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Wednesday, June 15




 

Ideas

Tearing Down Celebrity With A Simple Photo The end of the Michael Jackson molestation trial sparked a predictable run of outrage in the tabloid papers which had already convicted the pop star in their pages. Phil Kennicott says that the use of celebrity photos to tear down individuals deemed to be too big for their britches has been elevated to a horrifying art form in recent years. "The camera is the weapon of last resort against celebrity. The camera is, of course, essential to the making of celebrities, but it can also break them with extraordinary speed and efficiency. The perp walk, the mug shot and photographs such as those [of Jackson] that ran yesterday are a populist scourge against people who are presumed to live by laws more lax and accommodating than those to which mere mortals are subject." Washington Post 06/15/05
Posted: 06/15/2005 7:09 am

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Visual Arts

T.O.'s Power Plant Gets A New Sparkplug "Sources close to The Power Plant, Toronto's premier non-collecting showcase for cutting-edge contemporary art, confirmed yesterday that a search committee has picked Gregory Burke to succeed Wayne Baerwaldt as the gallery's director. Baerwaldt, who came to The Power Plant in March, 2002, after running Winnipeg's Plug In Gallery for 13 years, announced his resignation in February and completed his term in Toronto June 2. Burke is currently in Venice overseeing New Zealand's participation in the city's famous Biennale. He also was curator of New Zealand's first-ever presentation at the Biennale, in 2001. For the last seven years he's been director of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth on New Zealand's Northern Island." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/15/05
Posted: 06/15/2005 6:12 am

Venice - A Confusing Feast Adrian Searle find much to like at this year's Venice Biennale, but there's too much to get your head around. "The Venice Biennale is filled with nullities and profundities, the silly and the serious. Always, there is too much to see, things to forget and things that surprise and confuse. Confusion is good, but there's too much of it, even though this is a smaller, better biennale than the previous two editions." The Guardian (UK) 06/14/05
Posted: 06/14/2005 11:14 pm

Shiny Musums Do Not Great Art Make "Over the past decade, as a result of a government initiative called Renaissance in the Regions and through the huge amount of investment made by the Heritage Lottery Fund, there has been the beginning of a transformation in museums and galleries throughout Britain. All of this is good news. But it has become increasingly clear that museums and galleries cannot live on capital projects alone. There is no point having beautiful, gleaming new museums and galleries with the most up-to-date facilities and cafés if they don't have the money to buy works of art." The Telegraph (UK) 06/15/05
Posted: 06/14/2005 11:08 pm

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Music

Toronto Music School Hits Fundraising Target Early Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music has reached its CAN$60 million fundraising goal early, and a groundbreaking ceremony was held this week for the school's spectacular new Telus Centre for Performance & Learning. The early start was made possible when an elderly alumnus of the school chipped in an unexpected CAN$2 million gift to put the campaign over the top. The new building will provide the RCM with "two floors of academic space, more studios and classrooms, and state-of-the-art technology facilities." A second round of fundraising, with a goal of CAN$25 million, will begin in the fall. Toronto Star 06/15/05
Posted: 06/15/2005 7:03 am

Opera To Symphony: Thanks, But No Thanks Negotiations have broken off between the Houston Symphony Orchestra and the Houston Grand Opera, talks which would have returned the HSO to the HGO pit for the first time in four years. The symphony had sought to once again become the official pit orchestra of the opera as part of an effort to right its financial ship, which has been listing badly in recent years. But after hearing the HSO's proposal, the opera chose instead to sign a new 6-year contract with its in-house orchestra. Houston Chronicle 06/15/05
Posted: 06/15/2005 5:22 am

Opera In English - Bring On The Surtitles... So English National Opera is going to use English supertitles for its productions in English. This is a great thing, writes Anthony Holden. "The fundamentalist objection is that you can't do two things at once: read the words while listening to them properly. But the problem is that, half the time, you simply cannot make out the words - in English or any other language." The Observer (UK) 06/12/05
Posted: 06/14/2005 11:28 pm

An Opera Talent Show That Works (At Least It's Fun) Opera-tunity is a TV show documenting the search for raw operatic talent, and its fabulously entertaining TV, writes Noel Holston. "The challenge that the English National Opera set for itself was to see if its scouts and coaches could find amateur singers - people with great instruments but against whom life otherwise had conspired - and bring at least one or two of them to a professional level in a matter of months. The ENO got 2,500 video applications, from people literally singing in the shower to roofers belting from the ramparts." Newsday 06/14/05
Posted: 06/14/2005 10:28 pm

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Arts Issues

How To Survive Russian Roulette It was last November when first-year grad student Joseph Deutch pulled out a gun in his UCLA performance art class and proceeded to play Russian Roulette in front of his horrified classmates and professor. Since then, two tenured professors have resigned in protest of the university's failure to immediately suspend Deutch, calling his actions "domestic terrorism," and a full investigation has been completed by the school. But Deutch remains enrolled at UCLA, and the dean of students says that there are no plans to expel him. Los Angeles Times 06/15/05
Posted: 06/15/2005 6:24 am

