Why Politicians Can Never Understand The Arts People in the arts spend a great deal of time bemoaning the lack of governmental support, but is the ignorance of politicians really a great surprise? After all, the arts are everything that politics isn't: subtle, nuanced, full of deep ideas and gray areas, and imbued throughout with a belief in the intelligence of the audience. "The [UK's] Labour party used to justify its support of the arts rather as a 19th-century curate's wife might advocate distributing informative pamphlets to the deserving poor, by their social usefulness... This approach, of course, swaps the robe of the wizard for the coat of the social engineer: it robs art of its chance to enchant." The Guardian (UK) 03/26/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 9:48 am
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Gossiping In Cleveland A controversial former Whitney Museum director, a well-liked London director known for his fundraising skill, an Asian art specialist from Australia by way of Richmond, and a recent director of L.A.'s Getty Museum are among the candidates said to be on the shortlist to head the Cleveland Museum of Art... The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 03/27/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 10:31 am
Wanna See The Art? Wait Here. The latest blockbuster exhibitions to hit London museums are drawing thousands of visitors who are apparently willing to spend hours waiting in the kind of lines one generally associates with Disney World. "Once inside, having paid £7.50 to see 16 paintings (or 47p a painting) visitors will share their view of each canvas with, on average, eight others. It is not, perhaps, the atmosphere of contemplative isolation that many regard as the ideal conditions under which to observe these masterpieces." Still, most museum-goers seem to have anticipated the delays and overcrowding, and few are complaining. The Guardian (UK) 03/26/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 9:58 am
Rescuing Cities From Themselves "Architects grab more attention with their imposing skyscrapers. But landscape architects are emerging as the heroes of modern urban existence. They reclaim the wastelands," of which there are certainly no shortage in America's big cities, and turn them into, well, whatever you like, really. "After 53 years, mountains of garbage piled 225 feet high on New York's Staten Island have begun a slow transition to parkland... In Duisburg, Germany, a derelict iron mill was reborn three years ago as a sort of theme park of the Industrial Age... In Beirut, a Garden of Forgiveness (Hadiqat As-Samah) is being constructed on a 5.7-acre site that was reduced to rubble by Lebanon's 16-year civil war." Washington Post 03/26/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 7:10 am
Beware The Ides of March. Or, Um, Steal Them. Three of the four bronze sculptures making up a Philip Pavia sculpture known as 'The Ides of March' have been stolen from the New York City office building in which they were being temporarily housed while awaiting transfer to Hofstra University. The theft cannot have been easy, as the three stolen pieces weigh 600 pounds apiece. 'The Ides' was originally commissioned by the New York Hilton hotel, which displayed it at its entrance for more than a quarter-century. The New York Times 03/26/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 6:44 am
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Hinckley: Lay Off The Rappers Hip-hop music and culture has been taking a nasty beating in the wider culture in recent weeks, and David Hinckley says that all the brouhaha shows that the critics don't understand the genre, and aren't even trying to. "Much of the criticism indicts all rappers and further carries the insulting implication that rap fans take nothing from the music except swaggering self-promotion, derogatory slaps at women and verbal violence... From the ancient Greeks up through opera, folk songs, detective novels and television, entertainment media have focused on excess, that is, behavior beyond normal standards, as a way of making a point. Audiences get this. Rap audiences get this. If violent lyrics really had the direct impact its critics warn about, America's streets would be knee-deep in dead rap fans." New York Daily News 03/27/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 10:09 am
Return of the Chicago Ring Nine years after staging Wagner's complete Ring Cycle to international acclaim, Chicago Lyric Opera is reviving the production this week, and the team in charge of the staging is enjoying a rare opportunity in the opera world: the chance to review what does and doesn't work about a particular production, and actually make the show better. "The performances are musical marathons, the final three operas running for more than 5 hours including intermissions. But Lyric has the benefit of having already performed it as a complete cycle three times, and many of the staff members and orchestral musicians who made that 1996 "Ring" so successful are still with the company." Chicago Sun-Times 03/27/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 8:50 am
