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Wednesday, December 29




 

Visual Arts

2004 Looked A Lot Like 1954 With so much exciting new art in the world, not to mention the emergence of technology-based art, why did the old and familiar continue to dominate at North America's biggest museums in 2004? "A youth movement? As if. The biggest news in the art-auction world — often confused with real art-making, or the real world for that matter — was that sale prices by the likes of Mark Rothko and Jasper Johns, artists in their prime way more than 50 years ago, have finally caught up with the mega-bucks sales by the Impressionists... The problem is no one really wants to be on edge. In this country, art is treated like comfort food for the brain." Toronto Star 12/28/04
Posted: 12/29/2004 6:22 am

Cooperation = Success Canadian museums have been struggling in recent years to create exhibitions that will both generate an immediate buzz and have the longevity to make their mounting worthwhile financially. In 2004, a number of major exhibitions hit the mark, and the key to future successes may be in the trans-Atlantic partnerships which were forged this year. By joining forces with European institutions, Canadian museums "were able to split the costs of research and development of the loan list, the shipping, the catalogue production and a host of other costs that could have sunk the exhibition." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/29/04
Posted: 12/29/2004 5:57 am

Is Progress Killing The Boutique Museum? Can museums based on one person's vision really survive effectively once that one person is no longer around? The Barnes Museum's pending move is only the latest in a long line of single-collector museums struggles to stay relevant (and solvent), and one could question whether total reinvention is really an effective tool. "Every museum doesn't have to be a major tourist attraction, and people who really want to see the Barnes usually can, with some planning. Some museums -- the Miho outside Kyoto for one -- are valued in part because of the sheer challenge of reaching them, which becomes a sort of pilgrimage." Boston Globe 12/29/04
Posted: 12/29/2004 5:26 am

Claim: Ruskin's Turner Bonfire Never Happened John Ruskin famously said he had made a bonfire of a pile of JMW Turner's paintings. But a researchers now says it never happened. "It looks as if the notoriously prudish Ruskin, who worshipped Turner to the point of idolatry, could not bring himself to destroy his work. Instead he buried them in paper, interring them in a tortuous numbering system he devised himself, or in the case of some detailed anatomical details of women's genitals, folding over the page to conceal them, undoubtedly with a shudder of revulsion." The Guardian (UK) 12/29/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 9:00 pm

UK Museums' Popularity Due To Free Admissions, Lottery Visits to UK museums were up again last year, and the government attributes increases to its policy of making museums free to the public. "Curiously, visits to museums that used to charge went up by only 1.7% while visits to those that had never charged shot up by 11.4%. Among the successes of the "always free" museums is the National Gallery in London, which increased visitors (after a couple of poor years) by 14% last year to 4.96m. It has moved ahead of the British Museum (4.8m) to become Britain's most popular museum." The Guardian (UK) 12/29/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 8:55 pm

Scream: Arrest In Munch Theft Norwegian police have made an arrest in the theft of two Munch paintings last summer from Oslo's Munch Museum. "An unnamed 37-year-old man has been charged with the robbery, after being taken in for questioning last week. He denies any involvement and claims to have an alibi." The Guardian (UK) 12/28/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 8:49 pm

In Praise Of The Parking Garage "Like all buildings, a parking garage can either bring vitality to a city or suck the energy right out of it. There is, of course, the eyesore garage we all know and despise, the three-dimensional cash station for the garage owner that assaults passersby with crumbling concrete and stark fluorescent lights. Yet there also are parking garages with ground-floor shops that enliven sidewalks, and facades that acknowledge that people look at garages as well as drive into them." Chicago Tribune 12/28/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 8:41 pm

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Music

Here's Your New Concert Hall, No Charge After years of futile efforts, it looks as if the Montreal Symphony Orchestra may finally get the new home it's always wanted. A plan being floated by the new Quebec government would abandon the idea of building a $280 million performance complex, and instead renovate an existing (and terribly underused) theater for the orchestra's use. The plan is likely to succeed where others have failed partly because it is simple, but mostly because it won't cost the province's taxpayers a dime. Montreal Gazette 12/29/04
Posted: 12/29/2004 4:55 am

