Reaching For The Sky (Terrorism Be Damned) Following the 9/11 attacks, commentators and prognosticators swore up and down that this would mark the end of the global quest to have the tallest building dominating a city skyline. It hasn't worked out that way. "Architecture buffs revel in the lore of such competition, recalling how the Chrysler Building beat out the Bank of Manhattan tower in 1929 with the last-minute hoisting of a secretly planned stainless steel top. In 1931, of course, the Chrysler was bested by the Empire State Building, which yielded the title to the World Trade Center four decades later... For all the talk about jitters deterring potential tenants of a future Freedom Tower, the 9/11 terrorist attack has done little or nothing to diminish a global appetite to touch the sky." The New York Times 07/27/05
Posted: 07/26/2005 8:49 pm
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Good News/Bad News At MIA "The Minneapolis Institute of Arts balanced its $21 million annual budget and raised attendance but saw its membership fall more than 8 percent in the fiscal year that ended June 30. The year was a difficult one in which the museum continued a $50 million expansion designed by architect Michael Graves even as it lost longtime director Evan Maurer, whose resignation for health reasons became effective in February. Maurer, who had been incapacitated much of the previous year, began a leave of absence in September that culminated in his departure after 16 years at the museum's helm." Minneapolis Star Tribune 07/27/05
Posted: 07/27/2005 6:44 am
- Previously: Griswold To Minneapolis The acting director and chief curator at L.A.'s J. Paul Getty Museum, who took his name out of the running for that museum's permanent directorship three months ago, has been snapped up by the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. William Griswold will take over as president and director of the MIA this fall. "The Minneapolis job is considered to be a plum because the museum, although smaller and less well-endowed than its counterparts in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, has an enviable collection of paintings, drawings and decorative arts that are often sought for loan exhibitions around the world." Minneapolis Star Tribune 07/21/05
The Accidental Blockbuster "'Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre,' the new exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, is showing signs of turning into an unexpected blockbuster. About 20,000 people saw the show in the eight days after it opened on July 16... Ticket sales leveled off in the second week, but by the end of the week, about 27,600 people had seen 'Toulouse-Lautrec'... Box office is so boffo that Art Institute officials are entertaining the possibility that [the show] could substantially exceed its projected attendance of 250,000." Chicago Sun-Times 07/27/05
Posted: 07/27/2005 6:12 am
The Penguin Smell Really Should Have Been A Giveaway American artist Wayne Hill thought he was making a fairly plain and obvious statement when he returned from a trip to the Antarctic with two bottles of water melted from the ice shelf, and arranged to exhibit them as a comment on global warming. As it turns out, the work was a bit too subtle for one thirsty visitor, who apparently chugged the lot. The Guardian (UK) 07/27/05
Posted: 07/26/2005 8:29 pm
Adelaide To Get All Giga-Faceted The 2006 edition of the Adelaide Festival will aim to heal the wounds left by the much-maligned 2002 version overseen by Peter Sellars, and the latest thinking appears to be that a merger of art and technology is the best way for the festival to move forward. "It is minimalist, futuristic and, to use one of [festival] director Brett Sheehy's buzz phrases, 'reflective of the giga-faceted world in which we live'." The Age (Melbourne) 07/27/05
Posted: 07/26/2005 8:15 pm
Australia Losing Two Important Aboriginal Works "Two important paintings by the famed Aboriginal artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri that sold at a Sotheby's auction on Monday have gone to overseas collectors. It is believed the National Gallery of Australia had hoped to buy Emu Corroboree Man as it was the first painting Clifford Possum produced. The gallery appears to have lost out when furious bidding pushed the price to a record for the artist. Melbourne art dealer Irene Sutton bought the small work for $411,750, which she said was on behalf of an American collector... As it was brought back from the US for the sale, it is not covered by Australia's Moveable Cultural Heritage Act, which restricts the removal of early Aboriginal works from Australia. The second Clifford Possum, a wall-sized painting titled Man's Love Story, was bought by a French collector also for $411,750. It also falls outside the heritage act." The Age (Melbourne) 07/27/05
Posted: 07/26/2005 8:12 pm
Atlanta Art Schools To Merge The Atlanta College of Art has announced a plan which would remove it from the city's umbrella organization, the Woodruff Arts Center, and would see it join forces with the new Atlanta campus of the Savannah College of art and Design. SCAD "now has more than 7,000 students enrolled in classes at its flagship Savannah campus. About 150 students have signed up for fall classes at the Atlanta location, and SCAD projects that 600 students will be enrolled by 2008. About 350 students attend the Atlanta College of Art, which calls itself the oldest private college of art and design in the Southeast." News of the proposed merger came as a shock to faculty at both schools, and there are issues of accredidation to be considered, as well. Atlanta Journal-Constitution 07/27/05