- Opera's Answer To Trekkies "Some 10,500 Wagner lovers from 50 states and 27 foreign countries, along with a sizable contingent of international press, are making the pilgrimage to Chicago to catch the four-opera, 16-hour epic. Lyric is hawking Ring T-shirts, caps and socks in its lobby boutique to fan the flames of their enthusiasm. Such encouragement hardly seems necessary. Wagnerians are famously obsessive in their devotion to this marathon masterpiece, perhaps even more so than the Hobbit-ear-wearing Tolkienites who have made a cottage industry out of a certain other 'Ring'." Chicago Tribune 03/27/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 8:40 am
Aussie Orchestras Won't Be Scaled Back Australia's symphony orchestras have received official assurances from the government that their rosters of musicians will not be scaled back in the wake of a report which recommended severe cuts. Of course, that doesn't solve the problem of where the money to maintain the orchestras in their current form will come from, but with the downsizing issue behind them, all sides sound more amenable to compromise. Adelaide Advertiser (Australia) 03/25/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 8:20 am
Does 12-Tone Music Sound Better When The Critics Shut Up? More than a half-century after Arnold Schoenberg pioneered his twelve-tone system of composition, the world of classical music is still embroiled in a raging debate over the direction of compositional form, centered on the thorny question of just how much complexity audiences can and will tolerate. But two of America's leading composers point out that the debate may be less about music at this point than ideology. "Most of these perceptions [of serial vs. tonal music] come not from hearing or knowing the music but from reading what someone has written about it... the biggest problem with the perception about the 12-tone system is absolutely akin to the perception of Schoenberg - that it's become a journalistic cudgel." The New York Times 03/27/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 7:42 am
An Opera House Worth Staying In Your Seat For Copenhagen's new opera house may not be a universally acclaimed architectural hit, but there is no question that its opening has invigorated the city. Moreover, operagoing in Denmark is clearly an experience considered to be worth savoring, as "arriving early and lingering late seem to be part of the experience," a far cry from the dashes for the exits so common when the curtain rings down in New York and London. Could the jaded New Yorkers learn a thing or two from their Danish counterparts? "After a compelling performance at the Met, shouldn't there be a natural tendency to want to share the moment with the audience, to bond, to cheer, to let out the pent-up intensity you've experienced with some lusty bravos?" One can only hope... The New York Times 03/26/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 6:54 am
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How To Give The Right Wing A Really Bad Name Kansas-based preacher Fred Phelps, an ultra-right-wing activist best known for parading with his followers at the funerals of victims of AIDS and gay bashings while shouting through a megaphone and waving signs reading "God Hates Fags," is taking on a Colorado Springs arts center that has accepted funding from a gay/lesbian action group. The reverend's merry band says that the arts center has signed on to promote "the radical homosexual agenda" by accepting the money. The reality of the situation, unsurprisingly, bears little resemblance to the Phelps interpretation, but that isn't deterring protest organizers in their crusade to wipe out the "sodomite juggernaut" that is apparently running rampant in Colorado Springs. Denver Post 03/27/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 9:07 am
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Axelrod May Get A Second Chance With Arts Groups Two years ago, Herbert Axelrod was known as a selfless philanthropist and a hero to mid-Atlantic arts groups. These days, he is painted as a villain who played fast and loose with the tax code and defrauded an orchestra. Reality may lie somewhere in between. "Axelrod, 77, is a big-time donor in the arts sector, which last time I checked is not exactly overflowing with big-time donors. The arts community will be counting the days until his release, all too happy to help Axelrod rehabilitate his reputation... After all, it is possible to have a fabulous way with vintage wallpaper and have participated in obstruction of justice. It is possible to have been a star football player and have murdered (probably) your wife. In fact, it's likely. Life is complex. Philadelphia Inquirer 03/27/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 10:23 am
The Artist Who Became New York It's not so much that Edward Hopper was a product of the city he loved. It's more that Hopper's paintings of New York took on such a life of their own that it is almost impossible to conjure up a mental picture of the Big Apple without at least a little bit of Hopper in it. "Nearly four decades after his death, and many decades after he created some of his most evocative works, Hopper sites and Hopper moments can still be found everywhere in this city of steel bridges, concrete walls, asphalt roadways, old warehouses, empty roofs, brick buildings and small rooms." The New York Times 03/27/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 8:09 am