Up Next: Rockers For Senate File 2347.63!! Back in the 1960s, you couldn't swing an acoustic guitar without hitting a folk musician singing a protest song about something that was bugging him, usually something pretty specific. These days, overtly political music is rare, and specific issue-oriented songs are usually eschewed in favor of broader-themed anthems trumpeting such controversial concepts as peace and justice and brotherhood and so on. But a new CD released by aging folkies and frustrated teachers is taking direct aim at the Bush Administration's controversial No Child Left Behind Act, with proceeds going to fund an alternative school that has been hurt by the act's reforms. The Christian Science Monitor 12/28/04
Posted: 12/29/2004 4:37 am

Reviving Salieri La Scala's decision to reopen after its renovations with a long-ignored Salieri opera is a high-profile indication that the long-maligned composer's reputation is being rehabilitated. Why now? The New York Times 12/28/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 8:34 pm

Internet Royalties Add Up Royalties for music streamed over the internet is beginning to add up to serious money. And, unlike conventional broadcast radio, royalties are paid not to composers, but to performers and copyright holders. The New York Times 12/28/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 8:22 pm

Berlin Operas Get First Director Michael Schindhelm, currently director of Switzerland's Basel Theater, has been apointed the first general director of "a foundation set up this year to oversee Berlin's three opera houses. In 2003, the city threatened to merge two of the opera houses until the federal government stepped in with extra arts funding. This year, the three houses were placed under the new foundation in a move meant to enhance coordination and cut costs." Yahoo! (AP) 12/28/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 7:48 pm

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Arts Issues

The Year of Sex & Stupidity There are worse combinations, we suppose, but looking back at what should have been a year of serious debate and international soul-searching, 2004 was instead a year in which television went from covering news in an insipid manner to actually creating its very own insipid storylines which were then imposed on the world with an unforgivable seriousness. "Both in Canada and the United States, television not only reported the news and created hit shows, it also became the news. The sex was more implied than dramatized. The stupidity was to be found in the fuss about it." The Globe & Mail (Caada) 12/29/04
Posted: 12/29/2004 5:51 am

In The UK: Proposed Laws Threaten Free Speech The British parliament considers new laws in reaction to violence threatened over a Sikh play in Birmingham. "The fact that we have to be free to outrage one another is potentially in conflict with a law that soon will be put to the Commons that would add 'incitement to religious hatred'--punishable by seven years in prison--to the equally dubious legislation already on the British books banning 'incitement to racial hatred'." OpinionJournal.com 12/28/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 8:03 pm

Review-Based Arts Funding - More Money, But... "The Howard model for arts funding was set: if arts organisations wanted more money from government, they should forgo warm, fuzzy talk and instead build a business case based on thorough research. Through its review-driven cultural agenda the Howard Government has given the arts greater funding fillips than most governments. Its record for injecting extra funds into the arts is impressive, up there with the Whitlam, Keating, Kennett and Dunstan administrations. Yet it is not perceived to be an arts-friendly government, and many artists still don't support it." The Australian 12/27/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 4:53 pm

An Efficient Freeze? Can an arts funding freeze in the UK be made up by arts organizations becoming more "efficient"? That's the claim, at least. But theatre managers say their operations are already pretty lean... Financial Times 12/28/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 4:27 pm

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People

The Intellectual As Superstar Susan Sontag was that rarest of modern intellectuals, a deep thinker who had no qualms about embracing the 20th century's often superficial definition of fame. Sontag "had the gift of fame, which is to say she possessed charisma, which may be why she ended up being called overrated, the fate of charismatic people. I had read more about her than by her." Washington Post 12/29/04
Posted: 12/29/2004 6:27 am

New York's Aesthetics Czar The directorship of New York's City Planning Department is not ordinarily a high-profile position, but Amanda Burden is taking a stab at making it one. "She has not only repeatedly sent architects back to the drawing board, but also spurred commercial development in once-dormant neighborhoods... Compared with a Robert Moses, the think-big public works czar who imposed a sweeping vision on highways and parks across the city from the 1930's to the 60's, Ms. Burden might be considered an aesthetic watchdog," imposing an unfamiliar discipline on development projects in a city whose style has always been "bigger, not better." The New York Times 12/29/04
Posted: 12/29/2004 6:10 am

