Art vs. Neighborhood In Toronto "Opponents of the Art Gallery of Ontario's plans for a $195 million expansion designed by Frank Gehry are taking their fight to the Ontario Municipal Board. Five or six appeals have been filed, all asking the OMB to overturn the decision of Toronto City Council to approve the gallery's so-called transformation... [T]he dissidents claim the Gehry project would ruin Grange Park and destroy their neighbourhood." At issue is a 15-year-old pledge by the AGO that it would never again expand on the Grange Park site, a promise which paved the way for neighborhood approval of an earlier expansion. Toronto Star 12/22/04
Posted: 12/22/2004 6:53 am
Art Of The Fake Smithsonian anthropologist Jane Walsh is working on a database to help identify fakes. There are many more in museum collections than anyone is willing to admit. "Any museum--I don't care what museum it is--has fakes, because fakes are ubiquitous. I have a friend who works at the Holocaust Museum as a conservator, and even they have forgeries--Star of David badges and prison uniforms that were made for Hollywood films and later sold by dealers as authentic artifacts.
Archaeology Magazine 12/04
Posted: 12/21/2004 6:36 pm
The Man To Save The Royal Academy Why does Nicholas Grimshaw have a chance at turning around the fortunes of London's Royal Academy? "He brings more than enthusiasm. As a respected architect, best known here for designing the Eurostar terminal at Waterloo Station, Mr. Grimshaw is already more of a public figure than his three predecessors. Further, unlike the artists who make up most of the academy, he knows how to run a business, in his case a 100-member firm with offices in London, New York and Melbourne, Australia. There is also a vacuum waiting to be filled." The New York Times 12/22/04
Posted: 12/21/2004 6:12 pm
Whole Lotta Bull For Sale Fifteen years ago a 7000-pound bronze charging bull mysteriously appeared on Wall Street outside the New York Stock Exchange. Now the artist who made it wants to sell, and bidding begins at $5 million. The sculpture is much beloved on the street and the artist insists "that any deal would require the buyer to donate the landmark sculpture to New York City, with the new owner's name inscribed on a plaque to be placed next to it. The buyer would be allowed a tax deduction." Seattle Times (AP) 12/21/04
Posted: 12/21/2004 6:05 pm
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Virtual Orchestra Battle Spreads To California A touring production of the musical Oliver! opened this week in California, with a machine in the orchestra pit and live musicians protesting outside the front door. As in similar disputes in New York, producers claim that the so-called "virtual orchestra" synthesizer is nothing more than a versatile new instrument which augments the sound of the show's 10 live musicians, while the local musicians' union claims that the Sinfonia, as it is known, takes jobs away from trained musicians. Costa Mesa (CA) Daily Pilot 12/22/04
Posted: 12/22/2004 5:39 am
Using Money To Make More Money It's been a rough year at the Detroit Symphony, with mid-contract pay cuts for the musicians and serious upper management upheaval to boot, but things appear to be changing for the better. "Three of the DSO's highest-profile donors have combined to give the orchestra an unusual $1.5-million challenge grant designed to broaden the orchestra's base of support." The orchestra intends to use the matching challenge as an opportunity to cultivate a new generation of donors who can stabilize the organization in the long term. Detroit Free Press 12/22/04
Posted: 12/22/2004 5:31 am
Is The Shine Off Simon Rattle? Simon Rattle has had a storybook career as one of the world's great conductors. "But lately it's not all been rosy. In Berlin, there's one prominent dissenting voice in the shape of prominent music critic Klaus Geitel himself, who declares roundly that Rattle is the weakest musical director of the Berlin Philharmonic he's ever seen. The recent recordings of the nine Beethoven symphonies left many reviewers puzzled by its odd mix of "period" and mainstream styles, and the Fidelio recording had some curious vocal casting. In the UK, the dissenters are more numerous..." The Telegraph (UK) 12/22/04
Posted: 12/21/2004 6:56 pm
Melbourne Opera Unites For years, two Melbourne opera companies have been competitors. Now they're joining forces. "The two local companies, once bitter rivals - Melbourne Opera and Melbourne City Opera - are merging under the name, VicOpera. They also declared that they want to co-operate with the Sydney-based national company, Opera Australia. This simplifies the situation, but leaves several issues unresolved." The Age (Melbourne) 12/22/04
Posted: 12/21/2004 6:02 pm
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In The UK: Public Summit On Free Speech UK community and arts leaders are brokering a public summit to talk about free speech issues after a play was shut down in Birmingham. "Two official bodies - the Commission for Racial Equality and Arts Council England, will jointly broker the discussions, which aim to quell future clashes between religious believers and artists. The debate over the drama - which depicts rape and murder in a Sikh temple - has provoked warnings that "mob rule" will intimidate artists into self-censorship, while religious groups have warned that freedom of speech is being abused as a licence for gratuitous offence." The Guardian (UK) 12/22/04
Posted: 12/21/2004 6:14 pm
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Canceled UK Play Could Move To London "London's Royal Court could stage the play which prompted violent protests among the Sikh community in Birmingham. Royal Court theatre bosses said it had obtained a copy of Behzti with a view to possibly staging it in the new year. Behzti had its run cancelled in Birmingham after three police officers were injured when 400 demonstrators protested outside the theatre. Protesters said the play, which depicts sex abuse and murder in a temple, portrayed the Sikh faith negatively." BBC 12/22/04
Posted: 12/22/2004 5:59 am
- Previously: Birmingham Theatre Cancels Play After Violence Threats A Birmingham theatre company canceled the remaining performances of a play depicting rape and murder in a Sikh temple after violent protests were threatened. "This is thought to be the first time a play in Britain has been halted during its run by violent religious protests and raises the question of freedom of speech." The Telegraph (UK) 12/21/04
