No One Cares What You Think, Anyway "There's no point debating anything online. You might as well hurl shoes in the air to knock clouds from the sky. The internet's perfect for all manner of things, but productive discussion ain't one of them. It provides scant room for debate and infinite opportunities for fruitless point-scoring: the heady combination of perceived anonymity, gestated responses, random heckling and a notional 'live audience' quickly conspire to create a 'perfect storm' of perpetual bickering. Stumble in, take umbrage with someone, trade a few blows, and within about two or three exchanges, the subject itself goes out the window. Suddenly you're simply arguing about arguing." The Guardian (UK) 06/02/06
Posted: 06/01/2006 9:00 pm
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Deep In The Heart of Texas, A Museum Booms Austin's new 100,000 square foot Blanton Museum is officially a hit, and it may be setting a new standard for university museums nationwide. "The sheer size of the completed building, with a huge atrium, allows the museum to show off its extensive 17,000-piece collection, including works by Durer, Rubens, Manet and Picasso... considering the small, dark gallery where its collection of Renaissance, Baroque, American and Latin American art used to hang, the new museum is a Texas-sized upgrade." Los Angeles Times 06/02/06
Posted: 06/02/2006 6:26 am
The Russians Are Coming Strong The Russian art market is officially white-hot, and the latest evidence is the $52.1 million take from this week's Russian art auction at Sotheby's in London. "The sale set 25 record prices, and more than half were for contemporary Russian artists." The New York Times (second item) 06/02/06
Posted: 06/02/2006 5:51 am
Sydney, Supersized It's Sydney Biennale time again, and if there's one word to describe this year's edition, it's "big." From "an installation of 180,000 hand-sized clay figurines" to "a cunning combination of twisted modernist aesthetics and surveillance technology" that fills a room, Sydney is awash in outsized art. Sydney Morning Herald 06/02/06
Posted: 06/01/2006 9:32 pm
V&A Bars Sinn Fein Leader London's Victoria & Albert Museum has removed Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams from the guest list for a major exhibition of "revolutionary" art, saying that his presence would be inappropriate. The exhibit's curator, a personal friend of Adams', is reportedly furious, but the V&A is so far standing firm. Adams led the political wing of the Irish Republican Army when the IRA was regularly mounting terrorist attacks on London, and many Britons hold him responsible, despite the IRA's recent decision to lay down arms. The Guardian (UK) 06/02/06
Posted: 06/01/2006 8:47 pm
Now That's Investigative Journalism A reporter for the BBC has returned a 16th-century portrait by Florentine painter Alessandro Allori to a Berlin museum after discovering that the work was an original looted during World War II, and not a copy, as he had previously thought. Charles Wheeler was given the painting by a German farmer in 1952, but only thought to look into its origins last year. BBC 06/02/06
Posted: 06/01/2006 8:16 pm
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And A Soprano Shall Lead Them The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra has named soprano Dawn Upshaw to an important part-time leadership position. The SPCO abandoned traditional music directorships in 2004, and named a collection of high-profile "artistic partners" who lead the orchestra in multiple programs over a period of years. Other current SPCO "partners" include conductor Douglas Boyd and violinist Joshua Bell. Of course, it's one thing for a violinist to lead a conductor-less orchestra, and quite another for a soprano to do it... Minnesota Public Radio 06/01/06
Posted: 06/01/2006 7:53 pm
Curtain To Rise Again In Scotland Scottish Opera has unveiled its new season, and that in itself has to be considered an accomplishment, considering the turmoil the company has been in over the past two years. "Scottish Opera ceased full-scale opera productions for nearly a year and lost its permanent chorus in a major restructuring to pay off its debts," but its new director says that it should be smooth sailing for the foreseeable future. The Scotsman (UK) 06/02/06
Posted: 06/01/2006 7:45 pm
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Be The Neighborhood Making art accessible to poor and minority audiences is like the weather: everyone in the arts talks about it, but almost no one really does much about it. Part of the problem is the lack of proven methods of engaging low-income communities. The answer, as demonstrated by a successful project in theatre-rich Minneapolis, may be that arts groups will only become palatable to underserved communities when they make a concerted effort to embed themselves in those communities, rather than condescendingly offering an "escape" from the outside. Minnesota Public Radio 06/01/06
Posted: 06/02/2006 6:53 am
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Architect Of The Future, Available Now! "Zaha Hadid is architecture's diva, the most precocious talent in her profession... Ms. Hadid is not interested in emulating period styles, Modernist or otherwise. Yet her buildings are obviously deeply rooted in their context... For all the apparent radicalism of her forms, Ms. Hadid's work forms a bridge from early Modernism to the digital age. By collecting such disparate strands into one vision, she defiantly embraces a cosmopolitanism that is hard put to assert itself in our dark age." The New York Times 06/02/06
Posted: 06/02/2006 5:45 am
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Let The Pointless Speculation Begin! (er, continue?) "Industry pundits and Tony voters are all over the place with their predictions" regarding who will take top honors for best musical in this year's awards show. This type of speculation is nothing new, of course, but with this year's race being as close as it apparently is, "some theater people wonder if the balance will be tipped by how the industry feels about the people behind each show." In an industry as insular as Broadway, that could make for some very hurt feelings. New York Post 06/02/06
