Ideas

Who Owns What (It's Very Complicated) "While it was once believed that Marxism would overhaul notions of ownership, the combination of capitalism and the Internet has transformed our ideas of property to an extent far beyond the dreams of even the most fervent revolutionary. Which is not to say that anything resembling a collectivist utopia has come to pass. Quite the opposite. In fact, the laws regulating property—and intellectual property, in particular—have never before been so complex, onerous, and rigid." Bookforum 01/05
Posted: 01/28/2005 9:11 am

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Visual Arts

Philly Mayor Proposes Big Cut In Museum Funding Philadelphia Mayor John Street proposes big reductions in the city's support of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Street's austerity budget proposes to cut city support for the Philadelphia Museum of Art by $250,000 to $1.75 million. City funding for the art museum provides for security and maintenance. By 2010, under the mayor's proposed five-year financial plan, city support would be scaled back to $500,000. Art museum officials called the proposed cuts a "major setback" and noted that there already had been a 7 percent reduction in staff and elimination of Wednesday-evening programs due to city funding cuts last year." Philadelphia Daily News 01/28/05
Posted: 01/28/2005 9:01 am

Whitney's New Expansion Plan New York's Whitney Museum has a new expansion plan. It calls for a new, nine-story building just a few feet south of the current museum. "The new plan, by Italian designer Renzo Piano, is "more moderate" than previous iterations, said Adam Weinberg, the Whitney's director. "What we want to do is balance the needs of preservation and the needs of the neighborhood with making great architecture," he said. Piano's design calls for demolishing two brownstones next to the museum, and using that space for a new entrance that would feed onto a plaza." Baltimore Sub (AP) 01/28/05
Posted: 01/28/2005 8:57 am

Madrid Museums Aim For Higher Profiles Three prominent Madrid museums are upgrading their fracilities in a long-awaited move. "The Prado, Reina Sofia, and Thyssen-Bornemisza museums have each embarked on ambitious renovation and expansion that, along with improved pedestrian access, promise to raise the Spanish capital's cultural profile." Christian Science Monitor 01/28/05
Posted: 01/28/2005 7:45 am

A True Temple Of Modern Art "The Italian, US-based collector Carlo Bilotti is in discussions with Rome City Council to convert a former chapel in the north of the city into a centre for contemporary art which will display works by Damien Hirst and other artists from his collection... Mr Bilotti says he aims to create a 'modern meditative environment' in the chapel which will be modelled on the Rothko chapel in Houston, Texas." The Art Newspaper 01/27/05
Posted: 01/27/2005 9:30 pm

Casting Stones The UK's National Trust is lashing out at the government for what it says is "an ominous silence" surrounding the Trust's plan to preserve Stonehenge by diverting auto traffic away from the historic site. The government has been considering such proposals for half a century, and the Trust fears that what appeared to be an impending agreement has been moved to the back burner yet again. The Guardian (UK) 01/28/05
Posted: 01/27/2005 9:21 pm

More Space? How About More Art? Certainly, the Tate Modern has earned the right to expand its gallery space with five years of tremendous success as London's hottest contemporary art museum. But will there really be enough art to fill all that additional space? "Of immediate and growing concern is the oft-repeated criticism that Tate Modern's collection looks thin and impoverished compared with the scale and grandeur of its monolithic home, [and the museum's director] has in the past lamented the virtual non-existence of an acquisitions budget for the institution." The Guardian (UK) 01/28/05
Posted: 01/27/2005 9:17 pm

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Music

Long-Lost Beethoven Work Gets Hearing A long-lost Adagio written by Beethoven is getting a performance. "Beethoven likely wrote the draft in Vienna in the 1790s, when he was in his 20s. It was found among bundles of his sketches and drafts in the British Library and published in 1970. Beethoven titled his draft "Concerto in A for Piano," with brief indications for other instruments." Miami Herald (AP) 01/28/05
Posted: 01/28/2005 9:24 am

The Passion Of The Bach - Well, Some Of It, Anyway Next month, conductor Roger Norrington will stage a recreation of Felix Mendelssohn's famous 1829 performance of Bach's St. Matthew's Passion, which many scholars consider to have been the catalyst for the widespread 19th-century revival of Bach's music. But fans of the famous choral work may be shocked by what they hear: "Huge numbers of the meditative arias and chorales have gone. The story line is there, but I suppose [Mendelssohn] thought people just couldn't handle four hours, three-and-a-half hours, or whatever it is." The Guardian (UK) 01/28/05
Posted: 01/27/2005 9:06 pm

SLSO Cancels More Auditions, But Will It Matter In The End? The St. Louis Symphony has canceled another round of auditions - for principal and associate principal cello - as the ensemble's nearly month-old work stoppage drags on. "Throughout the past several weeks, the SLSO musicians have claimed that in order to attract the best of the best world class talent they need to keep pace with what their peer orchestras pay. The SLSO management claims this isn’t the case and the organization will be able to attract the same level of musicians they always have, even with a lower pay scale. The... cello audition cancellations may be the first real test of that philosophy." Adaptistration (AJ Blogs) 01/27/05
Posted: 01/27/2005 8:41 pm

