Voting Gets A Redesign (Literally) In the past four years, voting has been revitalized as an issue in the United States, but usually when people talk about taking another look at the design of the system, they're not thinking about aesthetics. Frank Gehry, Christo, Robert A.M. Stern, Diane von Furstenberg and Richard Meier are some of those who are. "The Voting Booth Project, on display at Parsons School of Design in New York, features offbeat interpretations of about 50 of the Votomatic booths used in Florida during the controversial 2000 presidential election." Toronto Star 10/12/04
Posted: 10/12/2004 4:37 am
Copyright, Coincidence Led To Loeb Fracas A Damian Loeb painting titled "Blow Job (Three Little Boys)" that was removed from a University of Hartford exhibition does, in fact, depict the sons of a wealthy businessman with ties to the school, staff and faculty say. "And Douglas S. Cramer, the collector who lent the works for the show, said the university had informed him that the boys' family was distressed by the painting. ... But by every account, from the curator to Mr. Cramer to Mr. Loeb, the painting's removal was less a clear censorship case than it was one of copyright and surprising coincidence." The New York Times 10/12/04
Posted: 10/12/2004 3:00 am
- Previously: Copyright, Or A Father's Ire, Forces A Painting's Removal A Damian Loeb painting that borrows an image from a 1990 Tina Barney photo was pulled from a University of Hartford exhibition, but why? "Was it merely a question, as the University of Hartford insists, of a painting removed from an important show because of suddenly discovered 'copyright issues'? Or did an angry, powerful university parent, incensed that images of his children were included in a work titled 'Blow Job (Three Little Boys),' demand that the painting be taken down?" Hartford Courant 09/29/04
Iraqi To Design Scottish Museum Iraqi architect Hadid has been tapped to design Scotland's new £50 million riverfront museum. "Glasgow, a former European city of architecture and design, is bracing itself for the arrival of one of Hadid's avante-garde designs which will occupy one of the most symbolic sites in the city." Hadid, an avowed deconstructionist, is promising that her building will be, of all things, "fun." The Herald (Glasgow) 10/12/04
Posted: 10/11/2004 8:48 pm
Boston's ICA Breaks Ground, Defies Critics Boston's new home for the Institute of Contemporary Art is under construction on the city's riverfront, defying the expectations of critics who doubted the organization's ability to raise the necessary funds. "The new ICA is not just a museum, but a museum that aims to define a new district. Boston's waterfront is slated for billions of dollars in construction over the next few years, as land that is now parking lots and lobster shacks is turned over to housing, hotels, restaurants and shops." Still, the ICA must still overcome Boston's notorious conservatism when it comes to the arts, and convince the local populace that new art is just as good as old. Financial Times (UK) 10/11/04
Posted: 10/11/2004 8:26 pm
New Paris Museum Set To Rival Bilbao, Tate The French billionaire François Pinault would like to build a grand new contemporary art gallery in Paris, but true to form, he doesn't see any need to do it the easy way. After all, this is a man who once bought a chapel in Brittany, dismantled it, and moved it to his home, all to house a sculpture he had just bought. The Pinault museum is slated to cost $270 million, and will be built on an island, on the site of an abandoned Renault car factory. "On the island's western tip, six machines are scraping away at the factory's concrete ruins; later this year, construction will begin to replace the derelict shell with what could become Europe's most avant-garde contemporary art museum." The Guardian (UK) 10/11/04
Posted: 10/11/2004 7:54 pm
Guggenheim Taiwan Looking Likely Taiwan is a step closer to bringing a Guggenheim museum to the island nation after the legislature approved a first-year budget, and an economic council signed off on a plan to fund the $180 million project. The funding plan still needs to be approved by the legislature and the executive, but success appears likely by the end of the calendar year. The Guggenheim would be part of a larger cultural district in the city of Taichung, slated to include a new City Hall designed by Frank Gehry, and a Jean Nouvel opera house. The Art Newspaper 10/11/04
Posted: 10/11/2004 7:34 pm
