What A Long, Grainy Trip It's Been "Video art has come such a long way since it began nearly 40 years ago that it has already, in its purest form, been threatened with extinction. Like any 20th-century product that has an in-built obsolescence factor, the video camera has developed at such a rate that the original model has long been consigned to history. So has the art it produced; outdated but unforgotten by younger artists working today." Still, the advent of digital technology has advanced the art more than it has made past work obsolete. Indeed, the genre has developed and evolved so quickly that its 40-year history is as extensive as many centuries-old art movements. The Telegraph (UK) 09/18/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 7:59 am
Searching For A Scream Authorities in Norway still say they have no solid leads in the theft of Munch's The Scream from an Oslo gallery, but police have reportedly raided several addresses in the city over the last month, in the hope that the paintings will turn up in the abodes of known criminals. Drug warrants have been used as a pretext for the raids, which have so far yielded nothing of value. Aftenposten (Oslo) 09/17/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 7:52 am
A Connecticuit Copyright Conundrum, On Canvas A provocative painting by Damien Loeb has been removed from an exhibit in Connecticuit after copyright issues were raised. The painting, like much of Loeb's work, contains photographic images appropriated from other artists' work, and worked into Loeb's canvas. The artist has faced legal challenges to his appropriation before, and has vehemently defended his right to employ the technique. Hartford Courant 09/18/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 7:47 am
An Artist So Popular, He Can't Be Any Good "François Boucher was surely the most beguiling painter who ever lived, capable of giving the most pleasure to the client - and presumably the sitter too." And yet, Boucher's reputation lies at the bottom of a pile of more "high-minded" painters, a victim of the popularity he enjoyed in life. And while it's true that Boucher was perhaps a bit too infatuated with small, unimportant work (designing Easter eggs for a king, for example,) he was also an undeniably brilliant artist who was forever being plastered with labels he did not deserve. In the end, his greatest crime in the eyes of today's elitist art audience may have been making too many people happy. The Guardian (UK) 09/18/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 7:34 am
DIA Struggles For Solvency The Detroit Institute of the Arts is midway through a decade-long fundraising campaign intended to put the museum on firm fiscal ground for the foreseeable future, and many in the community had assumed that the DIA was well on its way to success. But last week, executives announced that its original goal of $331 million was not nearly enough to cope with structural issues and unforeseen costs (such as $40 million for asbestos removal.) The new goal is $410 million, to be raised within the next ten years. Detroit Free Press 09/18/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 7:03 am
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Philly Players Authorize Strike Following a week of increasingly public recriminations between musicians and management, the Philadelphia Orchestra has voted to authorize a strike if an agreement is not reached by midnight Monday. Musicians' representatives walked out of a bargaining session on Friday, citing management's unwillingness to budge from a proposed list of cuts to the musicians' salaries and benefits. The orchestra has a history of acrimonious negotiations, and was last on strike for 64 days in 1996. Philadelphia Inquirer 09/19/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 8:24 am
- Why Not Play And Talk? A strike by the Philadelphia Orchestra could cripple the organization and severely hurt other Center City businesses. Moreover, a work stoppage seems purely unnecessary, given the other options available. "Neither side need surrender - simply stay at the table and hammer out what they both say they want: a financially responsible future that preserves the artistic integrity of one of the world's most beloved institutions... But management cannot expect players to absorb a combination of new rules, pay and benefit changes... without putting something beyond job guarantees on the table. These people aren't making widgets... They deserve more respect." Philadelphia Inquirer 09/18/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 8:20 am
- Is Montreal Next? The musicians of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra have been playing without a contract for over a year, and have announced that they will skip the first two rehearsals of the season in protest of the lack of progress in negotiations. The action, which will not cancel any concerts, has led to speculation that a strike may be looming if an agreement is not reached soon. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/18/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 8:18 am
Apple Ignores Indies Apple's wildly successful iTunes service, from which consumers can download music cheaply and legally, is still the industry standard, despite ever-increasing competition. But Apple has yet to make available the music of a raft of independent record labels based in Europe, despite having signed licensing agreements with them. Since much of the most popular music in Europe and the UK is property of such labels, this is a major problem for music fans, but Apple seems to feel little sense of urgency about making the tracks avalable. The Guardian (UK) 09/18/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 7:43 am
COC Opens With Atwood The Canadian Opera Company has never before opened its season with a contemporary work, but that changes this week, with the Canadian premiere of Poul Ruders's The Handmaid's Tale, based on the darkly horrifying novel by Margaret Atwood. Canadians love seeing art made by other Canadians, of course, but Handmaid, full of violence, rape, and the unceasing degradation of an entire nation of women, is quite a gamble. The production won raves in Copenhagen, but was roundly panned in London. The COC has gone out of its way to insure that Toronto audiences will embrace the show. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/18/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 7:14 am
- From Page To Stage "When an opera company produces something by Verdi or Puccini, there isn't quite the excitement of staging something based on the work of your own most celebrated living novelist. Subscriptions are on the rise, and single tickets are hard to come by. This could mean Atwood is the greatest marketing opportunity Bradshaw and the COC have ever had." Still, the story, which sees the U.S. replaced by a brutal theocracy, is hard to take in print, let alone on stage, and Atwood has always had reservations about allowing her work to be adapted in any way. Toronto Star 09/18/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 7:13 am