Sontag - An Intellectual With Style Susan Sontag was an intellectual original. Her work "made a radical break with traditional postwar criticism in America, gleefully blurring the boundaries between high and popular culture. She advocated an aesthetic approach to the study of culture, championing style over content. She was concerned, in short, with sensation, in both meanings of the term." The New York Times 12/28/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 8:12 pm

  • Susan Sontag, 71 "The writer, who had suffered from leukaemia, died at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Calling herself an "obsessed moralist", Sontag was the author of 17 books and a lifelong human rights activist." BBC 12/28/04
    Posted: 12/28/2004 7:21 pm

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Theatre

Broadway Bucks Boosted Critics may not be finding much to love on Broadway this year, but the Great White Way has regained its financial footing after a couple of dismal box office seasons. "A rise in foreign visitors plus a host of successful new openings" have led to a $23.5 million uptick in ticket sales for the year, and the number of foreign tourists attending shows has returned to pre-9/11 numbers. BBC 12/29/04
Posted: 12/29/2004 5:10 am

Anatomy Of A Play's Shut-Down Sikh protests in Birmingham of the controversial play Behzti were the result of a breakdown of meetings between the theatre and Sikh leaders. "The theatre did not plan to close the play even after a section of the 400-strong crowd of Sikh demonstrators attempted to storm the theatre on December 18, and death threats were made against the writer. The decision was only taken after a meeting with police and community leaders." The Guardian (UK) 12/29/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 9:32 pm

Lane Pulls Out Of London Producers Nathan Lane has had to quit the London production of The Producers. Doctors say he is sufferin from two slipped disks. "The show's spokesman said Lane was expected to recover in six weeks, enabling him to start shooting the film version at the end of February." BBC 12/28/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 7:23 pm

Theatres Find New Income Source On Ebay Some theatres are finding they can raise real money auctioning off items on Ebay, where fans are happy to bid on props and costumes that have been used in shows. "From live auctions to black-tie balls, fundraisers are a necessity for most arts organizations. But using the enormously popular eBay electronic marketplace to augment ticket sales and local philanthropy is a new wrinkle. It is a different way to connect with the world of people who support the theater, who write an annual contribution, and to reach a larger audience." Washington Post 12/28/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 4:23 pm

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Media

It's Groundbreaking, Innovative, And It Must Be Stopped Peer-to-peer file trading software, the bane of movie producers and recording company executives everywhere, is nothing new. But the overwhelming epidemic of illegal movie-trading predicted by some has never quite come to pass, mainly because peer-to-peer swapping is incredibly slow and cumbersome for large files like movies. But a new piece of software is changing that - BitTorrent allows a user to download, say, an hour-long episode of The West Wing in minutes, rather than the hours it would take with traditional peer-to-peer software. And if you think this development has Hollywood running scared and ready to fight, you'd be right. Wired 12/29/04
Posted: 12/29/2004 5:16 am

Blockbuster Bids To Buy Hollywood Video Blockbuster, America's largest movie-rental chain, says it is making an offer to buy rival Hollywood Video. Blockbuster sys 'it would offer stockholders of its top rival $11.50 per share in cash, or about $700 million, plus the assumption of $300 million of Hollywood debt, in mid-January.' Yahoo! (AP) 12/28/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 7:53 pm

"Junket" Press Movie Awards Gaining A Rep "In just 10 years, the Broadcast Film Critics Association has transformed its awards show from a small luncheon for winners into a nationally telecast special. Nearly half its voters are part of the "movie junket press," a cadre of mostly out-of-town reviewers and writers who travel to interview filmmakers and performers at events that are paid for and orchestrated by the studios. Their often-gushy quotes are then splashed across advertisements for many of the year's worst-reviewed films. Studio publicists say they make certain to pay attention to the group's members, and they say the Critics' Choice Awards are gaining on the Golden Globes." Chicago Tribune (LAT) 12/26/04
Posted: 12/28/2004 5:07 pm

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