Record Prices For Canadian Art Record auction prices for Canadian art fuel a brisk market for the resale of Canadian paintings. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/31/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 3:24 pm
Are Stadiums The New Museums? "Few famous architects had sullied their hands with stadiums before Herzog and de Meuron did so in Basle (for the club they support, FC Basle) and Munich. They are still building Beijing’s Olympic Stadium for the 2008 Games. All this signals a new era: stadiums are becoming keynote urban buildings, as cathedrals were in the Middle Ages and opera houses more recently. When Norman Foster’s new Wembley opens in 2006, it will be his first stadium in more than 40 years in architecture." Financial Times 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 2:53 pm
The Electric Brush An electronic brush promises to give artists more control of their digital work. "Unlike other painting programs that allow artists to pick up colors from a limited computer palette, I/O Brush lets people paint with colors and textures that might come from, for instance, a piece of fruit, a favorite shirt, a memento from a trip, a teddy bear or garden flowers. The brush contains a microphone, a miniature video camera, and sensors and is wired to a computer that runs a touch screen. An artist picks up "ink" from her environment by lightly brushing over the desired object." Discovery 05/27/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 2:48 pm
Ediface Complex "Almost all political leaders find themselves using architects for political purposes. It is a relationship that appeals to egotists of every description. That is why there are photographs of Hitler and Mussolini, Tony Blair and François Mitterrand and the first President Bush - as well as countless mayors and archbishops, chief executives and billionaire robber barons - each bowed over their own, equally elaborate architectural models looking just as narcissistically transfixed as the beatific Saddam beaming over his mosque." The Observer (UK) 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 2:43 pm
Questions About A Tasmanian Collection Although the Tasmanian Government will add $4 million to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery's annual budget over the next four years, the institution is in danger of becoming a target for dodgy donations according to well-placed art experts." Case in point: a donated collection of Chinese artifacts that may not be what they seem... The Age (Melbourne) 05/31/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 9:04 am
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EBay's Bootleg Biz Even as big recording companies prosecute downloaders for trading in copyrighted recordings, there's a better place to find illegal music: EBay. Sellers are offering lots of bootlegged recordings for sale, and for some reason no one's being sued. Rocky Mountain News 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 3:12 pm
Shock - Wigmore Hall Director Quits "In a move that has shocked the British music world, Paul Kildea, artistic director of the Wigmore Hall - regarded as one of the plum jobs in the arts - has resigned after just two years in the post." The Guardian (UK) 05/26/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 2:15 pm
Colorado Opera: You Will Donate Want a shot at the best seats in Colorado Opera's new theatre? It'll cost you the price of the tickets plus a "donation" of $100-$500 a seat. Gotta pay for that new building somehow. And the number of donors has gone up. Denver Post 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 1:34 pm
Ringing Endorsement - Ringtone Tops Music Chart For the first time, a cell phone ring tone is set to top the British music charts. "Crazy Frog Axel F," a ring tone based on the sound of a revving Swedish mo-ped, is the first tune being used on mobile phones to cross into mainstream music charts." Yahoo! (AP) 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 10:04 am
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The NEA Visits Congress Will the National Endowment for the Arts get a funding boost? There are recommendations for an increase. But still, some legislators balk at the idea of government support for the arts... Rocky Mountain News 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 9:49 am
A Culture Of Critical Decline Critics have declining influence? "It is dangerous to be defensive -- there's no question that the critics' lot has changed for good. Critics now have less power. To the degree that flows from the marginalization of serious cultural inquiry -- and it surely does -- that fact is to be mourned and fought back against. But to the degree it flows from the empowerment of the audience, reader or listener, it is to be cheered." Chicago Tribune 05/29/05
Posted: 05/30/2005 1:49 pm
Some Critics And Some Critical Traction What did America's critics hope to accomplish by getting together and talking last week? Dominic Papatola: "Will my fellow critics and I reach any grand conclusions here in La-La Land? Perhaps not. Maybe the best we can do is reassure ourselves that, in a world of increasingly slippery standards, we can help to give culture some traction. And then go back home and fight the good fight." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 05/29/05
Posted: 05/30/2005 1:30 pm
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Vilar In Jail "Alberto Vilar, a New York money manager and benefactor to that city's Metropolitan Opera, the Los Angeles Opera and other leading cultural institutions worldwide, was arrested late Thursday and charged by U.S. authorities with stealing $5 million in client funds, which he allegedly used to pay bills and continue his philanthropy." Los Angeles Times 05/28/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 12:32 pm
