Monday, October 17
BritArt Diplomacy Backfires A plan to try to improve relations between Britain and Morocco has through art has failed after the art offended the Moroccans. "Two of the works, notably an anatomical statement by Tracey Emin, have been withdrawn, while three others by artists including the Chapman brothers have caused offence because of their sexual nature." Sunday Times (UK) 10/16/05
Posted: 10/17/2005 8:42 am
One Person's Architecture Prize Is Another's Tear-Down "For one glorious, anarchic moment, it looked as if the Scottish Parliament might win this year's Stirling Prize, the architects' award for the best new British building, at exactly the moment the public voted that it was the one building in the country it would most like to see knocked down." The Telegraph (UK) 10/16/05
Posted: 10/17/2005 7:01 am
Planning For A New Biloxi Two hundred architects and planners gather in Biloxi to talk about rebuilding. "Over the two and a half hours, the participants grappled with priorities: neighborhood rezoning, downtown, museums and culture, casinos, beachfront, road system, building codes, transit development. They knew they could not do it all, but it was hard not to try. The topics addressed were literally all over the Biloxi map." The New York Times 10/17/05
Posted: 10/17/2005 6:33 am
Art Vandal Attacks Florence Again Italy's most notorious art vandal has struck again. "Piero Cannata, who earned worldwide notoriety by taking a hammer to Michelangelo's David, confessed to local newspapers in Tuscany that he had struck again in the very centre of Florence. It was discovered that somebody had sprayed a thick black "x" on a plaque, set into the paving of Piazza della Signoria, commemorating the burning to death of the 15th-century preacher and reformer Girolamo Savonarola." The Guardian (UK) 10/17/05
Posted: 10/16/2005 6:31 pm
London Architects Attack Plan To Leave City Out Venice Biennale "British Council officials, who will organise the UK exhibit at the Biennale, have triggered a row between architects by announcing plans to omit or, as they put it, "leave London behind" in next year's display. Instead they are inviting curators to submit proposals for the British pavilion that focus exclusively on the regions. London's best hope for attention is to be featured as part of the biennale's wider theme, the Meta City." The Guardian (UK) 10/17/05
Posted: 10/16/2005 6:29 pm
Exit Interview With A "Great Connoisseur" Sir Timothy Clifford has been director of the Scottish Museums for 21 years. He's been called one of the world's great connoisseurs, and has pulled off innumerable art coups. As he "steps down from his position as director general of the National Galleries of Scotland he has revealed how he relied on subterfuge to pull off some of the most ambitious coups in the international art world." Scotland on Sunday 10/16/05
Posted: 10/16/2005 6:25 pm
Scottish Parliament Is Year's Best Building The new Scottish Parliament building has won this year's Stirling Prize for architecture. "The project, designed by the Catalan architect Enric Miralles, who died aged 45 before the parliament could be completed, has been a major embarrassment to the politicians and civil servants who presided over skyrocketing costs that took the price from an initial estimate of £50 million, to a final figure of £431m." The Observer (UK) 10/16/05
Posted: 10/16/2005 6:18 pm
Victorian England - No Blacks Behind The Easel "The fact that no traces remain of any active black British artist in the 19th century is surprising, given that there were more black people here than is commonly thought. We don't know how many exactly, because ethnic origin was not recorded in the first in-depth national census of 1841, but it's clear that our visibility exceeded our numbers (not least because artists welcomed the opportunity black figures provided for contrast, and to use neglected parts of the palette)." The Guardian (UK) 10/15/05
Posted: 10/16/2005 6:15 pm
The Modern According To Perl Jed Perl has a new book out about art in New York between the 1940s and 70s. "Through the book's pages pour artists, critics, dealers, museum curators, museum-goers and the views Perl has intently constructed of them, drawing on archival materials, interviews and the old books and art catalogs he's collected over the years. Most important, perhaps, are his own responses to art, people and institutions. The book — its full title is "New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century" — is essentially a book of ideas, a critic's analytical meditation on how and why he thinks cultural history evolved as it did." Los Angeles Times 10/16/05
Posted: 10/16/2005 6:10 pm
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Another Florida Orchestra To Go Bust? South Florida's Renaissance Chamber Orchestra appears on the versge of going out of business. "With no advance warning, the ensemble failed to show up for its season-opening concert Sunday afternoon at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, leaving about two dozen puzzled audience members standing outside." South Florida Sun-Sentinel 10/17/05
Posted: 10/17/2005 8:45 am
