AJ Logo Get ArtsJournal in your inbox
for FREE every morning!
HOME > Yesterdays


Tuesday, December 7




Ideas

Do Computers Stunt Education? A new study reports that students who were heavy users of computers did worse in school than those who were not. "From a sample of 175,000 15-year-old students in 31 countries, researchers at the University of Munich announced in November that performance in math and reading had suffered significantly among students who have more than one computer at home. And while students seemed to benefit from limited use of computers at school, those who used them several times per week at school saw their academic performance decline significantly as well." Christian Science Monitor 12/06/04
Posted: 12/06/2004 7:19 pm

The Perils Of Electronic Libraries With tight budgets for college libraries, does it make sense any more for schools to buy expensive books? Why not outsource and subscribe to electronic libraries? "Having a fully outsourced, electronic library would mean giving up control of the information available on your campus, and allowing lawyers, accountants, and vendors' content specialists to make decisions about access to published research -- much like HMO clerks deciding what medical care your doctor can provide. Can innovation and excellence flourish in that kind of environment? That is one of the questions that keep librarians awake at night, but it is a large question." Chronicle of Higher Education 12/06/04
Posted: 12/06/2004 5:30 pm

Click here for more Ideas stories...

Visual Arts

The Louvre: Coming To America The Louvre is going to open an outpost at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in 2006. "The two museums have been in discussions since spring and expect to sign an agreement next month. Under the terms of the collaboration, the French museum is to lend hundreds of its works to the High Museum for an indefinite period in return for an undisclosed sum, estimated at $10 million for the first three years." The Art Newspaper 12/07/04
Posted: 12/07/2004 9:01 am

Art Helps Fight Sickness "St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London has come under attack from medical professionals and politicians because of its decision to spend £250,000 ($467,000) on works of art for its new breast cancer screening centre. The hospital has defended its decision to purchase 12 paintings and installations—paid for with private donations and not through National Health Service funds—because, it says, there is evidence that, art will speed patients’ recovery by improving their spirits." The Art Newspaper 12/07/04
Posted: 12/07/2004 8:54 am

"Reality" TV - The Art Theft A gang of art thieves is assembled and set the task of breaking in to a gallery and stealing art. On TV. "In Channel 4's The Heist, they plan to penetrate state-of-the-art security at the Business Design Centre in Islington and remove The View From The Bandstand by Andrew Gifford - described by critics as a modern masterpiece. Each of the ex-criminals was once notorious in a certain field before going straight - an armed robber, jewellery thief, gangster, extortionist and internet hacker." London Evening Standard 12/07/04
Posted: 12/07/2004 8:49 am

Basel Miami Eclipses Chicago As Art Basel Miami has grown, the Chicago Art Fair has waned. "In recent years, Art Chicago, our own international art fair, has dwindled to near-irrelevance as Art Basel Miami has assiduously wooed away art dealers and artists from around the world. How did they do it? The hallmark of the success of the fair is a combination of institutional and private collaboration." Chicago Sun-Times 12/06/04
Posted: 12/07/2004 7:49 am

LA City Audit Reveals Missing Art An audit of artwork owned by city agencies in Los Angeles suggests that hundreds of pieces of art are missing. "The city has maintained its own art collection since at least the 1920s. There was a person who was supposed to be the curator of this collection, and he allowed city entities to borrow pieces to decorate city buildings. The problem was that over the years, the artwork that had been checked out was not really followed up on." Los Angeles Daily News 12/04/04
Posted: 12/07/2004 7:24 am

Art Basel Miami - Buying Art As A Lifestyle "If spending millions of dollars on art was something done in private a few years ago, conspicuous consumption is back. At this spinoff of the highly successful 35-year-old fair in Basel, Switzerland, young, hip hedge-fund managers, Fortune 500 executives and A-list actors are shopping side by side in a spree fueled by new wealth, a hot art market and the headlong pursuit of membership in a glamorous, elite club." The New York Times 12/07/04
Posted: 12/06/2004 9:07 pm