America's Most Secure Opera Company (No, It's Not The Met) By current classical music standards, the Lyric Opera of Chicago is a wildly successful operation, selling 98% of its seats and projecting a surplus of $700,000 for the current season. The enviable culture of philanthropy in Chicago helps, as does the city's huge population and the willingness of certain patrons to pony up $12,500 for a ticket to this weekend's season-opening gala. In an era when serious opera is becoming a luxury unavailable to denizens of most U.S. cities, the Lyric is the shining example of how to build a serious company outside of New York. Financial Times 09/17/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 7:08 am
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SoCal's Arts Center, Ten Years In The California Center for the Arts, in Escondido (near San Diego), is a beautiful 12-acre monument to culture, a $75 million dollar investment in community spirit and quality of life. Unless, of course, you take note of the millions of dollars in operating deficits, poor attendance figures, and occasional lack of direction, in which case you might consider the center a financial albatross around the city's neck. The center is ten years old this month, and a decade of varied success and failure has done nothing to quell the debate over the project. San Diego Union Tribune 09/19/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 8:46 am
Getting Past "The Tonto Syndrome" Americans have always had ridiculous notions of how the native population of North America looks, acts, and lives. In fact, the absurd stereotypes heaped on the American Indian are so pervasive as to be a cultural phenomenon in themselves. But you won't find any reference to such racist blather in Washington's new Museum of the American Indian, with organizers hoping that "the sheer beauty and tone of the place will dispel the inaccurate mythology, jokes and war whoops that visitors grew up with. That basically includes anyone who watched TV or had a social studies class in the 20th century." But is ignoring the misperceptions really the way to go? Washington Post 09/18/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 8:16 am
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Waiting For Levine When James Levine officially takes over the podium of the Boston Symphony Orchestra a month from now, the musical landscape of the city will be changed, for better or for worse. The BSO "has occupied a leading place among world orchestras for most of its existence, but it has been a while since it was consistently and unquestionably at the very top of the heap. The board, players, and public want that back, and many believe that Levine can lead the orchestra there." Still, success in one city (New York, in this case,) doesn't always translate into success in another, and there are still many uncertainties surrounding the new maestro. Boston Globe 09/19/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 8:52 am
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Fleeing The Fringe "Leah Cooper, who helped the Minnesota Fringe Festival become one of the largest such events in the country, will step down as executive director next August, following the 2005 festival. Cooper announced her departure after a four-year tenure in which the attendance has grown 72 percent. The 2004 festival hosted a record 902 performances of 175 shows at 24 venues, drawing more than 50,000 people. Cooper also was instrumental in professionalizing the management of the festival and in bringing stability to the fast-growing festival's financial organization." St. Paul Pioneer Press 09/16/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 8:14 am
Philly Theatre Cuts 3/4 Of Season Philadelphia's Freedom Theater has cancelled three of the four shows it planned to mount this season, citing the pressures of a $4 million debt. The company, which is "one of the city's foremost African American cultural organizations", has struggled to stay solvent while dealing with cost overruns on the construction and maintenance of its 300-seat theater, which opened five years ago. The theater plans to resume its full schedule in fall 2005. Philadelphia Inquirer 09/18/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 8:10 am
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Writing Their Own Election Script "By Tuesday morning Hollywood screenwriters, working without a contract for the last half year, will have decided whether they are ripe for revolution. Under the eye of the Labor Department, the 8,000-member Writers Guild of America, West, is to conclude on Monday night a mostly mail-in election to choose a president and 8 of 16 board members. The presidential contest is between a ferocious reformer... who not only wants to fire the group's paid executives but is also assisting a legal assault on the guild's high-stakes system for settling film and television credits disputes - and the incumbent... who believes the members need institutional peace." The New York Times 09/18/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 8:06 am
A Unique Studio Prepares For An Uncertain Future United Artists has always been a bit of an odd duck in the world of big-money Hollywood studios: founded and run for decades by actors, unconcerned with churning out blockbusters, and focused first and foremost on creating great works. Now, with UA's parent company, MGM, about to be absorbed by Sony Pictures, the little studio that could is in danger of fading away, or at least having its mission twisted beyond recognition. The New York Times 09/18/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 8:03 am
Hollywood's "Showrunners" Increasingly, the TV industry's most successful programs are not the creative result of a traditional production team (writers, producers, directors, actors) working together to beat the odds and make a hit show. Rather, the prime time landscape is now dominated by "showrunners... [who] do just about everything on a dramatic series, from writing scripts and casting actors to negotiating with the networks over salaries and budgets." It may seem like a cosmetic change, but the fact is that showrunners are changing the landscape of scripted television. The Christian Science Monitor 09/17/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 6:56 am
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Famed Harlem Troupe Shutting Down For The Winter "The Dance Theatre of Harlem, one of the most acclaimed dance troupes in the world, plans to disband its 44-member company and shut its doors for the rest of the 2004-05 season until its finances can be restructured." The shutdown will not be officially announced until this Tuesday, but officials from both the company and the union which represents dancers are confirming the story. The company's dance school will remain open during the hiatus, but some in the dance community are doubtful that the company's fiscal situation is fixable. Boston Globe 09/18/04
Posted: 09/19/2004 6:51 am
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