The Genius Of the City "Humankind’s greatest creation has always been its cities. They represent the ultimate handiwork of our imagination as a species, compressing and unleashing the creative urges of humanity. From the earliest beginnings, when only a tiny fraction of humans lived in cities, they have been the places that generated most of mankind’s art, religion, culture, commerce, and technology." Next American City 04/05
Posted: 05/10/2005 7:56 pm
Click here for more Ideas stories...
The Art Of Giving Up Stuff A Corcoran student stands outside the gallery with nothing. It's a performance piece: "The piece began in January when Melissa Ichiuji started giving up things: coffee, television, soda and medication, followed in February by fast food and alcohol. As the seasons changed, she gave up cosmetics and chocolate, meat and magazines. Since the beginning of May, she's had: no newspapers, no music, no mirrors, no cell phone, no e-mail, no driving, no sex, no books, no family or friends or running water. No appliances, no speech, no clocks, no shoes, no food, no shelter. The idea is to let go of things that matter to the woman as a meditation on what matters most to the artist and, by extension, the audience." Washington Post 05/11/05
Posted: 05/11/2005 6:40 am
WTC Memorial Being Compromised It's official - plans for anything having to do with whatever replaces the World Trade Center are a big compromised mess. "Bit by bit, elements of Michael Arad's original design for the World Trade Center Memorial have been whittled away, whether because of logistical realities at ground zero (the memorial will be built above PATH train tracks), client demands (the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is calling the shots), the many other interests involved (the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site; victims' families; downtown residents) or the assorted architectural cooks (three other firms)." The New York Times 05/10/05
Posted: 05/11/2005 6:27 am
Warhol Portrait Of Liz Sells For $12 Mil An Andy Warhol portrait of Elizabeth Taylor has been sold in New York for $12.6 million. "The painting, which was made from a publicity photo in the year Taylor starred in the Cleopatra, just exceeded its pre-sale estimate of $9-12m. The portrait had been owned by the same person since 1965 and was bought by English diamond mogul Laurence Graff." BBC 05/11/05
Posted: 05/11/2005 6:22 am
Met Museum Injures Its Credibility With Uncritical Costume Show "Every year, in one way or another, museums test the public's faith in their integrity. Now comes the Met with its current Chanel-sponsored Chanel show, a fawning trifle that resembles a fancy showroom. Sparsely outfitted with white cube display boxes and a bare minimum of meaningful text, this absurdly uncritical exhibition puts Coco's designs alongside work by the current monarch of the House of Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld." The New York Times 05/11/05
Posted: 05/10/2005 7:29 pm
- Met Museum Shills For Chanel? "Substantially financed by the fashion house, "Chanel" is tainted by the same sort of self-interested sponsorship that brought notoriety to "Armani" at the Guggenheim Museum in 2000 and "Sensation," the 1999 Brooklyn Museum showcase for Charles Saatchi's collection. We expect better from the Met, an institution always admired as a guardian of professional standards." The New York Times 05/08/05
Posted: 05/10/2005 7:23 pm
Click here for more Visual Arts stories...
Canada's Music Brain Drain Calgary's best music students aren't staying in Canada for school. Instead they're being recruited by music schools in the US, who are offering scholarships. "Yes, it means we are losing our best and brightest, but it is the only way they can achieve recognition on a worldwide basis." Calgary Herald 05/10/05
Posted: 05/11/2005 7:51 am
Did Buena Vista Composers Get Ripped Off? A court in London considers whether composers of the music played by the wildly popular Buena Vista Social club were properly compensated. "The argument centres on whether the composers of music that took the world by storm in 1997 were properly rewarded or, instead, received "at most a few pesos and maybe a drink of rum". The plot is complicated by allegations that the Cuban publisher is under the direction and control of the Cuban ministry of the interior." The Guardian (UK) 05/11/05
Posted: 05/10/2005 5:44 pm
Yahoo! A New Music Store Yahoo! launches a discount music download service it hopes will attract downloaders away from illegal downloading. "Yahoo Music Unlimited is more like a cable TV service than a record store, letting subscribers play as much music as they wish for as long as they pay $6.99 a month or an annual subscription of $60." Los Angeles Times 05/10/05
Posted: 05/10/2005 5:15 pm
Adelaide Symphony Gets A Bailout "South Australia's government will give more than $2.1 million to help clear the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra's (ASO) debt. The state funding comes amid reports the ASO will get at least $5 million in federal funding in Tuesday night's budget." NineMSN 05/11/05
Posted: 05/10/2005 5:09 pm
Frankfurt Hires Paavo Järvi The Frankfurt Radio Symphony has signed up Paavo Järvi as its new music director. Järvi is also music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. The Estonian-born conductor has signed a three-year contract, effective with the 2006-07 season. Cincinnati Enquirer 05/10/05
Posted: 05/10/2005 4:31 pm
Aussie Orchestras Get Funding Boost Australian orchestras will get an additional $25 million in funding, says the government. "The extra funding for symphony and pit orchestras announced yesterday is to be spread over four years. It is designed "to help them become independent organisations with responsibility for their own artistic and financial future", Arts Minister Rod Kemp said. The Australian 05/11/05
Posted: 05/10/2005 4:28 pm
Click here for more Music stories...
