Newspaper As Art Facilitator The Guardian newspaper launches an international project to bring artists together. "Imagine if you put fourteen artists from seven different countries in a room together. What would they talk about? What would they learn? What would they reveal? Simply put, that's what imagine art after is all about. We can't put those artists together in one room - they're in locations as far-flung as Tehran and Tirana, London and Lagos - but, using the web, we can showcase their work, put them in touch with each other and get them to talk." The Guardian (UK) 10/31/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 6:39 pm
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Art Cologne Racks Up Sales "Art Cologne closes tomorrow after a six-day run on the tail of London's Frieze, which sold 26,000 tickets. The German fair's sales may reach 70 million euros ($84 million) this year, up from 60 million euros in 2004, preserving its status as Europe's No.2 modern and contemporary fair after Art Basel." Bloomberg.com 11/01/05
Posted: 11/01/2005 6:42 am
LA County Museum Unloads Some Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is selling off $10 million worth of art. "Exactly why the museum has decided to sell them now is not known, although income from the auction will be restricted to future acquisitions. (Rumors have circulated that a war chest is being assembled for a major purchase, but they remain unsubstantiated.) LACMA's plan to construct a new building — the Broad Contemporary Art Museum — is no doubt one force driving the idea, as construction of the Anderson Building for Modern and Contemporary Art was at the time of the museum's last big de-accession, in 1982. Bizarrely, one LACMA official said the museum was merely pruning redundancies, as if unique works of art were not — well, unique." Los Angeles Times 11/01/05
Posted: 11/01/2005 6:34 am
Italians Get Serious ABout Recovering Their Antiquities From American Museums Italian police are heating up their cases against museums that may have stolen art. "The Getty case is just a slice of an illicit global trade in antiquities that stretches from the Egyptian desert to Chinese tombs to Peruvian monuments, and pulls in some of the most- respected names in art and academia. At least 52 items the Getty has acquired or handled were looted or came from smugglers, according to charges against Hecht, Medici and True that were contained in Italian court documents obtained by Bloomberg News. Eight such pieces are in the Metropolitan, 22 are in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and one each are in the Princeton University Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art, the documents say." Bloomberg.com 10/31/05
Posted: 11/01/2005 6:20 am
- Boston's MFA Has Stolen Italian Artifacts? That's the charge of Italian authorities, who are said to have proof. "The claim, contained in court documents connected with the cases against a pair of art dealers and a former Getty curator with links to Boston, could put pressure on the MFA and a host of other museums to consider returning objects to Italy, according to antiquities experts who have been critical of the way museums acquire artifacts. Prosecutors list 22 MFA objects, including a 2,500-year-old Greek vase currently on display in a museum gallery." Boston Globe 11/01/05
Posted: 11/01/2005 6:18 am
NY Public Library Unloads Art The New York Public Library has been selling off some of its art treasures to bolster its budget. What's wrong with that, asks Lee Resenbaum? "The library's art disposals were marred by undue haste and inadequate oversight by its trustees and the New York State Attorney General's office. By selling the public's patrimony to buttress the budget, rather than contributing or raising the money themselves as should have been their first priority, the library's board and administration took the easy way out." Wall Street Journal 11/01/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 6:31 pm
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New Life For New Operas? "For decades now, the pattern has gone more like this: An opera company, spurred on either by a particular dramatic idea or some generalized sense of wanting to do what's right, commissions a new work from a composer of greater or lesser renown. An initial run is scheduled, perhaps followed (especially if there are co-commissioners) by a second production elsewhere. The world premiere comes off with lots of fanfare, and for a week or two, all eyes are on the company giving the premiere. Critics fly in from throughout the United States and Europe and proffer their opinions. Then the run ends and the opera is never heard again." But there are signs this pattern is changing... San Francisco Chronicle 11/01/05
Posted: 11/01/2005 8:32 am
Pittsburgh Freelancers Finding Jobs Scarce With Pittsburgh Ballet opting for recorded music, and touring shows like the Rockettes doing the same, finding work for Pittsburgh-area freelance musicians is becoming tougher... Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 11/01/05
Posted: 11/01/2005 8:25 am
