Remixing Life As We Like It Don't like real life around you? Increasingly, we can remix it to our own liking. "We're remixing our TV behavior as TiVo-style video recorders let us 'make every night Thursday night.' We're remixing our media by grabbing online articles from dozens of different sources—and then broadcasting our own opinions with blogs. When you get down to it, the remixing metaphor applies to almost any area you can think of. Some of the sessions at ETech bannered the remixing of radio, DNA, politics and culture." Newsweek 03/22/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 7:02 pm
The CSI Effect: Juries Want More Are crime shows influencing real-life juries? US prosecutors are seeing "an increasing desire on the part of juries for the kind of certainty shown on television programs such as "Crime Scene Investigation," in which crimes are solved conclusively in less than an hour. Across the country, prosecutors say, juries are demanding more from them." Chicago Tribune (LAT) 03/22/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 9:00 am
Click here for more Ideas stories...
National Gallery's Best Day Ever? The DC museum's East Wing opening of "Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre" draws more than 9000 visitors its first day. "Museum guards with clickers stationed at the entrance to the 10-room exhibition -- a kind of tour of Paris night life in the late 1800s -- counted 9,230 visitors. That easily surpasses the 6,190 who attended the opening of "Treasure Houses of Britain" in 1985 and the 3,340 who came for the first day of "Johannes Vermeer" in 1995. The West Building's attendance record was set in 1963 when an average of 19,205 visitors a day saw Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa." Washingto Post 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 6:35 am
Authentication Committee Set Up For Canadian Artist Fakes of famed Canadian First Nations painter Norval Morrisseau abound. So a new official committee has been set up to authenticate work. "The committee, composed of five Morrisseau experts, will function much like the famous four-member Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board, which has been the sole arbiter of genuine Warhols since the pop-art master's death in 1988: If you think you have a real Morrisseau but want to know for sure, you'll have to submit it to the committee for determination. And once you do, you'll have to sign a contract by which you absolve Morrisseau, his family and Milrad of any liability if the committee comes back and says, 'It's not a Morrisseau." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 6:29 am
Expert: "Fake" Cezanne Is Real An expert says a painting recently declared a fake is in fact a real Cezanne. "He based his assessment on the unsigned work, purported to have been painted by Paul Cezanne, being riddled with secret "signatures" left behind by the renowned French impressionist. The piece, Son in a High Chair, was among notable works said to have been taken from the home of eccentric NSW art restorer John Opit in February last year." News.com.au 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 6:05 am
- Previously: Stolen Paintings (Said Worth $67 Million) Are Fakes Paintings stolen last summer in Australia which were "described at the time as Australia's biggest art heist" and "worth $67 million" are fakes. "The paintings – which included one entitled Son in a High Chair alleged to have been painted by French impressionist Paul Cezanne – were recovered from a Robina duplex last June. But Tweed-Byron police Acting Inspector Brett Greentree said experts consulted, including international art dealers Sothebys, had determined that the paintings were not genuine." The Herald-Sun (Australia) 03/18/05
Seattle Art Museum Embarks On Major Expansion The Seattle Art Museum this month "begins in earnest the $86 million expansion to the 1991 building that kicked off a regional arts building frenzy. The expansion is only one part of a three-pronged, $180 million overhaul – the museum has raised $124 million to date – including a sculpture park downtown and a new roof for the Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park." Come January, SAM closes its main building for a year to accomodate construction. The News-Tribune (Tacoma) 03/22/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 9:29 pm
Art History As A Theory A new history of art since 1900 is "the final ludicrous monument to an intellectual corruption that has filled contemporary museums and the culture they sustain with a hollow and boring, impersonal chatter. Art has been lost in a labyrinth of theory. If this sounds anti-intellectual, let me clarify. There is no good work of art that cannot be described in intelligible English, however long it might take, however much patience is required. And yet this book begins with four theoretical essays explaining the post-structuralist concepts the authors believe we need before we can meaningfully discuss a single work of art." The Guardian (UK) 03/22/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 9:14 pm
Billionaire To Restore Henry Moore A billionaire art collector has offered to pay for the restoration of a Henry Moore marble arch. "The six-metre tall work, given by Moore in 1980 to the people of London, was removed from Kensington Gardens and dismantled in 1996 on safety grounds. The sculpture is unevenly weighted, and soon after it was installed it began to twist. In addition, travertine, the stone of which it is made, is susceptible to damaging cycles of freeze-thaw in cold weather. The Royal Parks, which manage Kensington Gardens, have estimated that to repair it - by inserting a steel "spine" - would cost around £300,000, which they say they cannot afford." The Guardian (UK) 03/22/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 9:08 pm
Click here for more Visual Arts stories...