First American Woman Orchestra Member Dies At 101 "Elsa Hilger, 101, the first woman in the world, other than harpists, to be a permanent member of a major symphony orchestra, died May 17 at Wake Robin Retirement Community in Shelburne, Vt. Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Leopold Stokowski hired her as a cellist in 1934. She never missed a performance - except the day her son was born - until retiring in 1969. And she retired only because of union rules." Kansas City Star (KR) 05/25/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 9:55 am
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Stars Bid To Save London Theatre "Leading figures in British theatre have made impassioned pleas for London's Arts Theatre - which staged the director Sir Peter Hall's English-language premiere of Waiting for Godot 50 years ago - to be saved from demolition." The Guardian (UK) 05/28/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 2:20 pm
Rebirth Of The Broadway Musical "The resurgence of the musical as a creative form, evidenced in the length and diversity of West End queues, is no mere coincidence. Seeing several hits in close succession suggests a chain reaction, a common attitude. The Producers introduced a genre of self-mockery in which the action halts momentarily to reflect sourly upon itself. This hiatus device appeared at the NT as the so called Jerry Springer Moment and now, in Billy Elliot, as the episodes at the start of each act when the audience is exposed to the legend of British coalmining without the requirement of empathy that came with Daldry’s film." La Scena Musicale 05/28/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 10:07 am
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The New Texas Poet Laureate Alan Birkelbach has been appointed Texas' new poet laureate. He's "a Plano computer analyst whose co-workers didn't even know he wrote poetry." Dallas morning News 05/29/05
Posted: 05/30/2005 2:11 pm
Missed In Translation Why is so little literature translated into English these days? “Readers looking for books in translation are now likely to find, at best, a few really big names (Eco, Allende, etc.) and then a lot of obscure stuff, which reinforces the idea of translated-works-as-exotic: sort of like subtitled art-house films, a boutique industry attracting a small, steady audience, but one that finds it hard to attract the average consumer." New York Sun 05/29/05
Posted: 05/30/2005 12:40 pm
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Trailing Edge - Coming Attractions Movie trailers have become an artform intheir own right. "At the multiplex, it is now common for a theater to present seven, sometimes 10 trailers before the feature film (as is the case now with the latest "Star Wars" episode)." Now there's a festival to screen the best of them. "At the Golden Trailers, known as the Trailzees, organizers showed 95. It was like some kind of extreme scientific experiment you would perform with crack monkeys in cages. If it were legal." Washington Post 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 2:57 pm
Illinois Legislature Votes Video Game Ban The Illinois legislature votes to ban sales of violent or sexually explicit video games to minors. "Under the legislation, clerks who knowingly sell adult video games to minors could be fined $1,000. They could defend themselves by showing they did not know the buyer was a minor or that they followed the industry ratings on the games." Wired (AP) 05/28/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 2:11 pm
Bye Bye Rock (On The Radio) More and more radio stations are abandoning the rock music format. "With the share of people age 18-34 listening to modern-rock stations down more than 20 percent in the past five years - and with thriving numbers for 13-21-year-olds, a demo some big advertisers don't care about - rock radio should be on a quest to redefine itself. But it's not. " Denver Post 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 1:42 pm
Sound Of Music At 40 "Forty years ago this Memorial Day weekend, "The Sound of Music" was not just the summer movie of 1965. It was the spring, fall and winter one, too, and in inflation-adjusted dollars, it remains the third-biggest-grossing film of all time at the domestic box office, according to Box Office Mojo. It hit the Billboard Top 40 video sales chart shortly after it became one of the first movies ever released on home video in 1979, and still holds the chart's longevity record, of more than 300 weeks and counting." The New York Times 05/30/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 1:25 pm
Rolling Over Star Wars Star Wars is a juggernaut that has little to do with whether or not it is a good movie (which many critics say it is not). "Whether the final Star Wars installment is good or bad seems largely irrelevant. Regardless of what ink-stained critics aver, the benighted masses that queue up at theaters at 3 in the morning will continue to debate the philosophical intricacies of C-3PO, Anakin Skywalker and Count Dooku with all the gravity and entrail scrutiny with which monastics once pondered Cartesian dualism." The Sun-Sentinel (Florida) 05/29/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 12:26 pm
Star Trek Star Takes His Role To Internet Fan Film A character from the original Star Trek TV show has agreed to star in an internet fan film that continues the series story line. "The actor's appearance in the yet-to-be-made film, titled To Serve All My Days, is a watershed: it marks the first time in the internet age that a regular player from the much-loved show has reprised his role in a fan-produced project." CBC 05/28/05
Posted: 05/31/2005 9:06 am
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Colorado Ballet Won't Buy New Home The Colorado Ballet has given up plans to buy a new home. "The decision comes a little less than two months after the ballet disclosed that it would not present the $800,000 to $1 million premiere of a ballet version of "Alice in Wonderland." The work was to be part of the opening of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House in the fall." Denver Post 05/28/05
Posted: 05/30/2005 12:02 pm
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