Need A Second Source? Try Orwell. There are times when a regular observer of journalism wonders what authors ever did before George Orwell came along to provide them with enough platitudes and philosophies to support whatever they happened to be writing about on a given day. Catherine Bennett suggests that Orwell has perhaps surpassed Jesus as everyone's favorite quote machine. "In fact, to look at the places where his wisdom has been invoked recently is to wonder if there is anyone, excepting Stalinists, who would not think better of an opinion knowing it to be one that Orwell endorsed, or would have done had he ever got the chance to hear about it." The Guardian (UK) 04/13/06
Posted: 04/12/2006 6:33 pm
The Manhood Problem There was a time when everyone pretty much knew what it meant to be a man, to the extent that anyone even asking the question would probably have earned a quizzical look. These days, manliness is as nebulous as concepts come, and Justin Davidson says that "masculinity is being constantly renegotiated, and men find themselves walking an invisible line, where self-assurance spills into arrogance, aggressiveness into bellicosity, stoic fortitude into cold indifference, sexual assertiveness into rapaciousness." Newsday (New York) 04/13/06
Posted: 04/12/2006 5:37 pm
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What Would A $1 Admission Charge Cost The Smithsonian? Some in Congress have proposed that the Smithsonian raise funds by instituting a $1 admission charge for its historically free museums. The plan could raise $25 million a year, but that's assuming that everyone who walked through the door last year would still have done so if it cost a buck. "All around there are all kinds of people who have deigned to come in: girls with Britney parts and translucent skin that fairly match the French portrait they just walked by, and old ladies with blue hair and jogging suits, and professorial-looking men with striped shirts and tan suit jackets. And quiet waterfalls and young women with red leather jackets and fading red hair. And teens in flip-flops and spaghetti straps." Would they be here if it wasn't free? Washington Post 04/13/06
Posted: 04/13/2006 7:02 am
Philly Museums Ahead Of The Game In Rejecting Looted Art It seems as if nearly every big museum in the U.S. has been sucked into the international debate over looted art and rightful ownership that has gripped the art world for more than a year now. But somehow, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has been spared - in fact, not a single Philadelphia museum has had any problems of the variety plaguing the Met, the Getty, and so many others. "Thanks to policies long in place that aggressively discourage trade in cultural booty, this region's museums and academic institutions have turned their backs on the Indiana Joneses of the art and antiquities market and their dealer middlemen." Philadelphia Inquirer 04/13/06
Posted: 04/13/2006 6:55 am
Brazilian Wins Pritzker Prize "Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha has been awarded the 2006 Pritzker Architecture Prize. Mr. Mendes da Rocha - renowned for designing bold, open structures that blend with their surroundings - will receive a $100,000 grant and bronze medallion on May 30 at a ceremony in Istanbul, Turkey." The Christian Science Monitor (Boston) 04/13/06
Posted: 04/13/2006 6:26 am
Is Shanghai About To Lose Its Modernist Face? Shanghai is experiencing a building boom like few other cities have ever seen, and within a few years, the entire city will be utterly transformed. "Many feel, though, that what Shanghai is losing is even more vital than what it will gain. Shanghai was China's first, and remains its most distinctive, experiment in modern urbanism, and conservationists say that much of what made it so special in the last century will soon fall victim to the wrecking ball." The New York Times 04/13/06
Posted: 04/13/2006 6:07 am
Rocks Are Now Art (Or So The Price Tag Says) "A meteorite believed to have come from an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter has sold for $93,000 (U.S.) at an auction of rare space sculptures. The 355-pound chunk of iron, thousands of years old and discovered in the Campo del Cielo crater field in Argentina, was one of 10 meteorites that went for high prices at a Bonhams New York natural-history auction. Known by its place of discovery as the 'Valley of the Sky' meteorite, the pristine item was purchased Tuesday by a private collector in the United States who bid by phone and plans to display it as a work of art." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/13/06
Posted: 04/13/2006 5:42 am