Controversial Bolshoi Opera Opens Tonight The stage is set for the opening of the Bolshoi theater's first new opera for 30 years on Wednesday, but Russian critics are branding it pornographic and conservatives want it banned before the curtain even goes up... Reuters 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 7:43 am
Is Mariss Jansons The World's Best Conductor? "Everyone who has heard this burly Latvian conduct the two orchestras with whom he has spent the most time (the Oslo Philharmonic and the Pittsburgh Symphony) has witnessed that rare alchemy whereby a good ensemble—as if galvanized by a collective will the players didn’t know they had—becomes greater than the sum of its parts. In this regard, Mr. Jansons’ only peer may be Sir Simon Rattle, who brought his provincial City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to New York a few years ago and played a Mahler Third Symphony that had the man sitting in the box next to me—the New York Philharmonic’s then music director, Kurt Masur—glowering in disbelief at the spell cast by these nobodies from the English Midlands." New York Observer 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 6:23 am
Click here for more Music stories...
Newfoundland Adds Millions To Arts Budget The Canadian province of Newfoundland is adding eight million new dollars to its culture budget and promises millions more over the next two years. "The good news for arts and culture follows a year in which jobs were slashed and projects put on hold because of government belt-tightening." CBC 03/22/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 6:43 pm
Click here for more Arts Issues stories...
Up Short: Bobby Personified An Era, City "Bobby Short came to personify what he sang about. He was that miraculous instant when Ginger Rogers takes Fred Astaire's hand and whirls toward him, white gown alight. He was every bulb in the Chrysler Building's crown, every first grown-up kiss, every Tiffany box hidden in a pocket. When Bobby Short entered the small spotlight in that Upper East Side hangout, depression large and small dissolved into the champagne; history's headlines and your own true stories were gladly left at home. When his job was over, you strolled into the New York night, succored. Of course we knew it was fool's gold, but the glamour and potential that the big city offered us when we were young became real again in the Cafe Carlyle, at the other end of a voice." Philadelphia Inquirer 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 6:45 am
Axelrod To Jail New Jersey philanthropist Herbert Axelrod has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for tax evasion. "Once called the Medici of the Meadowlands for his patronage of the arts, he was praised just a year earlier for his sale of 30 Stradivarius, Amati and Guaneri violins, violas and cellos to the orchestra. He and some experts had valued the collection at $50 million, but the symphony was able to buy the collection for $18 million." The New York Times 03/22/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 8:26 pm
Click here for more People stories...
Letter Touches Off Playwrights Controversy Earlier this month, playwright Roy Close sent a missive to the Playwrights Center and several of its funders, severing his ties to the organization and complaining that the Minneapolis-based writer's haven has become an elitist autocracy, more concerned with its own glory and hosting America's hottest playwrights than with helping locals build and develop their skills as playwrights. Director Polly Carl is attempting to mold the center, founded as a glorified support group for stage writers, into an organization with national membership and outreach. The conflict has stirred conversation among playwrights, theater practitioners and philanthropic organizations." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 03/20/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 6:51 am
Theatre Takes On Religion "Provocative arguments about the role of faith in our private and public lives are dominating our typically secular stages right now, courtesy of playwrights and performers from Catholic backgrounds. What to make of this current run of plays with an explicitly theological bent? Not surprisingly, the subject of sexual abuse in the Church has been at the center of several productions already." Village Voice 03/22/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 8:44 pm
Click here for more Theatre stories...
