playing classical music in pop music clubs: "There's a certain kind of music that, for me, belongs in an intimate space. There's something authentic about playing Bach in a club. We're always talking about authentic performances, but for me there's something wrong with putting baroque music in a place like Roy Thomson Hall. It's much more appropriate in a smaller setting -- in something like the coffeehouses Bach was familiar with." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/09/04
Posted: 06/09/2004 7:31 am
Trier Pulls Out Of Bayreuth Ring "The Danish film-maker Lars von Trier has thrown Bayreuth into confusion. Not by his outrageous take on the operas of Richard Wagner, nor by spectacular fallouts with divas - but by admitting that he is not up to the job of directing the festival's forthcoming Ring cycle." The Guardian (UK) 06/09/04
Posted: 06/08/2004 11:33 pm
Mr. Mortier At The Paris Opera Gerard Mortier takes over the Paris Opera from Hugues Gall. "While Mr. Gall held the job for almost a decade before reaching the official retirement age of 65, Mr. Mortier, 60, has only five seasons to make his mark. His first, the 2004-5 season, with 9 new productions and 10 revivals, already suggests a more daring approach, notably in the selection of directors who, he hopes, will seek out "the modernity" in established works." The New York Times 06/09/04
Posted: 06/08/2004 10:57 pm
Scottish Opera Carved In Half (And Worse) "The long-term future of Scottish Opera was cast into doubt last night after the company and the Executive unveiled plans which will mean the firing of nearly half its staff and productions being halted for nine months. The executive promised up to £7 million in funding for a radical "restructuring" plan that it said would enable the company to live within its £7.5 million annual budget." The Scotsman 06/08/04
Posted: 06/08/2004 9:12 pm
- Scottish Opera - Cutting Off The Limb To Save The Body So cutting Scottish Opera's operations is meant to save it. But "rather than a rescue plan, this could be the death of opera of an international standard in Scotland." The Guardian (UK) 06/09/04
Posted: 06/08/2004 9:11 pm
- Cutting Forces Will Make Scottish Opera Better? "If this is going to be a company "in better voice", then the collective throats of the Scottish Arts Council need examining. The main musical redundancies are almost certainly going to come in the chorus, which will be completely disbanded as a full-time ensemble." The Guardian (UK) 06/09/04
Posted: 06/08/2004 7:10 pm
- Unions Protest Scottish Opera Cuts "Unions representing staff at Scottish Opera have urged company directors to resign following news that almost half the workforce will lose their jobs." BBC 06/08/04
Posted: 06/08/2004 7:02 pm
SF Plan To Merge Arts Agencies Worries Arts Advocates San Francisco's mayor says that to deal with the city's deficit, he wants to combine the area's two major art funders. "But in moving the Grants for Arts program under the Arts Commission umbrella, many say, the mandates of the two different agencies could clash and endanger a fragile arts ecology in San Francisco." San Francisco Chronicle 06/09/04
Posted: 06/09/2004 7:18 am
NYT Critic Muschamp To Leave Architecture Beat? "Herbert Muschamp, The New York Times’ fanciful architecture critic, has told his bosses that he’s getting tired of his current duties and intends to step down before long." New York Observer 06/09/04
Posted: 06/09/2004 7:46 am
NYT Critic Muschamp To Leave Architecture Beat? "Herbert Muschamp, The New York Times’ fanciful architecture critic, has told his bosses that he’s getting tired of his current duties and intends to step down before long." New York Observer 06/09/04
Posted: 06/09/2004 7:46 am
The 24-Hour Play "Furthering its interest in new writing, the Old Vic theatre in London has just staged Britain's first 24-hour plays. Six playwrights, six directors and 24 actors wrote, cast, rehearsed and performed six new 10-minute plays in one day and night." The Telegraph (UK) 06/09/04
Posted: 06/08/2004 11:15 pm
No Tony Winners For Republicans Republicans won't be seeing Broadway's Tony winners at the convention this summer. "With thousands of Republicans set to descend on the Big Apple to nominate President Bush for re-election, convention organizers decided to treat delegates to the glitz of Broadway before they knuckled down to the business of politics. But Republican organizers, selling themselves as the family-values party, decided to buy tickets to tame shows like "42nd Street" and Disney productions like "Aida" and "The Lion King," avoiding more offbeat fare." Backstage (Reuters) 06/08/04
Posted: 06/08/2004 7:08 pm
Surviving Books In A Time Of TV "So what is the future for fiction if a hardcore of the population are joining the illiterati? While the written word can be credited with liberating the sight and consciousness of the emerging working-class in the 19th and 20th centuries, the explosion in new media has challenged that role." The Scotsman 06/08/04
Posted: 06/08/2004 10:01 pm
LA To Save Animation Studio Buildings The Los Angeles city council has decided to preserve all three of the buildings that once comprised the historic Hanna-Barbera animation studio, where such TV icons as the Flintstones, Barney Rubble, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and Scooby-Doo came to life. "It was at the studio that Bill Hanna and his partner Joe Barbera perfected 'limited animation,' which is far cheaper than the traditional kind. It also involves far less movement of the animated characters, however, and thus is criticized by some purists. Hanna and Barbera perfected the cheap technique in the late 1950s, a time when the major studios were closing their labor-intensive animation departments, and thus some have credited them with helping save the cartooning industry." Backstage 06/08/04
Posted: 06/08/2004 7:18 pm
NZ Ballet On A Roll The Royal New Zealand Ballet has had a great year. Attendance is up 38 percent over the previous year and "the Ballet has turned around its fortunes since the financial crises of the 1990s. Subscriptions have tripled in the three years since 2000." Scoop (NZ) 06/09/04
Posted: 06/09/2004 6:33 am