Ben Mordecai, 61 "Benjamin Mordecai, associate dean of the Yale School of Drama, prolific commercial theatrical producer and nurturer of playwright August Wilson's 10-play cycle, died Sunday of cancer at the Yale. Wilson acknowledged his debt to his producer and friend, who helped develop the regional theater circuit where Wilson worked on his plays as they made their way to New York. Wilson said there were only two constants in the 10 plays: himself and Mordecai." Hartford Courant 05/10/05
Posted: 05/11/2005 6:08 am
Mark Boyle, 71 Boyle was a creative original. "With Joan Hills, his partner since 1957, he took part in Britain's first "happening," which scandalised Edinburgh in 1963, developed early light shows for rock groups like Soft Machine, toured America with Jimi Hendrix and, in his lifelong project, worked with Hills and their children, Sebastian and Georgia, on events, assemblages and their extraordinary "earth pieces" – lifelike facsimiles of the surface of the Earth." Glasgow Herald 05/08/05
Posted: 05/10/2005 5:18 pm
- Boyle - Unsung Hero Mark Boyle was one of the great unsung British artists of the late 20th Century. "Outside such circles, the Boyles have never fully achieved the degree of popularity merited by their art, although an important retrospective staged by Edinburgh’s Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2003 did much to redress this oversight." The Scotsman 05/10/05
Posted: 05/10/2005 5:04 pm
Click here for more People stories...
Minneapolis Company Wins Regional Tony "Theatre de la Jeune Lune, the inventive theater troupe conceived in Paris in 1978 before moving permanently to Minneapolis in 1985, has won this year's Tony Award for best regional theater. The award, announced Tuesday in New York City, honors a company's general artistic excellence and achievement. It comes with a $25,000 purse and will be presented June 5 at the Tony ceremonies." The Star-Tribune 05/11/05
Posted: 05/11/2005 6:17 am
NY Mag Fires John Simon New York Magazine has fired longtime theatre critic John Simon. "Jeremy McCarter, theatre critic for the New York Sun, was named as Simon's replacement. McCarter's first review for New York will appear June 1. Simon is known equally for his considerable erudition, his longevity as a critic (he is 79) and his vituperative style. His stinging reviews—particularly his sometimes vicious appraisals of performers' physical appearances—have periodically raised calls in the theatre community for his removal." Playbill 05/10/05
Posted: 05/11/2005 6:00 am
- Simon Firing - An Odd Move Terry Teachout on John Simon: "As the saying goes, John Simon has forgotten more about theater than I'll ever know. For all the controversies he stirred up over the years, he was and is a critic of the very first rank, not least because of his ability to place what he sees on stage in so wide and deeply informed a cultural context. Even when I disagree with him, I take no one else's opinions as seriously." About Last Night (AJBlogs) 05/11/05
Posted: 05/11/2005 5:50 am
Picking The Tonys Who will win this year's Tony Awards? Terry Teachout handicaps the field... About Last Night (AJBlogs) 05/10/05
Posted: 05/11/2005 5:04 am
Why Theatre? "Agreed, commercial theatre is too expensive. And, agreed, theatre, unlike TV and film, doesn't always look like 'real life'. And, yes, theatre can seem middle class and unexciting - particularly when, like these critics, you judge the entire art form on the basis of a few middle-of-the-road West End examples. Theatre, though, is alive. The performers are right there, their awfulness (if awful they be) as hard to avoid as beads of their sweat and spittle. Other people are there too, in the audience next to you. Theatre is an inescapably communal, corporeal experience." The Guardian (UK) 05/10/05
Posted: 05/10/2005 7:23 pm
Playwright Turns Down Prize Quebec playwright Wajdi Mouawad has turned down the prestigious Molière theatre prize to honour the greatest living francophone writer. "He declined the award, given for his play Littoral, saying the gesture was a protest against the indifference theatre directors have displayed toward his work." CBC 05/10/05
Posted: 05/10/2005 5:27 pm
Click here for more Theatre stories...
Oklahoma Legislature Votes To Move "Gay" Books To Adult Library Section Oklahoma's House of Representatives has passed a "nonbinding resolution calling for gay-themed children's books and other age-inappropriate material to be moved to the adult section of public libraries." The measure was introduced "after complaints from the parents of a 6-year-old who had checked out "King and King," a book about two young princes who fall in love, from a library in the Oklahoma City suburb of Bethany." Reuters 05/11/05
Posted: 05/11/2005 7:44 am
Click here for more Publishing stories...
BBC Workers Vote To Strike - Will Attempt To Shut Down Broadcaster Workers at the BBC have voted to stage a strike to protest plans to cut 3,780 jobs. "Members of the Bectu and NUJ unions have voted in favour of a walk-out - probably a 12- or 24-hour stoppage between mid-May and early June. The BBC is expected to try to minimise disruption but unions said they want 'black screens and dead air'." BBC 05/11/05
Posted: 05/11/2005 6:19 am
Art Of The (Movie) Deal Why do movies cost so much to make? "The art of the deal has come to replace the art of movies. To understand how the new Hollywood really works, one need only read stars' contracts..." Slate 05/10/05
Posted: 05/10/2005 7:52 pm
Ford Boosts Public TV, Radio Public broadcasting in America gets a big funding boost from a major new initiative from the Ford Foundation. "The initiative will funnel $50 million over five years to a baker's dozen of public television, radio and other media organizations. A major focus of the effort will be to spur the creation and distribution of public affairs programming, particularly programs dealing with international affairs. The Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio will receive the largest grants, $10 million and $7.5 million respectively." The New York Times 05/10/05
Posted: 05/10/2005 5:10 pm
Click here for more Media stories...