Principle May Trump Need In Transatlantic Art Deal A scandal may be brewing over a well-intentioned exchange program between the Louvre and two leading American museums, Chicago's Terra and Atlanta's High. Under the proposed plan, all three museums would loan some art across the pond, and American corporate sponsors would pay part of the cost of refurbishing some of the government-owned Louvre's galleries. And therein lies the problem: "Many in France's cultural establishment have what might be called an ideological distaste for linking public art and private money. And while in practice French museums routinely seek corporate sponsorship for exhibitions, anything approaching the American model of privately-financed culture sets off alarm bells." International Herald Tribune 04/13/06
Posted: 04/12/2006 6:56 pm
Da Vinci Excerpts To Go On Display - Good Luck Seeing 'Em A selection of drawings, sketches, and jottings from the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci will go on display for the first time this fall at London's Victoria & Albert Museum. "The display of these small, delicate, detailed works will present a challenge to the V&A, which expects up to 150,000 visitors in a year of unprecedented interest in Leonardo." The Guardian (UK) 04/13/06
Posted: 04/12/2006 6:21 pm
Grading Museums On A Curve The shortlist is out for the 2006 Gulbenkian Prize, which honors Britain's best museum of the year, and one of the judges says that the experience has been eye-opening. "There are so many different museums that sometimes it's like comparing oranges with apples. And yet, when you get the measure of a place, there are a few magic ingredients. Top of the list is the sort of enthusiasm that's catching: an enthusiasm that means you turn up somewhere knowing little about a subject, and leave feeling inspired by it. Beyond that, there are things like how welcoming a place is; how easy it is to access information; how much sense the layout makes; in a nutshell, how user-friendly it is." Culture Vulture (Guardian Blogs) 04/13/06
Posted: 04/12/2006 6:15 pm
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Want Young Faces At Your Concerts? Try Making Them Fun (And Good) To hear some classical music administrators tell it, you'd think that getting young people to a performance was a task worthy of Hercules and Sisyphus combined. But Washington National Opera doesn't seem to be having any trouble. "The company's sold-out performance of Gaetano Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore showed that it is about more than low-price tickets, though that certainly helps. It is about creating a social atmosphere and making sure the quality of the artistry is there." Washington Post 04/13/06
Posted: 04/13/2006 7:06 am
Fired Orchestra Chief Forces Bankruptcy Six years ago, Joseph Rescigno was fired from his position as artistic director of Orchestre Metropolitain du Grand Montreal. "Rescigno sued for lost salary, moving expenses, defamation of character and moral damages. The Quebec Superior Court ruled in Rescigno's favour in 2003 and this year the Quebec Court of Appeal upheld the lower court judgment in January. The orchestra now owes Rescigno more than $250,000. Early last week, demands for payment escalated. Letters of seizure were sent to the orchestra's bank," and the organization filed for bankruptcy protection. A benefit concert raised $200,000 for the orchestra, but like the rest of the orchestra's assets, that money can't be touched until the dispute with Rescigno is settled. Montreal Gazette 04/13/06
Posted: 04/13/2006 5:46 am
2006's Forgotten Composers As everyone even peripherally aware of the world of classical music knows, 2006 is the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. It's also the 100th for Shostakovich, and you probably knew that, too. But two other influential composers would have been celebrating a century this year, and no one seems to care a bit. How could this be so, in an industry so in love with anniversary celebrations? Well, for one thing, they were both women. Beyond that, "there are, as you might suspect, a clutch of personal reasons, along with a whiff of scandal." La Scena Musicale 04/12/06
Posted: 04/12/2006 5:30 pm
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Two Quebec Luminaries Rethink Sovereignty, Cause Furor Artists and celebrities frequently gather on the cutting edge of controversial issues, and in Quebec, that's always meant a general consensus among the province's artists in favor of gaining independence from Canada. "So when two of the province's artistic luminaries questioned their sovereigntist faith this week, their remarks fell like a bombshell. Michel Tremblay, the world-acclaimed playwright whose works have helped capture Quebec's soul, declared that he was no longer a separatist. It was as if the Pope were renouncing Catholicism. Mr. Tremblay's words were front-page news. Then another light of the Quebec stage, Robert Lepage, enjoined that he, too, was 'less convinced' about independence." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/13/06