Louvre Prepares To Name A Franchise France is preparing to announce the site of a new branch of the Louvre, to open in 2009. The outpost would display 500 pieces from the museum's permanent collection on a rotating basis. "The project is part of a drive towards decentralisation that will bring culture and business to some of the country’s more impoverished provinces. Estimated to cost €105 million ($127 million), the new building will be 60% funded by regional government, with the remainder from the French State, European Union and municipal governments." The short list of cities in contention for the new Louvre are all in the economically depressed northern part of the country. The Art Newspaper 10/11/04
Posted: 10/11/2004 7:27 pm
British Museum In Another Artifact Dispute A controversy is brewing over the ownership of eleven wooden tablets believed by the Orthodox Christian church of Ethiopia to be remnants of the Ark of the Covenant. The tablets are in the possession of the British Museum, which admits that it came by them under fairly shady ethical circustances and which, in deference to church beliefs that the artifacts can only be viewed by senior clergy, has locked them away in a basement. "It is, of course, somewhat pointless for a museum to hold objects that can never be seen by scholars, let alone by the general public. Delicate discussions are therefore underway for a long-term solution." The Art Newspaper 10/11/04
Posted: 10/11/2004 7:20 pm
Who's Minding The Architectural Store? The UK's Commission for Architecture needs a new director to oversee the country's heritage and wrangle with sticky questions of future development. So why are the short-listed candidates all individuals with little to no knowledge of architecture? "This loss of nerve, which threatens to turn [the commission] from an organisation set up to nurture Britain's architectural culture into a band of all-purpose do-gooders comes when [its] income from the government has trebled to £11 million a year. Of that, it spends nearly 25 per cent on salaries for its staff of 65." The Guardian (UK) 10/10/04
Posted: 10/11/2004 6:42 pm
Click here for more Visual Arts stories...
Stockhausen's Seven-Part Licht To Debut Twenty-five years in the making, "German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen's epic Licht cycle is to be staged in its entirety for the first time. The European Centre for the Arts Hellerau in Dresden will stage the 29-hour piece in 2008 to coincide with Stockhausen's 80th birthday." BBC 10/12/04
Posted: 10/12/2004 5:40 am
Want Musical Kids? Surround Them With Sound "Educators and others agree that early and regular exposure is the key to developing a child's true appreciation for music. ... The music appreciation process should be fun, too, experts say. But whatever form of music you seek to promote with your children, there are time-tested rules: expose them to the music early and often; make music a recurring positive experience; and be creative." Washington Post 10/12/04
Posted: 10/12/2004 5:03 am
More Opera, More Of The Time With its Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts due to open in fall 2006, Toronto is heading toward a richer operatic future, more like that of another opera-mad North American city. "What made San Franciscans so susceptible to the plight of consumptive sopranos and murdered tenors? Sheer exposure has had a great deal to do with it. Since the War Memorial Opera House threw open its many doors in 1932, the city of the Golden Gate has possessed what most cities on this continent still lack, a house specifically designed to accommodate the stage works of Mozart, Verdi and Wagner." Toronto Star 10/12/04
Posted: 10/12/2004 4:26 am
So Why Won't Anyone Admit To It? Lip-synching is back in the news, thanks to a recent Elton John tirade against Madonna's acceptance of an award for "best live act." But as pop stars continue to protest that they would never think of miming their songs, a consensus is building that, for the most part, it doesn't actually matter whether the biggest stars sing or not. After all, in today's world of high-gloss glitter pop, no one is really buying a ticket because of the vocal talents of the performers. A Britney Spears (or Madonna, or Christina, or Ashlee, or whomever) show isn't about music - it's about selling an image, and the singing is well and truly secondary. The Age (Melbourne) 10/11/04
Posted: 10/11/2004 8:17 pm
Liverpool Phil Tries Some Executive Control A rescue effort is underway for the beleagured Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, led by veteran record producer Andrew Cornall, who has been named the orchestra's executive director and given wide-ranging power to make changes in the organization. The appointment is seen as a move away from a structure which placed responsibility for programming largely in the hands of the music director. The Phil's current MD, Gerard Schwarz, was recently informed that his contract would not be renewed. The Guardian (UK) 10/11/04
Posted: 10/11/2004 8:04 pm
Click here for more Music stories...
