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Why The Art Market Won't Crash Again (Maybe) There's no doubt about it: modern art is in a bull market, with major works being sold for huge sums seemingly every week. "At the moment, there is no evidence that the art market is about to repeat the crash of the early 1990s, which still scars the collective consciousness of everybody involved in it... One reason for optimism is that there is a much wider spread of buyers than there was in 1990." The Telegraph (UK) 05/09/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 6:38 am
Canada Sends Venice A Giant Sweater "SweaterLodge, Canada's official entry for the architecture portion of this year's Venice Biennale, is an enormous tent in the shape of a pullover made from 350 square metres of bright orange polar fleece. The multimedia exhibit is a big, bold, warm and witty commentary on urban culture. The biannual event, which will be celebrating its 10th anniversary this fall, is one of the most prestigious in the world of architecture. So why is our Canadian team receiving such a chilly reception from government funding agencies and potential corporate sponsors?" The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/09/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 6:33 am
Portrait Prize Finalists Announced The shortlist is out for the UK's National Portrait Gallery prize, which hands out £25,000 and a commission worth £4,000 to the creator of the best portrait of the year. Painters Angela Reilly of Scotland and Rafael Rodriguez of Mexico will go up against English photographer Andrew Tift, who has been on the shortlist four times. "This year has seen a record 1,113 entries, and 56 portraits will be displayed at the exhibition from June 15 to September 17. The winner will be announced on June 13." The Guardian (UK) 05/09/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 5:35 am
AGO Gets $2 Million Education Boost "A prominent Toronto businessman and his wife are giving $2-million to the Art Gallery of Ontario to endow the directorship of the gallery's education and public-programming division... The AGO was the first museum in Canada to establish an art department, and yesterday's announcement coincided with the 75th anniversary of its founding. More than 35,000 students come to the AGO in Toronto each year, while thousands of adults and families take education programs there." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/09/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 4:35 am
On The Trail Of The Art Smugglers "Greek detectives arrive in London today for talks with Scotland Yard as Athens steps up its efforts to combat the international trade in smuggled antiquities. After the recent discovery of priceless relics in an Aegean island home, they hope the meeting will not only shed light on the murky business but also illuminate London's role as a hub for traffickers." The Guardian (UK) 05/08/06
Posted: 05/08/2006 8:38 pm
The Explorer, The Museum, and Another Controversy Over Ownership The Royal Alberta Museum is scrambling to raise $1 million to buy a historic collection of native Canadian artifacts gathered by explorer James Carnegie when they hit the auction block in New York this week. "The museum fears the pieces of Canadian history will be dispersed among private collectors and institutions as the items are sold individually. But the sale is also coming under fire from the Minneapolis, Minn.-based American Indian Movement, which for years has likened Sotheby's sale of native artifacts to Nazi theft of property from Jewish families during the Holocaust." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/08/06
Posted: 05/08/2006 8:30 pm
South Africa Gets Back A Piece Of Its Art History In the dark days of South Africa's apartheid regime, poor black artists living in the township ghettos surrounding Johannesburg spent their lives creating work that no one asked for, and that the white minority ruling the country would never exhibit. But a few foreign collectors made a point of buying up what they could of the township art. "Now, in an unusual and well-orchestrated burst of generosity, these collectors are giving the art back to South Africa, helping to restore an important part of the country's historical record." The New York Times 05/08/06
Posted: 05/08/2006 8:03 pm
The Great eBay Art Robbery "It was the scandal that rocked the internet. A seemingly worthless painting sold on eBay in early 2000 for $135,805 -- all because buyers believed it might be the work of the 20th-century abstract painter Richard Diebenkorn. It wasn't. Nor was the story behind the painting true... Before long the tangle of deceits that led to the historic sale began to unravel on the front pages of newspapers around the country." Now, one of the perpetrators of the hoax has written a book to lay out his side of the story. Wired 05/08/06
Posted: 05/08/2006 8:00 pm
Getty Snags A New Rubens "The J. Paul Getty Museum, aiming to deepen its collection of works by Peter Paul Rubens in his prime, has made its first major acquisition since the January arrival of Michael Brand as director. The work, 'The Calydonian Boar Hunt,' was painted on an oak panel, 23 1/4 by 35 5/8 inches, apparently in 1611 or 1612... Museum officials, who said they bought the work in late April from a London dealer, declined to disclose the price. But a smaller Rubens oil sketch of the same subject — roughly 10-by-20 inches, again on a wood panel — sold for $5.4 million at Christie's London on Dec. 8." Los Angeles Times 05/08/06
Posted: 05/08/2006 7:46 pm