Posted: 07/26/2005 7:52 pm
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Elektra Too Pricey For Houston The Houston Symphony, which has been struggling with deficits for several years, has cancelled plans for a concert version of Richard Strauss's opera, Elektra, and replaced it with a program of operatic excerpts, which will be considerably cheaper to put on. The orchestra has also cancelled a planned new series of concerts designed to draw new audiences with theme concerts and onstage commentary. PlaybillArts 07/27/05
Posted: 07/27/2005 5:48 am
Is Less Classical Music Really A Problem? Rupert Christiansen has plowed through Blair Tindall's supposedly scandalous new book, and is most intrigued with the author's assessment of the state of the classical music industry. "A glut of young musicians were groomed to enter a profession that was both puffed up and weighed down with its own status and restrictive practices... [But] too much of the recent debate about classical music has focused on the decline in the quantity of performance or the size of audience, compared with the levels achieved in that brief post-war boom. Yet the quality of music-making should also be considered, and surely nobody who heard the Royal Opera's Die Walküre or John Eliot Gardiner's Nelson Mass at the Proms last week could come away worrying about a decline in standards." The Telegraph (UK) 07/27/05
Posted: 07/27/2005 5:10 am
Melbourne Goes Pop (Sort Of) The Melbourne Symphony is launching a new series of pops concerts to go along with its classical offerings, prompting consternation from some corners of the business in which such shows are thought to represent a dumbing down of the product. But to judge from what's being placed on the pops shows, these will be a far cry from the pops shows played by many American orchestras, in which 100 classically trained musicians become a droning backup band for an aging pop star. The Melbourne series will be more in the model of Arthur Fiedler's old Boston Pops concerts, featuring light classics and jazz-influenced works. The Age (Melbourne) 07/27/05
Posted: 07/26/2005 7:58 pm
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Does NJ Arts Funding Favor Democrats? In New Jersey, where political corruption is as ordinary as summer rain, the state arts board last week announced its annual dispensation of funds, and immediately, a question arose. Why exactly would such a large percentage of the overall funding be going to counties with a preference for Democratic legislators, while Republican counties were generally underfunded? Members of the arts board "lacked specifics as to why groups in one county got more than another, beyond that their applications may have been more noteworthy. They stressed politics plays no role and said evaluators are experts." Some others in the state theorized that the Republican counties are less urban, and their arts groups less sophisticated at writing grant proposals. Asbury Park Press (NJ) 07/27/05
Posted: 07/27/2005 5:37 am
On The Plus Side, Hypocrisy Has A New 'Exhibit A' Conceptual artist Mark McGowan has been informed by London's water board that, if he does not dismantle his latest installation, which consists of a tap running continuously and the water swirling down a drain, the board will cut off water service to the entire gallery in which the work is being displayed. McGowan's intention was to highlight waste, which one could argue he has now done quite effectively, pouring some 800,000 litres of water into the London sewers in the midst of one of the worst droughts southeast England has seen in decades. The tap was originally meant to run for an entire year. The Guardian (UK) 07/27/05
Posted: 07/26/2005 8:23 pm
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American Woman Current controversies aside, Marin Alsop's journey to the directorship of the Baltimore Symphony began decades ago, and didn't come about because she was looking to be a pioneer. She just wanted to conduct, and saw no reason why, in the 20th century, a woman shouldn't be able to do that. But regardless of gender, it's extremely hard to become a professional conductor - after all, you have no instrument to practice on, unless you can convince a group of 6 dozen or so friends to let you practice on them. Further, being an American is arguably a bigger impediment to success than being female. Alsop's ascension to the top conducting ranks may be instructive not only for women, but for all young musicians looking to wave the baton themselves someday. The Herald (Glasgow) 07/27/05
Posted: 07/26/2005 7:43 pm
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Rea Blocked From American Appearance "American Equity, the professional actors' union, has invoked contractual and financial barriers that make it impossible for Stephen Rea, noted Irish film and stage actor, to appear in Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre's long-advertised world premiere of "Henry" by Irish playwright Thomas Kilroy... The impasse between Equity and PICT over Rea was because the Small Professional Theatre contract with Equity under which PICT operates states, 'Non-resident aliens shall not be employed in Small Professional Theatre productions.'" Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 07/27/05
Posted: 07/27/2005 7:27 am
The Next Davidson It's not easy being the son of a legend. Just ask Adam Davidson, who has started to carve out a name for himself in the L.A. theatre scene, even as he simultaneously attempts to slip out from under the considerable shadow cast by his father, Gordon, head of the Center Theater Group for 40 years. Los Angeles Times 07/27/05