The High Art Of The Pre-Show Reprimand "People recall that distant age when the theatre began with nothing more than a lowering of the lights and the raising of a curtain, when the whole notion of pre-emptive audience rebuke was unheard of, but those days have passed into misty legend." By now the reminder to turn off your cell phones, beepers and chiming watches -- and to unwrap your candy now -- is ubiquitous. Fortunately, it has also evolved into an opportunity for creativity and humor. Back Stage 10/11/04
Posted: 10/12/2004 5:54 am
The Singing, Dancing, Acting Irish? The University of Notre Dame is known for two things: Catholicism and football, not necessarily in that order. With a new, $64 million performing arts complex intended to be a presenting and teaching space, the university is seeking to become known for prominence in a third area: the arts. The New York Times 10/12/04
Posted: 10/12/2004 2:39 am
Viva France! France will officially become the first nation to allow owners of theaters and concert halls to install cell phone jamming equipment. The devices will still allow emergency calls to be made from the premises when necessary, but will block all other signals to and from the building during performances. Similar devices are explicitly banned in other countries, but the French decision could be a harbinger of things to come elsewhere. The Telegraph (UK) 10/12/04
Posted: 10/11/2004 9:02 pm
The New Generation of Protest Art "Inspired by the war in Iraq and the upcoming presidential election, painters, sculptors, graffiti artists, guerrilla poster makers and aspiring artisans have been showing an unprecedented level of political outrage... Nothing to date has been created on the scale of Pablo Picasso's 1937 apocalyptic mural Guernica, considered one of the most powerful anti-war statements in modern art. But the amount of political art being produced recently has been unprecedented, even exceeding the anti-administration views displayed during the Vietnam War." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/11/04
Posted: 10/11/2004 7:51 pm
- Previously: Where Is This Generation's "Guernica"? Among artists and intellectuals onstage at last weekend's New Yorker Festival, "questions were repeatedly raised about the political potential of art and the role of intellectuals to be socially responsible. There was an urgency to the question that reflected the reality of time and place, of a presidential election four weeks away and of the inescapable reminders of Sept. 11." But the answers remained debatable. San Francisco Chronicle 10/06/04
Click here for more Arts Issues stories...
Opera Students' New Teacher: Pavarotti "Former opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, 69, is to give singing lessons in his home town in Italy. The tenor, who retired from his opera career last year, will tutor students on a two-year singing course at a music conservatory in Modena." BBC 10/12/04
Posted: 10/12/2004 5:32 am
The People's Poet The UK's poet laureate is a kindly gentleman named Andrew Motion, but the poet who best defines Brit culture today may just be a man who has refused all the trappings of the aristocracy, told the queen to "stick it," and encouraged his countrymen to "stop going on about the empire. Let's do something else." The poetry of Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah is a fascinating blend of high culture and hip-hop, and he has become a legitimate star with the type of audience that most poets shy away from: the working class. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/11/04
Posted: 10/11/2004 7:45 pm
Click here for more People stories...
Now, That's Government Support For The Arts "Denmark's Queen Margrethe will design the costumes and scenery for an upcoming play based on the fairy tale 'Thumbelina,' written by Hans Christian Andersen." The Globe and Mail (Canada) (AP) 10/12/04
Posted: 10/12/2004 4:14 am
Will Jelinek Get Her Due On UK Stages? Nobel prizewinner Elfriede Jelinek's work has always been confrontational and decidedly political. What it has not always been is commercially viable. But now that her name is everywhere, at least temporarily, English-language theaters may well decide to take another look at Jelinek's work, especially in this season of ultra-political productions. Financial Times (UK) 10/11/04
Posted: 10/11/2004 8:32 pm
Click here for more Theatre stories...
If The Novelists Got To Choose The President In a survey of 31 prominent American novelists, Kerry supporters, unsurprisingly, vastly outnumbered Bush supporters. Still, the writers' choices differed. "Authors cited a range of reasons, from a vote for Kerry 'because I have a brain and so does he' (Amy Tan), to a vote for Bush because 'we're at war, and electing a president who is committed to losing it seems to be the most foolish thing we could do' (Orson Scott Card)." Slate 10/11/04
Posted: 10/12/2004 6:29 am
Click here for more Publishing stories...