Should Music Have A Place In Museums? When the Los Angeles County Museum of Art unceremoniously dumped a long-running music series it had hosted for nearly two decades this spring, museum officials explained that the move was part of a decision to focus on LACMA's core mission of bringing art to the public. Mark Swed is skeptical of this line of thinking: "Money doesn't seem to be the overriding concern. The museum's music programming has always been done on the cheap. Many of the series have underwriting... Never have the arts been more suited to interaction than they are now. And never before have art museums been better equipped to be laboratories for such chemical combustion. Los Angeles Times 06/15/05
Posted: 06/15/2005 5:34 am

If You Build It, Will We Come? The city of Roanoke, Virginia, is attempting to raise $46 million to build a museum designed by Randall Stout, and the project has the town buzzing. But are high art and small cities in the Blue Ridge Mountains really meant for each other? "The danger is that outsiders will embrace it, but we - the natives - won't." In fact, it all sounds suspiciously like this one episode of The Simpsons... Roanoke Times (VA) 06/15/05
Posted: 06/15/2005 5:11 am

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Theatre

The Show That Might Be Too Good For Broadway "Is it too English? Will it be too expensive? Can they cast it? Will it resonate with Americans? These are the questions confronting the producers and creators of Billy Elliot as they contemplate a Broadway production of what critics [in London] are calling the best British musical ever... [The show] probably can't be done for less than $12 million to $14 million and, with its large cast and crew, will surely have a weekly running cost of $600,000 or more... Casting is another issue. Child labor laws aren't as strict in the United States as they are in England, but because of the physical demands of the show, [the UK director] says it's essential to have three, 'ideally four,' Billy Elliots. Where to find them?" New York Post 06/15/05
Posted: 06/15/2005 6:35 am

Edinburgh Theatre Auctions Fringe Spot On eBay An Edinburgh theatre is turning to eBay to try to find a sponsor for this summer's Fringe Festival. "The Bedlam Theatre, in the city centre, needs £1,600 to pay for the cost of printing 8,000 programmes after an increase in pages due to an extended list of shows. The eBay entry was started at 99p yesterday, with ten days until the close of auction." The Scotsman 06/14/05
Posted: 06/15/2005 12:15 am

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Publishing

Publishers Cut Out The Middleman "Major book publishers are preparing to boost their business by selling directly to consumers from their websites, a move that has booksellers spooked about being squeezed by their own suppliers." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/13/05
Posted: 06/14/2005 10:41 pm

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Media

48 Hours Of Chaos, Beer, And Art Call it a gimmick, call it a waste of resources, but there's no question that the 48-Hour Toronto Film Challenge, which dares amateurs to put together a short flick featuring several mystery elements in only two days, is a hell of a good time for those involved. Unless, of course, you miss the deadline by five minutes... Toronto Star 06/15/05
Posted: 06/15/2005 6:57 am

It's Awfully Big, But At Least It's Canadian Following the recently announced merger of Canadian cinema chains Cineplex Galaxy and Famous Players, 63% of Canada's movie screens will be controlled by a single company, an unheard-of situation for a country that fanatically protects its native culture against incursions from Hollywood. But behind the deal is a single individual, 51-year-old immigrant Ellis Jacob, who has quietly risen through the ranks to become a major player on the international film scene. Jacob points out that while the merged company might resemble an American-style corporate monolith, it will also represent the first time that a majority of Canadian movie screens have been controlled by a Canadian company. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/15/05
Posted: 06/15/2005 6:16 am

Yet Another Ombudsman For Public TV "Facing charges of political bias and a threat to its funding from Congress, the Public Broadcasting Service yesterday adopted an updated set of editorial standards and announced that it would add an ombudsman who will report directly to PBS President Pat Mitchell. The action comes in the wake of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's hiring of two ombudsmen in April," a move which has been widely criticized as being politically motivated. Baltimore Sun 06/15/05
Posted: 06/15/2005 5:54 am

Clear Channel On The Splits A few years ago Clear Channel was buying up thousands of American radio stations, becoming the giant of the business. But now it's splitting off some of its enterprises as the aggressive growth backfired. "In the past year alone, its stock is off 25%, to about $29, even after the company bought back about 10% of outstanding shares starting in April, 2004. That's a steep drop from about $80 a share at its buying peak in 2000. The formerly cocksure Clear Channel is a humbled enterprise." BusinessWeek 06/14/05
Posted: 06/14/2005 10:17 pm

Radio Turns To High Def Traditional radio is facing challenges. Perhaps a solution to some of them might be high definition broadcasting. "More than 370 radio stations are now broadcasting in high definition, a digital format that boosts audio quality and limits static. A handful have begun experimenting with digital "multicasting," which allows broadcasters to spawn inexpensive sister stations and could give traditional radio a fighting chance against the pumped-up variety of satellite and internet competitors." Wired 06/14/05
Posted: 06/14/2005 10:00 pm

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Dance

Doing The Ballroom Vegas We're in the midst of a ballroom dancing craze. "Ballroom dancing in its pure form, as enjoyable social dance between two people, is still practiced in the school classes and, maybe, at health clubs. People of all ages and shapes like to move their bodies, and to do so in supportive, friendly, nonjudgmental contexts. The present-day ballroom mania, however, is far from such innocence. Most of these contests and films and television shows emphasize competition based on the flashiest moves and glitziest costumes: Las Vegas meets ice dancing. " The New York Times 06/15/05
Posted: 06/15/2005 12:01 am

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