Posted: 07/27/2005 6:39 am
Black Theatre In The UK Looks To Move Forward England's Arts Council has denied a funding request for a new dedicated black theatre called Talawa, setting off a storm of criticism from the company. But not everyone is sure the council's decision will hurt black theatre in London. "While nobody in the black theatre community... is glad to see the project fail, and all express concern about Talawa's now uncertain future, many see this as an opportunity to reassess the needs of black theatre in Britain when its profile is undergoing significant changes." The Guardian (UK) 07/27/05
Posted: 07/26/2005 8:35 pm
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Harry Potter & The Language Barrier The unusual level of security surrounding the release of the latest Harry Potter book has led to an unusual problem in the international marketplace: translators didn't get to begin working on foreign versions of the text until mid-June, and at 672 pages, there's a lot to work through. The Spanish language edition, for instance, won't be on shelves until next spring. The first translations (German and Mandarin Chinese) are expected to be available this fall. The Globe & Mail (AP) 07/27/05
Posted: 07/27/2005 6:22 am
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Payola Got Creative In The '90s Paying radio DJs to play certain songs has been illegal since the 1960s, but by the late 1990s, the recording industry and the radio world were essentially winking at each other as more sophisticated and creative forms of payola came to be almost routine. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's settlement this week with Sony may be only the first of many legal proceedings to come. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 07/27/05
Posted: 07/27/2005 7:20 am
Karla's Story May Meet Resistance In Canada A lawyer representing the families of victims of Canada's most notorious serial killers, Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo, says that he may try to stop distribution of a new Hollywood film about the horrific killings by citing Canada's child pornography laws. Homolka and Bernardo's victims were underage, and were sexually abused and tortured before being killed, a terrifying ordeal which still haunts the entire country. Producers say that while the film is quite disturbing, it is not overly graphic, and attempts to show the crimes from Homolka's perspective, rather than focusing visually on what was done to the victims. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/27/05
Posted: 07/27/2005 6:27 am
Living Well Is The Best Revenge What do you do when your TV network's critically acclaimed programs get snubbed year after year by the Hollywood insiders who pick Emmy nominees? Well, if you're the WB, you keep your mouth shut, smile and wave at the more fortunate networks... and then schedule the broadcast premiere of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers directly opposite the Emmy telecast. Chicago Tribune (Zap2It) 07/27/05
Posted: 07/27/2005 6:16 am
The Cows Are Partial To Morgan Spurlock When you think of a film festival, you probably picture crowded city streets, with sleek, gritty, and urbane theatres screening cutting-edge films with unusual camera angles. What you probably don't think of is a barn 40 miles south of Duluth, Minnesota. "The barn's mow is permeated with the aura of old-time agriculture. It's also, as the site of the 2005 Free Range Film Festival, outfitted with high-end sound and projection equipment, rows of chairs and old couches, and a 24-by-14-foot movie screen made from an old billboard... And they won't just show two days of films about rural life. This year the festival received 70 submissions, from places as far-flung as Italy, Australia, and Grand Rapids." City Pages (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 07/27/05
Posted: 07/27/2005 6:00 am
Today's War, Today's Television The question for filmmakers and TV executives following some horrific global event or, worse, a full-fledged war, is always the same: how much time is enough? How long until the public will be ready to be entertained by this subject? Usually, the answer is measured in years, which makes Stephen Bochco's new series groundbreaking on its face. Bochco is attempting to tell the stories of the still highly controversial Iraq war while the conflict is still going on. The New York Times 07/27/05
Posted: 07/26/2005 8:45 pm
News Flash: File Traders Are Actually Music Fans! "Computer-literate music fans who illegally share tracks over the internet also spend four and a half times as much on digital music as those who do not, according to research published today. The survey confirms what many music fans have informally insisted for some time: that downloading tracks illegally has also led them to become more enthusiastic buyers of singles and albums online. Unlikely to be music to the ears of record companies, who have previously argued the opposite, the results will raise a question mark over the companies' recent drive to pursue individual file sharers through the courts." The Guardian (UK) 07/27/05
Posted: 07/26/2005 8:21 pm
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Promotions In Beantown Boston Ballet has promoted seven dancers for the upcoming season, but the personnel changes are nothing like the upheaval that occurred after artistic director Mikko Nissinen's first season in the Hub. "When the upcoming season opens in October with 'Cinderella,' 37 of the 45 dancers on Boston Ballet's roster will have been brought in by Nissinen." Boston Globe 07/27/05
Posted: 07/27/2005 6:08 am
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