Posted: 04/13/2006 6:30 am
Playing Arts & Politics In Beantown Boston is known as a city where patronage and politics travel hand in hand, but still, many in the Hub's arts community were surprised and bemused when longtime Mayor Tom Menino appointed a political ally with no arts experience to head Boston's Office of Arts, Tourism, and Special Events. But some say that, in a city like Boston, what the arts community really needs is an advocate who knows the area's political labyrinth inside out, and can negotiate from a position of strength. Boston Globe 04/13/06
Posted: 04/13/2006 6:17 am
Lending All Well And Good, But Ownership Questions Not Going Away "A circumcision mask from western Kenya and a headdress made from human hair from Uganda are among 140 artefacts from the British Museum that have gone on show in Nairobi - the first time the museum has lent objects to Africa. But the exhibition has sparked debate about whether such objects should be returned to their home countries for good." The Guardian (UK) 04/13/06
Posted: 04/12/2006 6:26 pm
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Turning On The Charm It is a modern reality of running an arts organization that one must not only be a good administrator and competent executive, but also an expert gladhander whose very presence in a room causes rich sorts to open their checkbooks. The Royal Ontario Museum's William Thorsell could be the prototype for such an executive, and his success at ROM has largely hinged on his seemingly effortless ability to charm supporters. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/13/06
Posted: 04/13/2006 6:37 am
The Man Who Gave Beckett To America Nearly everyone knows the name Samuel Beckett, whose centenary is being observed this year. But how many avid fans of Beckett's plays remember the name Barney Rossett? "It was Mr. Rosset, alive and well at 83 and living on Fourth Avenue, who discovered the Irish novelist and playwright, for Americans, more than half a century ago." Rossett, a publisher, paid Beckett a $150 advance for the American rights to Waiting For Godot, which quickly sold over a million copies in the 1950s. "Grove Press and Mr. Rosset became famous, not just for championing Beckett in this country but also for introducing Eugčne Ionesco, Harold Pinter and Jean Genet to American readers." The New York Times 04/13/06
Posted: 04/13/2006 6:05 am
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Spacey Strikes Back Kevin Spacey isn't taking the latest blasts from the London press lying down. Despite the early closure of his latest production at the Old Vic, Spacey insists that audiences love what he's doing, and accuses the city's notoriously sharp-tongued critics of having it in for him. "In the end, Spacey is confronted by two dilemmas. One is the celebrity trap of which he is both beneficiary and victim. The other is the anachronistic position of the Old Vic in the modern world." The Guardian (UK) 04/13/06
Posted: 04/12/2006 6:42 pm
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His Name Is My Name, Too We tend to think of book titles as one-shot deals - once you've used it, it's yours. But in reality, there's nothing prohibiting publishers from reusing old titles if it suits their purposes - just go look up "The Island" on your favorite online bookseller, and see how many hits you get. "Romance, mystery and other genre books are particularly likely to have recycled titles because of the vast numbers that are published and their brief lives in the public's memory — meaning a name can be brought back within a few years." Los Angeles Times (AP) 04/13/06
Posted: 04/13/2006 6:47 am
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Six Canadian Labels Break From Industry "Six leading independent record companies, including those representing Rush and Sarah McLachlan, have left the Canadian Recording Industry Association over a disagreement about radio content rules and grant programs for emerging artists." Specifically, new government requirements on the amount of Canadian music required on the radio seem to have precipitated the split. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/13/06
Posted: 04/13/2006 6:34 am
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Remembering Russes A new documentary traces the history and legacy of the world-famous Ballet Russes, and actually brings together some of the company's original stars for the first time in decades. "The extraordinary film splices interviews with the surviving dancers with original 16mm footage of performances and nervous, gossipy backstage moments and more than 400 archive stills, gathered from the dancers' private collections and from trawls on eBay, which produced every Ballets Russes programme from 1933-62." The Independent (UK) 04/11/06
Posted: 04/12/2006 6:50 pm
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