Gardner Museum Plans Major Expansion Boston's Gardner Musweum is announcing a major expansion. "If successful, the project would triple the Gardner's special exhibitions space, move the cafe and administrative offices out of the ornate "Palace," and create a new main entrance. It would mark a dramatic leap for the museum, which has long wrestled with ways to modernize its operation without violating the strict, legal limits Isabella Stewart Gardner created to maintain the museum's distinctive atmosphere." Boston Globe 11/29/04
Posted: 11/28/2004 11:40 pm
The Chelsea Backlash? There are now twice as many galleries in New York's Chelsea as there were in Soho at its peak. "As a result of this explosion, the inevitable anti-Chelsea backlash has been on the rise, too. The rap against Chelsea is that it is too big, too commercial, too slick, too conservative and too homogenous, a monolith of art commerce tricked out in look-alike white boxes and shot through with kitsch. This litany is recited by visitors from Los Angeles and Europe, by dealers with galleries in other parts of Manhattan or in Brooklyn and often by Chelsea dealers themselves." The New York Times 11/28/04
Posted: 11/28/2004 10:51 pm
Owning Digital Art, Collecting A Problem There's a basic problem with collecting and selling digital art. "As Napster and KaZaA have taught us, once creative works have been digitized, controlling their distribution becomes problematic. In video art, for instance, there is a trading site with everything from Matthew Barney to Nam June Paik available for bartering. Once files start floating around in cyberspace, the certificate of authenticity becomes paramount. And what if that certificate gets lost?" Slate 11/23/04
Posted: 11/28/2004 10:25 pm
Stolen Mexican Art In San Diego Museum? "Four years ago, thieves broke into a Mexican church in the tiny community of San Juan Tepemazalco and stole an 18th-century painting of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. U.S. authorities are now investigating a claim by Mexican officials that the Spanish colonial work by an unknown artist has ended up at the San Diego Museum." San Diego Union-Tribune 11/26/04
Posted: 11/28/2004 7:40 pm
Click here for more Visual Arts stories...
Failing Angels There's a big problem trying to turn something as sprawlingly theatrical as "Angels in America" into an opera. "It isn't enough simply to reflect what is already there, or to enhance the mood like a film score," writes Rupert Christiansen. "Music must be the driving force, the medium of revelation. This is the hurdle at which the composer Peter Eötvös and his librettist wife Mari Mezei fall flat on their faces. Their adaptation of Angels in America, Tony Kushner's apocalyptic epic of Aids and the spiritual turmoil of the Reagan era, condenses rather than expands the theatrical original, squeezing a gallon of drama into a pint-pot of opera." The Telegraph (UK) 11/29/04
Posted: 11/29/2004 1:02 am
UK City Seeks To Ban Anti-Gay Music Brighton city council members want to prohibit the sale of anti-gay music in the city. "They passed a motion this week urging Virgin Megastore, HMV and MVC in Brighton not to stock music by certain reggae artists who have been accused of glorifying the killing of gay people." The Guardian (UK) 11/27/04
Posted: 11/28/2004 8:05 pm
Legal Downloads Boost Music's Bottom Line Sales of music singles are down again. But legal downloads are soaring. "Around 1.75 million download tracks were purchased during the quarter, compared with 7.3 million singles. And download sales, currently running at around 250,000 a week, are expected to accelerate around Christmas time as thousands of digital players are received as gifts. Had digital sales been added to the overall total, the market would have shown a 9% increase on the previous quarter rather than a 12% decline." The Guardian (UK) 11/26/04
Posted: 11/28/2004 7:18 pm
Click here for more Music stories...
Seattle Opera, PNB Caught In Funding Fight Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet are on the hook to pay for a shortfall in funding for their new home. The companies agreed two years ago that the city might finance the shortfall with their rent. Now the bill is due, and both the opera and ballet companies say paying would be a big hardship. Seattle Post-Intelligencer (AP) 11/29/04
Posted: 11/28/2004 11:53 pm
A Portrait Of Chicago Arts Chicago is a city of the arts. But what does the arts community look like? A new survey takes the measure of what the arts in Chicago look like. Chicago Tribune 11/28/04
Posted: 11/28/2004 9:46 pm
Arts Community Protests NYT Ax Of Sunday Listings Waves of protest have greeted the New York Times' decision this fall to discontinue the comprehensive Sunday arts event listings that had been featured for decades. The Times' public editor takes up the case: "Editors reacted to the petition, I soon learned, the way editors almost always react when readers rise against a long-planned, well-intended innovation: a little dumbfounded, a little defensive, a little dismissive..." The New York Times 11/28/04
Posted: 11/28/2004 7:42 pm
Click here for more Arts Issues stories...
Afghanistan On Stage Three years ago theatre was banned in Afghanistan. Now there's a national theatre festival - and even a play written by a woman, "The current revival is taking place in a climate of creative freedom. Many plays at the national festival have themes that are daring in Afghanistan - star-crossed lovers, hypocritical mullahs, corrupt provincial governors, smugglers of ancient cultural artifacts, and drug lords. But Afghans have not forgotten how to laugh - several plays take digs at doctors, policemen, and busybodies." Christian Science Monitor 11/26/04
Posted: 11/28/2004 10:32 pm
Disney's Wal-Mart Gambit Disney is rehearsing a new theatrical venture, and it's decidedly different from the usual Disney fare. "On the Record represents an entirely different kind of project for Disney Theatricals -- it's cheap to do. And it relies utterly and completely on the public's love for existing Disney songs such as "Under the Sea" or "A Spoonful of Sugar." That affection -- and familiarity -- is both global and also widely found in smaller and midsize American cities that might never get to see "The Lion King" in all its glory. It's a growing market for Disney Theatricals, which had tended to stay concentrated in the major theatrical centers. But that's not how Wal-Mart made its money -- ubiquity is profitable." Chicago Tribune 11/28/04
Posted: 11/28/2004 10:04 pm
Broadway's Crosscultural Experiment It's only fitting that with "Pacific Overtures," which opens Thursday at Studio 54, Amon Miyamoto becomes the first Japanese citizen ever to direct a Broadway production. Like him, the show is an unusual and rather startling crosscultural experiment... The New York Times 11/28/04
Posted: 11/28/2004 9:51 pm
Click here for more Theatre stories...
CBC Success... But At What? From the outside, CBC TV seems to be on the rebound (at least no one seems to be calling for its demise of late). But. "As often with CBC, it's hard to match the visionary rhetoric with the pedestrian prime-time reality. In a world where viewer votes set CBC's values, perhaps Mary Walsh sweating to the oldies really does represent the broadcaster's best definition of greatness. If you can't do insight, settle for incitement and see if anyone can tell the difference." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/27/04
Posted: 11/28/2004 9:37 pm
Click here for more Media stories...
Maybe Competition Is Good For Nutcracker? So the traveling Rockettes booted Boston Ballet from its traditional home for the Nutcracker. But maybe that isn't so bad. "Bring on the Rockettes. Competition makes everyone stronger. If the ballet has to retool its show to draw audiences, isn't it likely to make it fresher and better? Beyond that, having to go up against everything from the Rockettes to ''The Lion King" to a hundred local ''Christmas Carol" productions may force the Ballet to think more deeply, more precisely, more artistically about just what its mission is." Boston Globe 11/28/04
Posted: 11/28/2004 8:34 pm
Click here for more Dance stories...