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Among Musicians, This Is Known As A Demotion Most conductors are musicians first, of course, but it is fairly rare for a great conductor to begin his career as a great orchestral musician. (This may have something to do with orchestral musicians' well-known hatred of most conductors.) But when the Chamber Orchestra of Europe celebrates its 25th anniversary next week, the man on the podium will be Scotsman Douglas Boyd, who rose to prominence as the COE's star oboist, and who has since crafted an unlikely second career as a highly regarded stick-waver. Financial Times (UK) 05/09/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 6:25 am
Business Before Pleas... Oh, Heck, We Can Do Both Getting music played on commercial radio is getting harder and harder, particularly if your work is in the hip-hop genre. Tiny playlists and PR-driven conglomerates make it almost impossible for emerging artists to get their music in the ears of consumers. So where should the snubbed masses of musicians turn? How about strip clubs? "The music industry increasingly has embraced the strip club out of necessity and convenience... Strip clubs are one of the fastest-rising segments among entertainment venues," and DJs there can play complete tracks uninterrupted, and aren't afraid to try out new material. Moreover, strip clubs have become an important place for hip-hop stars to be seen... Yahoo!News (Reuters) 05/07/06
Posted: 05/08/2006 7:53 pm
New King Of Organs To Debut In Philly Philadelphia's Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts will finally be complete this week, when the center unveils a massive $6.4 million, 32-ton, 6,938-pipe organ in its main concert hall, and inaugurates it with a 10-day festival featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra. "The specs alone make you want to hear what will be the largest functioning concert-hall organ in the United States. The Kimmel instrument - in contrast to the sensible but disappointing portable organ once used in the Academy of Music - is the magnum opus, eight years in the making, of the busy Dobson Pipe Organ Builders Ltd., of Lake City, Iowa." Philadelphia Inquirer 05/07/06
Posted: 05/08/2006 7:49 pm
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NEA To Promote Book Clubs "Uncle Sam wants you to join a book club. The National Endowment for the Arts has created 'The Big Read,' a program that will sponsor community reading groups throughout the country. Like the NEA's 'Poetry Out Loud,' a national competition that was formed last year, the new initiative is a response to the organization's 2004 study, "Reading at Risk," which reported a dramatic rise in nonreading." Los Angeles Times (AP) 05/09/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 6:42 am
More Legal Headaches For DaVinci? A Roman Catholic cardinal who was on the shortlist to become pope last year is hinting at potential legal action that could be taken by the church against DaVinci Code author Dan Brown and the producers of the movie version of the controversial book. (Exactly what action that might be, the cardinal did not say.) Meanwhile, the two authors who unsuccessfully sued Brown for copyright infringement are having trouble coming up with their court-ordered share of Brown's legal bills. The New York Times 05/08/06
Posted: 05/08/2006 8:14 pm
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Taking The Comics To A New Level Chris Ware may well be the most depressing "comic artist" in history, but that hasn't stopped the engaging creator of Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid On Earth from enjoying great success and securing a regular spot in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Now, a new exhibition of Ware's work is being mounted in Chicago. "The extreme self-absorption of his characters can be maddening and yet their angst is so real and so respectfully drawn -- unlike many comic artists, Ware never makes fun of his subjects' bodies or dilemmas -- that the viewer-reader simply can't look away.The very tenderness with which Ware treats his subjects draws us in." Chicago Sun-Times 05/09/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 6:12 am
Freud And His Art That Sigmund Freud remains a controversial figure to this day is testament to the impact his life and work had on the modern world. But is it possible that his impact on art and artists was greater than any scientific legacy he enjoys? "It's not just that Freud is an influence on art history and literary theory: he is an influence on art. He has had a constant resonance since the surrealist movement first claimed him as (in Freud's puzzled words) its 'patron saint' in the 1920s - which means a hostile critic of Freud has to dismiss most modern art." The Guardian (UK) 05/09/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 5:44 am
Conductor Of The People David Robertson is one year into his tenure as music director of the once-beleagured St. Louis Symphony, and the reviews, both at home and on the road, have been good. But Robertson has always been known for his desire to connect with the larger community, and so, as the SLSO begins to promote its next season, he has taken to holding "town hall meetings" to which SLSO patrons are invited for the purpose of grilling their music director, even if they just want to complain about all the new music he's programming. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 05/08/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 5:10 am