Today's Music: What Sells In Concert Doesn't Sell On Disc Oldies bands are big on the road, selling out arenas and fairs. "The concert box office continues to be dominated by white guys old enough to be grandfathers. With all those seats filled, you'd think that all these wizened rockers must be moving boatloads of CDs, too. But the sales figures tell a different story." Philadelphia Inquirer 10/16/05
Posted: 10/16/2005 6:39 pm
Settlement In Montreal Symphony Strike? There's a tentative deal, say negotiators. Museums have been on strike since May. "Money was a key issue, with no agreement even on the musician's current status. The players say they work 38 hours a week for a base salary of $61,000, and then have to spend about a quarter of their income on maintaining and insuring their instruments. Management says the average annual salary is $75,000 for a 20 hour week." CBC 10/16/05
Posted: 10/16/2005 5:47 pm
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The Day Italian Culture Went On Strike Hundreds of Italian cultural events ground to a halt Saturday in a one-day strike to protest government arts-funding cuts. "A performance of Rossini's Barber of Seville at Milan's La Scala opera house was among scores of cancelled shows. Critics say the cuts could lead to the demise of thousands of cultural institutions, including such venerated events as the Venice Film Festival. 'In these conditions, the film festival cannot go ahead'." BBC 10/16/05
Posted: 10/16/2005 5:44 pm
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Classical Music/Theatre Hybrid Finds An Audience "While classical musical organizations increasingly struggle to draw people into the concert hall, and Broadway has more or less resigned itself to being a purveyor of 'products' that happen to be musicals, Hershey Felder has developed a hybrid form. He is one of those rare performers who can hold an audience in rapt silence while playing the most intimate Chopin nocturne or prelude, and then bring that same audience together to sing 'I'm Always Chasing Rainbows,' the 1940s standard whose melody is based on Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu in C# Minor." Chicago Sun-Times 10/17/05
Posted: 10/17/2005 8:30 am
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Poet, 79, Wins Literary Award Landis Everson wins a new literary prize for writers over 50 who have never published a book. "Everson, 79, quiet, pixieish and a little frail after a cataract operation, answered, smiling, 'Imagine, if you had written a letter to a friend in Chicago and you never had an answer, and you kept writing and writing and not getting any answer back, would you keep writing?' No matter. Mr. Everson will now receive the Emily Dickinson First Book Award of $10,000, with publication of his book underwritten by the foundation." The New York Times 10/17/05
Posted: 10/17/2005 6:29 am
Genre-ly Speaking It's A Bad Idea The publishing world is too hung up on genres, insisting that every book be categorized and ranked. "What is it, when Man Booker juries meet, that makes genres 'inferior'? Why is crime writing, with its 'very conscious structure'and ability to raise 'big moral issues' outside the box of introversion, such a poor relation of 'literary fiction'?" The Guardian (UK) 10/17/05
Posted: 10/17/2005 6:18 am
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Forgotten Saturdays So few people are watching TV on Saturday nights, the program schedule has become a wasteland. "Saturday has become the forgotten night for broadcasters, who aren't entirely sure what to do there anymore. They just know it's not worth spending much to seek an audience that clearly has other plans. The state of network television on Saturday nights has become so dire that ABC has essentially put a prime-time slot up for auction to anyone who has a compelling idea — as long as it's done very cheaply." USAToday 10/17/05
Posted: 10/17/2005 7:46 am
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Oakland Ballet Lives Again Last year Oakland Ballet canceled its season and laid off dancers because of financial problems. But this is the company's 40th anniversary, and this weekend was opening night. "Partly to honor the history of the company, and probably to attempt to win back the loyalty of those audience members who had not taken to Karen Brown's more adventurous programming since coming onboard in 2000, the program that ran Friday through Sunday was mostly a greatest hits kind of affair. That made it impossible to guess where the company may be going, or whether it will survive, but it was a good chance to re-examine the strengths of this plucky East Bay organization, as well as its blind spots." San Francisco Chronicle 10/17/05
Posted: 10/17/2005 7:53 am
Why Was Longtime Colorado Ballet Director Fired? "Company officials should be more than 'appreciative.' They owe much to this imaginative, passionate, flamboyant, demanding, difficult, temperamental man who, in the end, gave far more than he took. Pardon the cliché, but Colorado Ballet has very big shoes to fill." Rocky Mountain News 10/16/05
Posted: 10/16/2005 6:36 pm
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