A Thing For Arvo Pärt Last month composer Arvo Pärt turned 70. Pärt "has caught on because of the luminous beauty of his sound. It seems to come from somewhere beyond our normal experience and expectations. It haunts the ear. But just about every tribute to him I've read lately begins defensively, explaining that musical simplicity does not necessarily equal triviality. No, we are reminded, Arvo Pärt is not New Age. He isn't a Minimalist, as such. He's neither this nor that. We need no such reminders. Maybe he's not to everyone's taste, but he's loved and admired by a following that is wide and that breaks through categories." Los Angeles Times 10/30/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 9:59 pm
Fiber For Cello Luis Leguia couldn't find a cello he liked. "So he invented one himself using an unlikely material -- carbon fiber. And now he designs, manufactures, and sells carbon fiber cellos, violins, and violas through Luis and Clark Carbon Fiber Instruments, a company that he started five years ago and runs out of his home. Carbon fiber, strong but flexible, is strands of carbon tightly woven and set in resin. He has sold 100 cellos, 12 violins, and 20 violas." Boston Globe 10/30/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 5:37 pm
Doubt About A Bach Toccata Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for organ is one of the composer's best-known works. It's spooky, the theme for countless scary movies. "Turns out Halloween's soundtrack also has been cloaking its true form: The Toccata and Fugue probably was not written by Bach and almost certainly wasn't written for the organ. In music circles, that assertion is as scary as it gets. It's not every day such a famous work gets shaken to its foundations. However, scholarly consensus is building that the baroque master did not write his most well-known organ work." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 10/30/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 5:31 pm
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France Extends Cultural Hand To New Orleans France is offering a cultural helping hand to New Orleans in trying to rebuild the city. "Among the projects expected to be announced is an exhibition of some 50 works of art lent by the Louvre to the New Orleans Museum of Art for an exhibition tentatively scheduled for late 2006 or early 2007." The New York Times 11/01/05
Posted: 11/01/2005 7:50 am
St. Paul's Arts Mayor Loses Artists Over Bush Support By most accounts St. Paul's Randy Kelly has been a terrific mayor for the arts. "But artists, who generally lean to the left of center politically, are weighing that steadfast support against what many consider to be an unpardonable sin: The Democratic mayor endorsed Republican George W. Bush in the last presidential election. 'I know he's well-intentioned and a good guy, but that kind of collapse shows the lack of vision and strength that we need." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 11/01/05
Posted: 11/01/2005 7:33 am
The Line Between Knowing And Knowing Too Much "Do you understand a piece of music better if you know its secrets, or does illumination destroy mystery just as explaining a joke defuses its humor? Might audiences at classical music concerts be more receptive, not less, if they didn't read program notes? Is there a reason why so many people who profess to believe in the Bible haven't actually read it?" Los Angeles Times 11/01/05
Posted: 11/01/2005 7:26 am
No Beethoven In Schools? How Absurd "What does social reform and democracy mean, if great art is withheld from the populace? The ancien regime that confined the artistic canon to a prosperous few has no place in our culture. Nothing could be more patronising than to decide for our young people that some art is "too highbrow" for them, perhaps because of their ethnic background or an unpromising urban environment. The idea that the western artistic canon is not "relevant" in today's multicultural classroom need only be reversed to be exposed as ridiculous. Imagine decreeing that a class of white teenagers cannot relate to West African drumming." New Statesman 10/31/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 10:06 pm
So Audiences Are Older... And Your Point? "Though I have seen some strikingly young audiences for events in London and elsewhere while working with a touring company, you do quickly realise that the backbone of many audiences around the country is on the senior side of 60. There are certain venues where, if the comedy in a show is too raucous, you worry whether all of the audience is going to survive to the end of the show. As hearing aids produce their weird dog-whistle whine, and large sections mutter continuously to themselves, while other sections nod blissfully off, you can feel a little of the exasperation that impels the Arts Council. Yet is this anything new? The prejudice against the aged is always quick to surface, however dumb." The Guardian (UK) 10/31/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 6:48 pm
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"The Producers" Doesn't Pay Off In Australia The Producers has shut early in Australia, running only six months. "The show has made a modest profit but only because it ran for eight months in Melbourne last year. It's a far cry from Disney's family extravaganza, The Lion King, which packed out the Capitol Theatre for almost two years and is playing to full houses in Melbourne." Sydney Morning Herald 11/01/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 9:41 pm
