AJ Logo Get ArtsJournal in your inbox
for FREE every morning!
HOME > Yesterdays


Monday, October 24




Ideas

Did You Know You've Been 20 Percent Patented? "A new study shows that 20 percent of human genes have been patented in the United States, primarily by private firms and universities. Researchers can patent genes because they are potentially valuable research tools, useful in diagnostic tests or to discover and produce new drugs. 'It might come as a surprise to many people that in the U.S. patent system human DNA is treated like other natural chemical products'." National Geographic 10/13/05
Posted: 10/23/2005 6:25 pm

Click here for more Ideas stories...

Visual Arts

Claim: Tate Bought Ofili Work After Plea From Agent The Tate Gallery spent £700,000 on buying Chris Ofili's "The Upper Room" after the artist's agent told the museum that Ofili was getting married and needed the money. Ofili is one of the Tate's trustees. The Telegraph (UK) 10/23/05
Posted: 10/24/2005 9:12 am

Shanghai Makes A Big Play For The Visuals "The forces of growth that have filled Shanghai's sky with construction cranes — China's national bird, in current parlance — have sparked a profusion of nonprofit exhibition spaces and commercial galleries devoted to avant-garde art. Against the odds, these showcases have popped up in a central park, a historic pedestrian street, a suburban shopping mall, abandoned banks and a derelict industrial complex. Beijing remains the undisputed cultural capital of China, but Shanghai is fashioning a role for itself as a distinctive place to see new art made in China and elsewhere." Los Angeles Times 10/23/05
Posted: 10/23/2005 6:30 pm

Bloomberg: WTC Developer Needs To Go New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the troubled rebuilding of the World Trade Center Site project would be better off if developer Larry Silverstein was booted out. "Abandoning his usually bland statements of support, the mayor said for the first time that New York would be better off if Silverstein were booted from the site. 'It would be in the city's interest to get Silverstein out, [but] nobody can figure out how to do it yet. And can you imagine the stink if you gave him half a billion dollars or a billion dollars in profit to get him out'?" New York Daily News 10/22/05
Posted: 10/23/2005 6:01 pm

Graves' New Children's Theatre Fails To Soar Minneapolis' Children's Theatre is one of the best in the country. And it has a new home, as designed by the eminent Michael Graves. "The spaces added in the $27 million expansion - a flexible 275-seat theater, a welcoming rotunda, an impressive education center and greatly enlarged backstage facilities - will advance the theater's enlarged mission and ensure its cultural legacy. But its workmanlike exterior does not advance Twin Cities architecture." The Star-Tribune (Mpls) 10/23/05
Posted: 10/23/2005 5:57 pm

Check-up: Cuno's First Year Running The Chicago Art Institute James Cuno has made an impact in his first year running the Chicago Art Institute. "He has been at the institute just over a year, which once was thought too little time for any head of a major art museum to make felt his or her presence. But recent thinking in the profession has tended toward making changes rapidly during the first year, while a director enjoys the strongest trustee support, and that's the way a number of former institute curators proceeded in directorships elsewhere, with mixed results." Chicago Tribune 10/23/05
Posted: 10/23/2005 4:07 pm

Click here for more Visual Arts stories...

Music

Pole Wins Chopin Competition Rafal Blechacz, 20, is the first Pole in 30 years to win the Chopin International Piano Competition. "The last time a Pole won the 78-year-old competition was 1975, when Krystian Zimerman captured first place and went on to a brilliant musical career." Eighty pianists from 18 countries entered this year's competition. ABCNews.au 10/23/05
Posted: 10/24/2005 9:01 am

How Technology Has Changed Music And Musicians Seems there's new technology every day to change the way we get music. Historically, "Mark Katz argues convincingly that technology has been instrumental in determining the types of music and musicians that have achieved popularity. " The Telegraph (UK) 10/23/05
Posted: 10/23/2005 5:51 pm

Product Placement - Musicians' Suits That Wick The Heat Players in the London Symphony have been testing out new concert clothes. "Marks & Spencer have been testing their special new high-tech dinner suit on players performing with Glyndebourne Festival Opera in Sussex over the summer. Made from Coolmax, a breathable fabric previously used only in high performance sportswear, the suits move moisture away from the body to the outside of the material in a process that is often described as wicking." The Independent (UK) 10/23/05
Posted: 10/23/2005 5:45 pm

Music Returns Slowly To N'Orleans Musicians are slowly returning to New Orleans. "Yet the birthplace of jazz remains a shadow of its once vibrant self -- where music poured from block after block of the French Quarter and beyond late into the night. Since Hurricane Katrina, the crowds are smaller, the streets darker, the venues limited and pay for musicians often minimal." Chicago Sun-Times 10/23/05
Posted: 10/23/2005 4:03 pm

Click here for more Music stories...