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Acting Healthy Could acting lessons help the elderly to keep their minds sharp and stave off cognitive decline? A husband-wife teaching team at Elmhurst College in Chicago thinks so, and they've begun offering such lessons. "The National Institutes of Health has awarded the Noices two grants to fund research on improving brain function in older adults. With the first grant, they trained seniors who lived independently. With their most recent grant, they are teaching acting techniques to seniors who live in government-funded retirement homes." Chicago Tribune 05/09/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 6:21 am
Defending Genocide May Be Hazardous To Your Career A prominent French theatre company has cancelled a production of a play by Peter Handke after learning that the playwright, who has long been known for his support of the Serbian government, attended the funeral of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, known as The Butcher of the Balkans. The company is being accused of censorship by some, but its chief executive equates Handke's support of Milosevic, who led a brutal campaign against Bosnia in the 1990s, to support for Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. The Guardian (UK) 05/09/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 5:56 am
Next Thing You Know, Pepsi Will Be Buying Time At Stratford "What is billed as the world's first live commercial will be performed on stage in Dublin next week, promoting London's West End to international theatre-going audiences. Six actors, including Pauline McLynn, who appeared as the housekeeper, Mrs Doyle, in the comedy TV series Father Ted, will enact the advert. Their three minute slot will be at the Gaiety Theatre on May 16 before the evening production of Saturday Night Fever. The advert will later be staged during plays in Hamburg, New York and Pittsburgh." The Guardian (UK) 05/09/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 5:54 am
Edinburgh Plans Stage Shocker The Edinburgh Festival is apparently hoping that a dose of controversy will boost ticket sales, announcing that it will stage an adaptation of Michel Houellebecq's controversial and explicit novel, Platform, directed by Calixto Bieito, who was last seen inserting an oral sex scene into Hamlet. Kate Bevan isn't impressed: "Doubtless Bieito's Platform will sell many tickets, and critics are surely already practising their choicest phrases of outrage... Yet somewhere along the line the consumer (and the critic and the commentator) will have been taken for a fool... To assume that we need grotesquerie to make us take notice of what they say is to assume that we can't hear and understand for ourselves." The Guardian (UK) 05/09/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 5:39 am
England's Most Intimate Theatre Company For 25 years, Cheek by Jowl has been one of Europe's most innovative and challenging theatre troupes, and has become a mainstay at festivals across the continent. Now, as the company prepares to settle down for a three-year residency at London's Barbican Centre, its founders are reflecting on what has kept the group's work fresh over the years. "Togetherness is this company's calling card, an intense yet informal rapport between actor and actor, actor and audience, and ultimately the symbiotic relationship between Declan Donnellan the director and Nick Ormerod the designer, British theatre's savviest couple." The Telegraph (UK) 05/08/06
Posted: 05/08/2006 8:40 pm
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Did Publisher's Business Plan Contribute To Plagiarism Debacle? "Since the downfall of Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard sophomore whose novel was yanked from stores and whose two-book contract was canceled by her publisher last week, attention has focused on Alloy Entertainment, the little-known book packager that shared the copyright with her. What has received scant notice is that the parent company, Alloy Media + Marketing, is not really in the publishing business. It is an advertising and marketing firm that specializes in selling stuff -- and helping others sell stuff -- to teenagers and preteens." Boston Globe 05/08/06
Posted: 05/08/2006 8:20 pm
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Smithsonian Defends Its TV Deal "Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lawrence M. Small defended the Smithsonian's television development deal with CBS/Showtime Networks yesterday, saying the agreement was not reached in secret and that restrictions in the contract would affect only a very small number of filmmakers. The Smithsonian will not release the contract; it will not even say how long it runs. Filmmakers have raised questions about the new policy, which can bar independent commercial documentary makers from more than incidental use of Smithsonian materials." Washington Post 05/09/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 6:47 am
Beatles To Keep Fighting iTunes An appeal will be filed in the copyright case that pitted The Beatles' record label against Apple Computer. The computer company this week won the right to continue selling music through its iTunes music service, but the rock group (which has a long-standing copyright agreement with the company due to the previous existence of the group's Apple Corps record label) says that the ruling was "curious" and points out that the judge appeared to be in the thrall of Apple's technological offerings. The judge's ruling declared that Apple was selling "data transmissions" through iTunes, and therefore was not violating the agreement. The Guardian (UK) 05/09/06
Posted: 05/09/2006 5:50 am
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