Can Gourevitch Mend Paris Review? The appointment last week of New Yorker writer Philip Gourevitch as new editor of The Paris Review seems to have quieted some critics of the magazine. “I’d never thought it would be fun to edit a huge magazine, it was never something that I aspired to. But the idea of having a small magazine, a writer’s magazine that was really about writing—I started to think about it, and I thought, I’d love to do this.” New York Observer 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 6:19 am
Dan Brown Fans Flock To Vatican To Check Out Mystery Tour groups are flocking to the Vatican in search of the clues in Dan Brown's murder mystery Angels and Demons. "The book uses his sculpture as clues pointing to a dastardly plot led by a secret society against the Roman Catholic Church - a threat to blow up the Vatican as the church elects a new pope. Surely this is an opportunity for [the Church] to show they are not an occult force shrouded in mystery. Dan Brown's implication that Bernini was part of an anti-religious conspiracy has left some art historians fuming. Others though are more pragmatic." BBC 03/23/05
Posted: 03/23/2005 6:10 am
Banning Books In China (But Not Effectively) China may be opening up, but government censors still have a firm grip. But a recently banned novella is finding alternate means of distribution around the censors. "Publishing in China is serving both the party and the people. Here, the party comes before the people. There are several forbidden topics for publishing in China, including politics, sex, the military and state secrets." Baltimore Sun 03/22/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 9:50 pm
Dumas Novel Discovered In Biblioteque National A previously unknown novel by Alexandre Dumas, the author of The Three Musketeers, has been discovered in the French National Library... Sydney Morning Herald 03/23/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 9:42 pm
Cartoonist Faces Greek Jail Cartoonist Gerhard Haderer finds himself facing jail time in Greece over his "depiction of Christ as a binge-drinking friend of Jimi Hendrix and naked surfer high on cannabis." "Haderer did not even know that his book, The Life of Jesus, had been published in Greece until he received a summons to appear in court in Athens in January charged with blasphemy. He was given a six-month suspended sentence in absentia, but if he loses his appeal next month his sentence could be increased to two years." The Guardian (UK) 03/22/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 8:59 pm
Who Writers Write For... "A sign of the times; it is now quite common for an ambitious writer to announce that they will prepare their new proposal and/or sample chapter in time for Frankfurt or London. Nothing here about the inspiration of the jealous muse, but everything about the expectation of a quick sale in the feverish atmosphere of the literary marketplace. In the past, one of the perils facing the success ful novelist was the risk that he or she would make the mistake of writing to satisfy the public, 'dishing things up like short-order cooks', as Graham Greene observed towards the end of his life. In today's marketplace, there is more pressure than ever to come up with the literary equivalent of the Big Mac." The Observer (UK) 03/20/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 6:56 pm
Click here for more Publishing stories...
Advocating Hollywood Advocacy groups are finding new voices with Hollywood producers. "Although funding pressures have recently caused several advocacy groups to scale back their efforts or completely shut down, all the buzz over branded entertainment is prompting a growing number of nonprofits to take a closer look at working with Hollywood to get their messages out." Back Stage 03/22/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 6:47 pm
BBC Cuts Even Deeper Cuts in staff at the BBC are bigger than previously predicted. "The 2,050 job cuts - including 424 announced in December - take total job losses at the BBC to 3,780, saving £355m a year to reinvest in programmes. They are part of director general Mark Thompson's plans to streamline the BBC. He told staff it was "the toughest period any of us can remember". The National Union of Journalists said the cuts would "rip the heart out" of the corporation. BBC 03/22/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 6:34 pm
IS There Really An Audience For Quality TV News? TV news shows continue to lose audience. But just as NPR has seen a rise in its audience, so has CBS Sunday Morning. "The leisurely paced Sunday Morning averages 5 million viewers each week, up slightly over last year and at its highest point in a decade. That's about a million more than for the Sunday Today on NBC, with CBS's lead more than doubling in the past year, according to Nielsen Media Research. The increase comes despite ABC's relaunch of Good Morning America on Sunday over the past year. (It is seen by 1.9 million people a week)." Miami Herald (AP) 03/22/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 9:16 am
French Canadian Sweep At Genie Awards French Canadian movies dominated the prizes at this year's Genie Awards. "The bitter irony of the night is that English Canada's most ardent film buffs have likely never heard — let alone seen — many of the francophone winners, which are hugely popular in Quebec but virtually ignored in the rest of Canada. Ma vie en cinemascope and Mémoires affectives, for instance, don't even have release dates yet in English Canada." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/22/05
Posted: 03/22/2005 3:34 am
Click here for more Media stories...