Arts Issues

Bloomberg's Arts Support (Not Universal Praise?) Sunday, the New York Times ran a story about NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg's generous personal support of the arts. But "oddly omitted from the article are any comments from the major arts advocates in the city, including those from the Alliance for the Arts and the New York City Arts Coalition, who have not been shy about expressing their disappointment with the Bloomberg administration for having an arts expense budget lower than it was during the final fiscal year that began under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani." Gotham Gazette 10/24/05
Posted: 10/24/2005 9:00 am

Goodbye Mass Marketing, Hello Buzzzzz Greg Stielstra, senior marketing director for the Book Group at Zondervan, one of the world's leading publishers of Christian books, "argues passionately that traditional mass marketing, which seeks to sell products and services to everyone, is no longer effective at selling anything to anyone. The societal influences that allowed mass marketing to prosper have disappeared, rendering mass marketing ineffective. New circumstances have created an opportunity for a different marketing approach." Philadelphia Inquirer 10/23/05
Posted: 10/23/2005 6:09 pm

Click here for more Arts Issues stories...

Publishing

Publisher Settles Over Jung Bio "Random House has ended a literary dispute over a biography of Carl Gustav Jung by publishing a new version this month in Germany without special annotations and material from the Swiss heirs who had complained about 'factual errors' and 'misleading' information about the psychiatrist." International Herald Tribune 10/13/05
Posted: 10/24/2005 9:03 am

Alt-Weeklies Merge Into Corporate The Village Voice and its chain of five other alt weeklies is merging with the New Times chain. "The deal would create a chain of 17 free weekly newspapers around the country with a combined circulation of 1.8 million." The New York Times 10/24/05
Posted: 10/24/2005 8:59 am

  • Not Much Alt About Alt-Weeklies Anymore Critics worry that the merger of Village Voice and New Times will corporatize the alternative weeklies. "Despite their liberal, anti-establishment pedigree, alternative weeklies such as New Times and Village Voice long ago became big business. They are free and stuffed with music and arts coverage, they rake in piles of cash from entertainment ads and personal classifieds. Village Voice Media is owned by a consortium of investment banks that beat out New Times five years ago." Washington Post 10/24/05
    Posted: 10/24/2005 8:58 am

In Publishing, All Roads Lead To Frankfurt Even in the era of instant electronic communication, the annual five-day Frankfurt Book fair is still the publishing world's event of the year. "In a way, the parties are now the real business. 'It's the chance to rub shoulders with these really intelligent writers and publishers, and to talk about books that you care deeply about. That's the reason you're in this field. You forget that sometimes in New York because of the overwhelming business-ness of it'." The New York Times 10/24/05
Posted: 10/24/2005 8:57 am

UK: Let's Keep Our Writers' Papers At Home There's a new campaign in the UK to try to stop the papers of important writers from being bought up by American institutions. "The campaign comes amid fears that the papers of Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith and Kazuo Ishiguro, author of The Remains of the Day, may go abroad. All three are understood to have been approached recently by agents acting for institutions in America. In recent years British authors whose papers have been sold abroad include the novelists Peter Ackroyd, Julian Barnes and Malcolm Bradbury and the playwrights David Hare and Tom Stoppard." The Times (UK) 10/23/05
Posted: 10/23/2005 6:33 pm

Click here for more Publishing stories...

Media

TV's Voodoo Accounting Two Hollywood talent agencies are suing Paramount, contesting the studio's claims that although the popular TV show "Frasier" has earned $1.5 billion dollars, it has lost $200 million. "Complaints about the way studios divvy up the profits are rampant within the industry. And it's not just the little guys doing the complaining." Los Angeles Times 10/24/05
Posted: 10/24/2005 9:06 am

TV Broadcasters Hit Big With Viewer Phone Participation Traditional TV ad revenue is down in Europe. But broadcasters are finding a great new stream of revenue from cell phones. "The tide of calls, televotes and text messages billed at premium rates of more than 1 euro a message are building a market that could top 750 million, or more than $900 million, in Europe by the end of the year. To hook viewers on their handsets, producers are focusing on universal topics like love and money, and eclectic ones like cosmetic surgery." TechNewsWorld 10/23/05
Posted: 10/24/2005 9:02 am

Canada Plays The Film Tax-Credit Game (And Plays It Well, We Might Add) "In the borderless world of movie making, the scramble over Hollywood's production dollars is a financial arms race of government subsidies. Eager to get the best deals, Hollywood skillfully pushes the ante up by playing off one another the myriad countries and states hungry for the dollars and glitz a film production generates. It used to be Canada and America. Now, everybody is competing for the film business." Los Angeles Times 10/23/05
Posted: 10/23/2005 6:27 pm

Click here for more Media stories...


 


Home | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy
Copyright ©
2002 ArtsJournal. All Rights Reserved