- Protesting Censorship In UK Play British newspapers line up to editorialize against the closing of a controversial play in Birmingham because of threats of violence. The Guardian (UK) 12/21/04
Posted: 12/21/2004 6:47 pm
New York Comics Ask For More New York club comedians aren't paid very well. So they've banded together to ask for more. "Hardened by decades of low wages and even lower self-esteem, some 300 New York comedians have decided to unite to ask the city's comedy clubs for, well, a little respect. (Oh, and more pay.) Two weeks ago, the group, the New York Comedians Coalition, sent a letter to the owners of 11 clubs around the city, asking for $120 for a 10 to 20 minute set on the weekends, up from the current average of $60. They are also seeking a small increase in weekday pay, which runs about $15 to $25 a set, as well as holiday pay for regulars." The New York Times 12/22/04
Posted: 12/21/2004 6:22 pm
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Oprahmazon.com It's official: nobody sells more books than Oprah. "A new study confirms what many already knew: Oprah Winfrey's book endorsements are good as gold to publishers... Of [the 45 books Winfrey recommended to her 'book club'], only 11 had been on the bestseller list before her recommendation, and none of them had gone beyond No. 25. Of the first 11 books that Winfrey picked, all went to at least No. 4 within a week." The Globe & Mail (AP) 12/22/04
Posted: 12/22/2004 6:26 am
Just Can't Wait For Harry It's been less than 24 hours since author JK Rowling announced that the next installment of her wildly popular Harry Potter series would be published in July 2005, and already, the unreleased tome has rocketed to number one on the order chart of online retailer Amazon.com. The fifth volume in the series was Amazon's most heavily pre-ordered book ever, and the new entry seems sure to surpass it. BBC 12/22/04
Posted: 12/22/2004 5:54 am
Judges Walk Out On Aussie Lit Prize Three judges of Australia's major book award have quit over changes in the powers of the jury. The administrators of the Mile Franklin Literary Award "adopted a charter that appoints the NSW State Librarian, Dagmar Schmidmaier, as permanent head of the jury, reduces the term of the other judges from six to three years, allows Trust to dismiss the judges without explanation, and prevents them from speaking to the media." Sydney Morning Herald 12/22/04
Posted: 12/21/2004 8:03 pm
Iraq's National Library Struggles To Rebuild "The daylight burning of the library, which the invading US military did not protect, was one of the first costly failures in the post-war chaos of occupation last year. Now it is slowly being restored. But in a country where recent history remains bitterly disputed, resurrecting the library and national archive has turned into a remarkably sensitive and political operation." The Guardian (UK) 12/21/04
Posted: 12/21/2004 6:51 pm
Books, Not Bytes, Rule With Google digitizing some of the world's most important libraries, "are the days of the library as a social organism over? Almost certainly not, for reasons practical, psychological and, ultimately, spiritual. Locating a book online is one thing, reading it is quite another, for there is no aesthetic substitute for the physical object; the computer revolution rolls on inexorably, but the world is reading more paper books than ever. Indeed, so far from destroying libraries, the internet has protected the written word as never before, and rendered knowledge genuinely democratic." The Times (UK) 12/18/04
Posted: 12/21/2004 6:43 pm
WaPo Buys Slate The Washington Post is buying one of the internet's first digital magazines. "In announcing a deal to acquire Slate from Microsoft Corp. for an undisclosed sum, said to be in the millions of dollars, Post executives said they would keep Jacob Weisberg as editor and most of the 30-person staff." Washington Post 12/21/04
Posted: 12/21/2004 6:28 pm
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Loss of Traffic Reports Jeopardizes Minnesota Jazz Minneapolis has already lost one of its classical music radio stations this year, and now, the city's full-time jazz station may be in trouble after losing a $400,000 annual contract with the Minnesota Department of Transportation. KBEM, which is owned by the Minneapolis school district, drew half its annual operating budget from the MNDOT contract, under which the station aired extensive traffic reports every ten minutes during rush hours. With the state deciding to pull the plug on the reports, the station, known as Jazz 88, will likely be forced to make staff cuts and may have to significantly scale back its commitment to inner-city education. Minneapolis Star Tribune 12/22/04
Posted: 12/22/2004 6:32 am
Ontario Movie Biz Gets A Big Boost Canada's film industry will be getting a much-needed boost in 2005, with the announcement of a new tax incentive package worth CAN$48 million. Workers in the industry had been flooding the Ontario legislature with demands for relief following a year in which the bottom dropped out of the province's film business, largely as a result of the rising Canadian dollar, the faltering U.S. currency, and new incentive packages being offered to filmmakers by other locales. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/22/04
Posted: 12/22/2004 6:20 am
Or They Could Just Make Better Sh... Nah, Too Obvious Getting viewers to watch an evening of programs on traditional over-the-air television networks can be a trying proposition these days, with low-budget niche cable networks chiseling away at the national audience. So the Big Three networks have been trying out a new tactic in the ratings wars: clock manipulation. Rather than ending one program at 7:59 and starting the next one at 8pm, for instance, the network might run the first program a few minutes long, and then immediately start a new show at 8:03, by which time you, the viewer, have already missed the opening of shows on other channels, and are more likely to stick with the network you're already watching. Chicago Tribune 12/22/04
Posted: 12/22/2004 6:11 am
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