A Soprano Writ Small(er) Acclaimed soprano Deborah Voigt, fired from a production of Ariadne auf Naxos by a London opera company last March because she was too fat to fit into the costume that had been designed for her character, underwent gastric bypass surgery in June 2004, and has since lost 100 pounds. Voigt had made the decision to have the procedure done before she was sacked by the Royal Opera House, a public humiliation compounded by the fact that Ariadne is her signature role. The surgery was not without risk: "Opera singers who lose significant amounts of weight have been known to lose vocal luster as well, Maria Callas being the most notable example." But Ms. Voigt has been performing regularly in the months since her recovery, and has been continued to garner rave reviews. The New York Times 03/27/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 7:18 am
Art That Makes You Go 'Huh?' Everyday life in Toronto has gotten decidedly weird lately. "You may have stumbled recently across neatly wallpapered bus shelters, perhaps being attended by a primly dressed man in a crinoline skirt... Trees, at times, have worn sweaters. Fire hydrants have been garlanded in cake icing. There have been knitted cosies for bike locks and public phone receivers, dress-up parties in Trinity Bellwoods Park, and a well-tended garden of ferns growing from the toilets and urinals of Metro Hall. Tiny gold trophies have been affixed around town, engraved with the slogan 'Good For You.'" Meet the Interventionists, artists determined to bring their work directly to the public, and to do so with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Toronto Star 03/26/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 7:03 am
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Pulling Strings Puppetry has not traditionally been one of the more respected theatrical forms (witness the hapless practitioner in the hit movie, Being John Malkovich), but in recent years it has begun to emerge from a fifty-year malaise in which puppeteers were relegated to entertaining young children who presumably didn't know any better. "In the era of special effects and computer-generated imagery, it is unabashedly low-tech. And it's an art form that stubbornly refuses to die." Baltimore Sun 03/27/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 8:42 am
Is American Idol Killing The Broadway Sound? The way performers sing in Broadway musicals is changing, and not for the better, says Ben Brantley. "Close your eyes and listen as their larynxes stretch and vibrate with the pain of being an underdog and the joy of being really loud. Bet you can't tell them apart. For that matter, bet you can't distinguish the heroines of the current Broadway musicals Wicked, Little Women and Brooklyn from the average female finalist on American Idol... The accent is on abstract feelings, usually embodied by people of stunning ordinariness, than on particular character. Quivering vibrato, curlicued melisma, notes held past the vanishing point: the favorite technical tricks of Idol contestants are often like screams divorced from the pain or ecstasy that inspired them." The New York Times 03/27/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 7:28 am
Sweet Charity Turns Sour The supposedly Broadway-bound revival of Sweet Charity starring Christina Applegate won't be making it to New York, after all. Intial test runs of the show in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Boston garnered mixed reviews, and Ms. Applegate broke her foot midway through the Chicago run, further depressing already-slow ticket sales. Facing the possibility of an expensive Broadway flop, the producers pulled the plug this weekend. New York Daily News 03/26/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 6:39 am
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N. Ireland Arts Mag Cut From Gov't Grant Rolls "Have you heard the one about the magazine that has been promoting arts and culture in Northern Ireland for more than 30 years but no longer gets a grant from the Arts Council of... er, Northern Ireland? This is not the beginning of some in-house south Belfast joke but sums up the current predicament of Fortnight magazine, the arts, culture and politics review that has been covering life in the Troubles-torn north of Ireland since the early 1970s." The Observer (UK) 03/27/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 10:02 am
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What If We Give It Away? "It looks like television networks have embraced an idea that record companies still find difficult to accept: Giving away your product -- temporarily, anyway -- can be a great promotional tool... Building online buzz by putting full episodes online has become such a hot marketing tool that there's speculation the BBC was behind the recent 'unauthorized' online release of an episode of its new Dr. Who series." Chicago Tribune 03/26/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 6:35 am
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Fonteyn & Nureyev: The Untold Chapter The onstage chemistry shared by Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev was unlike anything the dance world had seen before, and the magic they created together has, arguably, never been equaled. But a new biography and its soon-to-be-made companion film assert that they weren't only partners onstage. But wait, you ask, wasn't Nureyev gay? Well... yes. Sort of. But maybe not always. The Observer (UK) 03/27/05
Posted: 03/27/2005 9:50 am
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