Royal Academy Secretary Resigns Lawton Fitt has resigned as secretary of the Royal Academy. "Ms Fitt, who joined the academy only two years ago, was the first woman and the first American to be appointed as the RA's secretary, one of the two most powerful positions at the organisation. But earlier this year reports spread of her feuding with Norman Rosenthal, the long-serving exhibitions secretary, a man who is admired as much for his inspired curatorial talent as he is loathed by many people for his abrasive style." The Guardian (UK) 12/06/04
Posted: 12/06/2004 8:31 pm

Expert: Parthenon Marbles Would Have Been Fine in Greece One of the biggest British arguments for keeping the Parthenon Marbles in London has been that keeping them there has protected them better than if they had been left in Greece. But "a distinguished Cambridge scholar says the sculptures would have been just fine if Lord Elgin had left them in Athens. Following a sophisticated 11-year conservation program in Athens, the 14 slabs that Lord Elgin did not manage to remove are now showing surprisingly bright original details." Discovery 12/04/04
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20041206-53629.html

Deller Wins Turner Prize Jeremy Deller wins this year's Turner Prize with his video "Memory Bucket, a documentary exploring Crawford, Texas, and the site of the Branch Davidian siege in Waco. Video art dominated the 2004 shortlist, with Kutlug Ataman, Langlands & Bell and Yinka Shonibare also nominated." BBC 12/06/04
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20041206-53623.html

Turner Winner A Popular Pick "The 38-year-old Londoner (Jeremy Deller), who describes himself as 'not a technically capable person', is almost unnaturally well-liked both by the art world and the general public. After the shockers of previous years - unmade beds, elephant dung and copulating sex dolls - Deller's most startling revelation was that Laura Bush likes a deep fried jalapeno chilli with her burger." The Guardian (UK) 12/06/04
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20041206-53633.html

Art Basel Hope To Turn Profit In Third Year Art Basel Miami Beach has yet to turn a profit, even though it has been a hit in the art world. "In budget documents, the Swiss art show listed a $145,000 shortfall from last year, a loss it hopes to erase this weekend with higher exhibitor fees and ticket prices and more dollars from corporate sponsors. 'This year will be the first year when we see a little black'." Miami Herald 12/06/04
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20041206-53622.html

Click here for more Visual Arts stories...

Music

Buffalo Philharmonic Sees Red Despite a great season that included its first trip to Carnegie Hall in 16 years, the Buffalo Philharmonic posted an operating deficit of $1.1 million. "Management said weakness in fund-raising and ticket sales, higher costs for performances and health care and a onetime real estate write-off from the sale of the Birge Mansion contributed to the loss." And prospects could be worse for the next season... Buffalo News 12/07/04
Posted: 12/07/2004 4:23 pm

Classical, Jazz Grammys Announced The Grammy nominations are out In the classical categories, conductor René Jacobs and composers John Adams and Jennifer Higdon are among the most-cited. Jazz nominees include saxophonist Branford Marsalis, drummer Roy Haynes, and pianist Bill Charlap. PlaybillArts 12/07/04
Posted: 12/07/2004 11:38 am

La Scala - Europe's Cultural Event Of The Year La Scala makes its traditional opening Tuesday. "The opening performance - always on December 7, the feast day of Milan's patron saint, St Ambrose - is an opportunity for the rich and powerful to network, and an excuse for others to protest. It is customarily too the pretext for a shock and awe display of furs, jewels and cleavage. But not since 1946, when Toscanini lifted his baton to reopen the theatre after it was damaged by allied bombs in the second world war, has there been quite such a sense of occasion as this year. Almost everyone who is anyone in Italy will be there." The Guardian (UK) 12/06/04
Posted: 12/06/2004 8:25 pm

  • Is Opera Running Out Of Gas? So La Scala is reopening. Many will talk about the restored building and the state of its acoustics. But there is one topic they don't bring up: "There is no getting away from the fact that, like every other aspect of the Italian operatic pyramid which it commands, La Scala is in decline. No Italian opera of importance has been written since the death of Puccini 80 years ago. There is no obvious successor to Muti. And the standards of Italian singing are declining by the year." The Guardian (UK) 12/06/04
    Posted: 12/06/2004 8:20 pm

Allure Of The New "More and more top-tier classical soloists who are not new-music specialists seem to be playing the work of living composers. 'There is something magic about having in your hands this whole piece that nobody has heard. It's challenging when you have never played a piece by a composer to learn how it fits under your fingers. I think it would be the same if we suddenly had a new Beethoven sonata because we would not be used to it'." The New York Times 12/06/04
Posted: 12/06/2004 7:59 pm

Click here for more Music stories...