• The Management Carousel Spins In St. Louis "The St. Louis Symphony has named Jeremy Geffen, artistic administrator of the New York Philharmonic since 2000, as its own vice president for artistic administration... Geffen replaces Kathleen van Bergen, who succeeded Simon Woods in a similar position at the Philadelphia Orchestra last fall, after Woods was named president of the New Jersey Symphony." PlaybillArts 01/27/05
  Posted: 01/27/2005 8:38 pm

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Arts Issues

In Virginia: Squabbling Over An Arts Funding Plan There's a proposal in Virginia for the state to borrow $86 million for arts and cultural projects. But officials in Hampton Roads and the mayors of Norfolk and Virginia Beach said their cities are being shortchanged since 35 percent of the funds go to Richmond. Then there is the state legislator who attacks the funding plan as "vulgar." Virginia Pilot 01/28/05
Posted: 01/28/2005 8:01 am

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People

Activists Call For Eastwood Spoiler The film critics' code of never revealing surprise twists of a movie is coming under fire this week as disabled-rights activists launch a nationwide push for critics to condemn what they describe as the horrifying ending of Clint Eastwood's latest film. Million Dollar Baby has won accolades from many of the critics now being targeted, but none have yet revealed the controversial fate which befalls lead actress Hilary Swank's character at the film's conclusion. Chicago Reader 01/28/05
Posted: 01/27/2005 9:50 pm

Still Clapping After All These Years Steve Reich turns 70 next year, and as the music world gears up to celebrate the ever-changing, never-at-rest composer, the man himself shows no sign of realizing that he's supposed to be in the twilight of his multifaceted career. "His ideas emerge in a swift current of words, formed by the crisscrossings of different streams of thought - not unlike his music, in which ideas are introduced, examined, juxtaposed, pursued, rediscovered." The New York Times 01/28/05
Posted: 01/27/2005 9:36 pm

Benedetti Sticking To What She Knows Nicola Benedetti is officially the new It Girl of the moment in the classical music world, and her name has spread so quickly that she still seems a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing. But unlike several other recent teenage flavors of the month, the 17-year-old Scottish violinist has no plans to parlay her newfound celebrity into quick and easy cash by entering the much-reviled borderworld known as "crossover." The Telegraph (UK) 01/27/05
Posted: 01/27/2005 8:55 pm

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Theatre

Esbjornson Named To Lead Seattle Rep David Esbjornson, the 52-year-old, New York-based stage director, has been named artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre. Esbjornson has numerous Broadway and off-Broadway credits, and close ties to such major American playwrights as Edward Albee, Arthur Miller and Tony Kushner. Seattle Times 01/28/05
Posted: 01/28/2005 8:14 am

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Publishing

Why Is The Book Business So Badly Run? "There are some really smart people in the book business, which is why it’s such a mystery that so little is known about the basics, such as why anybody buys a book. Wal-Mart can predict with great specificity that hurricanes in Florida will mean increased demand for batteries and flashlights, but also, based on past correlations, beer and pop-tarts. (Beer, understood, but pop-tarts? Don’t they need toasters for that? Wouldn’t the electricity be out?) The book business has nowhere near this forecasting expertise." Inversion 01/05
Posted: 01/28/2005 9:37 am

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Media

Death Knell For Sitcoms? (Or Do We Reinvent?) Is the traditional TV sitcom dead? Dome think so, and there hasn't been a breakout hit now for a few seasons. So how do you reinvent the form? Or is it more a problem of writing? Christian Science Monitor 01/28/05
Posted: 01/28/2005 7:51 am

What Does It Mean To Be Indie? Independent film is a serious genre in the marketplace these days. "But what does "indie" really mean - assuming it means anything at all in this age of globalized mass media? Opinions are varied, as are the movies grouped in its ever larger tent." Is it a movie made outside the studio system? Or is it a "style" of filmmaking? Christian Science Monitor 01/28/05
Posted: 01/28/2005 7:43 am

Australian Films Swamped By Hollywood Australian films accounted for just 1.3% of the country's gross movie revenues last year, even as the total Australian box office take rose 5%, sparking fears that the local film industry is in serious danger of collapse. "The highest-grossing Australian film was the Paul Hogan-Michael Caton comedy Strange Bedfellows which took $4.8million and the critically acclaimed drama Somersault with $2million. In comparison, Shrek 2 took $50million. American films were even more dominant than in the previous year, taking $780million or more than 85 per cent of box office." Sydney Morning Herald 01/28/05
Posted: 01/27/2005 9:45 pm

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Dance

SF Ballet Opens On A High (Praise, That Is) Is San Francisco Ballet the "best company in North America?" That's what Mark Morris told the crowd assembled for the opening of the company's 72nd season. San Francisco Chronicle 01/28/05
Posted: 01/28/2005 9:29 am

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