Scotland's National Theatre Opens For Business "Scotland, for better or worse, has no great weighty theatre tradition behind it. There is no Shakespeare or Marlowe, no George Bernard Shaw or Wilde. Scottish theatre has always been demotic and vital, led by great performances, great stories or great playwrights. This is a chance to start building a new generation of theatre-goers as well as reinvigorating the existing ones; to create theatre on a national and international scale that is contemporary, confident and forward-looking; to bring together brilliant artists, composers, choreographers and playwrights; and to exceed our expectation of what and where theatre can be." The Guardian (UK) 11/01/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 7:03 pm
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Harry Potter US Sales Lagging? (2.5 Million Copies Unsold) "Even though Americans have bought 11 million copies of the latest epic adventure, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and the book remains at number two in the Publishers Weekly sales chart, Scholastic's adoption of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry's most famous pupil is causing it financial grief. Stacks of unsold copies are collecting dust in bookstores and warehouses across the US, and Scholastic - the world's largest distributor of children's books, and best known in the UK for Clifford the Big Red Dog - is bracing itself for an avalanche of returned copies." The Independent (UK) 10/30/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 10:14 pm
The "Silent Spring" Of Global Warming? "Following in the tradition of policy-changing books like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed, Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers, published in Australia four weeks ago, was cited by that country's Environment Minister in an announcement yesterday that the government will officially recognize and address global warning as a growing threat. Now the book’s American publisher, Grove/Atlantic, hopes it will prompt U.S. policymakers to do likewise." Book Standard 10/31/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 10:10 pm
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Are US TV Nets Adduing More Commercials? "Commercial time per hour on the networks hasn't gone up significantly since last season. However, over the past decade, the networks have gradually added two minutes of commercials. But commercials, particularly on ABC, are inserted in a way that can be maddening, leaving the impression of far less programming time." Rocky Mountain News 11/01/05
Posted: 11/01/2005 8:29 am
Does Hollywood Know How To Sell Stories About Women? "Hollywood knows how to sell a movie to the 12-to-24 age group. (See Doom and Saw II.) And it knows how to sell a movie to boys and men. But studios have less experience selling to an older demographic, especially when the headliners are female." Philadelphia Inquirer 11/01/05
Posted: 11/01/2005 7:55 am
Video iPod Videos Selling Big "Less than three weeks after unveiling its video iPod, Apple Computer has sold 1 million videos that play on the portable device. 'Selling 1 million videos in less than 20 days strongly suggests there is a market for legal downloads. Our next challenge is to broaden our content offerings'." New York Daily News 11/01/05
Posted: 11/01/2005 7:45 am
Hollywood's Alternate Reality "Since Hollywood is an industry dedicated to perpetrating illusion, its leaders often assume they have license to take liberties with the factual elements that support the movies they make. This practice is euphemistically described by marketing executives as 'pushing the reality envelope.' The way in which Hollywood crosses the boundary between the make-believe and the real world takes myriad forms." Slate 10/31/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 6:24 pm
Van Gogh, The Remakes In a tribute to murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, friends are remaking some of his films in American versions. "Each film will be shot on digital video in the rapid, three-camera style used by the late director. Filming will last only two weeks per title to keep the budget low and the intensity high. Unlike the last few of van Gogh's films, none of the remakes focus on religious or political themes, sticking instead to the sexy, provocative themes and edgy characters that made van Gogh both a pariah and favorite at home." The New York Times 10/30/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 5:44 pm
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World Cup Disses Bavarian Dance "Members of Bavaria's folk dancing association are incensed that they have been allocated just 45 seconds to perform during next year's World Cup opening ceremony on June 9 in Munich. Millions of TV viewers from across the globe are expected to watch the opening celebrations before the first match of the tournament between Germany and a team to be drawn next month. The folk dancers are also furious after organisers banned women from performing - leaving the men, who wear Lederhosen and Bavarian hats decorated with the beard of a mountain goat, to slap their thighs alone." The Guardian (UK) 10/31/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 6:56 pm
Moving On To War "War has haunted choreographers of all ages and artistic orientations in the past few years. Given that people's bodies serve as the medium of dance, it is hardly surprising that a struggle involving their destruction preoccupies the art. Still, choreographers are careful about how they approach the war in Iraq." Newsday 10/30/05
Posted: 10/31/2005 5:20 pm
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