Arts Issues

Better Times For South Florida Arts Arts funding is looking up in South Florida. "Here in South Florida, the Miami-Dade County populace voted on Nov. 2 to spend nearly $553 million for arts and culture. That was just one of eight categories on a $2.9 billion bond issue, each of which passed ballot muster." The Sun-Sentinel (Florida) 12/05/04
Posted: 12/07/2004 9:27 am

Click here for more Arts Issues stories...

People

Tenor Attacked Italian tenor Giuseppe di Stefano, 83, is being treated in intensive care in Kenya after being attacked by unknown assailants last week. BBC 12/06/04
Posted: 12/06/2004 4:48 pm

Click here for more People stories...

Theatre

West End Theatres Need Major Cash Refurbishment London's West End theatres need major investment if they're to remain viable, says a new report. "The theatres need £250m to fund a major refurbishment programme to bring them into line for the 21st Century. Half of the money needed over the next 15 years would come from the theatres themselves but the rest may have to come from the public purse." BBC 12/07/04
Posted: 12/07/2004 7:36 am

Endangered Species: Plays On Broadway "According to producers, no new play that has opened on Broadway in the last two and a half years has turned a meaningful profit. With the average cost of producing a new play on Broadway approaching or surpassing $2 million ("Gem of the Ocean" cost $2 million) and the traditional audience for plays seemingly shrinking, producers and playwrights say that a lasting losing streak could have a disastrous effect on the theater as a whole." The New York Times 12/07/04
Posted: 12/06/2004 8:48 pm

Click here for more Theatre stories...

Publishing

When Historians Copy The Past In the past few years there have been several high-profile cases of historians plagiarizing. "Their cheating ways go right to the ailing heart of the history profession, which, to its detriment, has dropped the ball on governance. There’s something very wrong in the house of history when the right-wing Weekly Standard passes as the profession’s whistleblower and chortles over careless mistakes by liberal historians." New York Observer 12/01/04
Posted: 12/06/2004 5:23 pm

Click here for more Publishing stories...

Media

99 Percent Of FCC Complaints Made By One Group In 2001 and 2002, the FCC received only a few hundred "indecency" complaints. Then last year the number soared to 240,000. Growing concern by the public? Hardly. "According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group." MediaWeek 12/06/04
Posted: 12/07/2004 7:43 am

Art Of The Cell Phone "The increasing power of cellphones is fast shaping innovative forms of compact culture: micro-lit, phone soap operas and made-for-mobile dramas that can be absorbed in less time than it takes to flick through a book introduction." The New York Times 12/07/04
Posted: 12/06/2004 8:52 pm

BBC To Cut Thousands Of Jobs The BBC is cutting jobs and reorganizing administratively. "Almost 3,000 jobs are expected to go, mainly from administration departments." Some "departments at the BBC will move from London to Manchester, as part of the BBC's aim to be more reflective of UK audiences. The BBC believes it can save hundreds of millions of pounds as a result of the cuts, which will be effective over a three-year period." BBC 12/06/04
Posted: 12/06/2004 4:40 pm

Click here for more Media stories...

Dance

In Praise Of Margot Fonteyn Margot Fonteyn loved to dance, and she was perfectly fashioned by nature and temperament for the physical rigors, fiendish politics and unforgiving geometry of ballet. New York Observer 12/01/04
Posted: 12/06/2004 5:03 pm

Click here for more Dance stories...


Home | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy
Copyright ©
2002 ArtsJournal. All Rights Reserved