Posted: 06/02/2006 6:30 am
It's Been A Fun Three Decades; Now Get Out An Off-Broadway theater is being evicted from its longtime home by the building's owners, who have a deal in place to turn the property into a hotel. Lamb's Theater Company, which has rented the space since 1978, is hoping to find a new home somewhere in Manhattan, and to rebuild its existing stage as is. The New York Times 06/02/06
Posted: 06/02/2006 5:55 am
August Wilson Alone Does Not A Theatrical Tradition Make Black theatre is a scarce commodity in the U.S., outside of repetitive productions of the plays of a small, "commercially viable" group of playwrights. To actor/playwright Ted Lange, the struggle for African-American visability in the theatre world has never been fully engaged, and as part of his continuing effort to promote the genre, "he's turned the 19 plays he's written into a cottage industry for small black theaters across the country." Denver Post 06/02/06
Posted: 06/02/2006 5:31 am
Richard vs. The Ringtones Actor Richard Griffiths reportedly stopped dead in the middle of a scene during a matinee performance of The History Boys on Broadway this week after several cell phones went off. Griffiths, who has a history of this kind of thing, gave the audience a thorough dressing-down, and threatened to stop the play for good if one more phone went off. The Independent (UK) 06/02/06
Posted: 06/01/2006 9:08 pm
It Was A Very Good Year "Broadway has had a record-breaking year for attendance and box office earnings, thanks to the success of plays such as Julia Roberts' Three Days of Rain. Theatregoers on Broadway topped the 12 million mark for the first time, with a strong attendance by tourists. Ticket sales increased 12 per cent to $861.6m during the 2005-2006 season, according to the League of American Theatres and Producers." Strangely, though, there was no increase in the percentage of Broadway shows that turn a profit. BBC 06/01/06
Posted: 06/01/2006 8:23 pm
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Poetry's Richest Prizes Handed Out Poets Kamau Brathwaite and Sylvia Legris were honored with $50,000 awards at Canada's annual Griffin Prize dinner last night. "This year's Griffin competition, the sixth, attracted 444 submissions from 20 countries." Toronto Star 06/02/06
Posted: 06/02/2006 6:44 am
Longtime Chicago Books Editor Retiring "For more than 30 years, Henry Kisor has reigned supreme as a book editor and literary critic -- the undisputed emperor of fiction and nonfiction, poetry and prose, biography and memoir. Ever eloquent and fiercely incorruptible, his decrees have always been minimalist in style, and were generally drawn up on Post-It notes... Today is the last day that Henry will sit in the book maven's catbird seat -- a spot he first occupied at the old Chicago Daily News (from 1973-78) and has held at the Sun-Times ever since. When he leaves the building -- and heads off into that great field of dreams known as retirement -- he will carry away with him a great deal of history and authority, as well as a lifetime of achievement and wild adventure." Chicago Sun-Times 06/02/06
Posted: 06/02/2006 6:11 am
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But Just Think What The Queer Eye Boys Could Do With His Costume! As it turns out, gay people love Superman. Or, at least, an influential gay magazine says they do. And that brings up an interesting conundrum for Hollywood: in the aftermath of the national embrace of (and simultaneous backlash against) Brokeback Mountain, no one in the industry is quite sure whether a visible gay community embrace of a "straight" film will help or hurt the box office in the long run. Los Angeles Times 06/02/06
Posted: 06/02/2006 6:22 am
The Documentaries That Aren't "Message documentaries" have of late become the liberal answer to conservative talk radio - ideology-driven propaganda with an annoying habit of playing fast and loose with the facts. "The makers of such films today see their cinematic contributions as an antidote to media consolidation that, they say, restricts topics and voices to the bland and the commercial. As such, they feel little or no obligation to heed documentary-film traditions like point-by-point rebuttal or formal reality checks." The Christian Science Monitor (Boston) 06/02/06
Posted: 06/02/2006 6:15 am
Quick, Gimme 500 Shares Of Lost, And Sell All My Tom Cruise! Playing the stock market is risky business, and let's face it, it's damn boring, besides. If only we could buy stock in, oh, say, the cast of Desperate Housewives, and watch it soar as the dork in the cubicle next to us chokes on his overzealous 200-share purchase of Geena Davis. That would be truly excellent. Hmm? We can do that? Oh. Very good, then. The Age (Melbourne) 06/02/06
Posted: 06/01/2006 8:35 pm
Sweden Gears Up For Another File-Swapping Smackdown The headquarters of The Pirate Bay, a web site that enables users to find and download pirated music and movies, was raided by Swedish police this week, setting up a legal confrontation over the issue of whether such sites can be held responsible for the actions of their users. Courts in several other countries, including the U.S., have held that sites clearly intended to facilitate illegal activity are not protected by law. The fight is likely to be more complicated in Sweden, however - the country is notorious for tolerating file-sharing, and has no specific law prohibiting it. BBC 06/01/06
Posted: 06/01/2006 8:26 pm
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Twin Cities Closer To Having A True Home For Dance A long-derelict theater in Minneapolis is a big step closer to a long-planned reopening, following government approval of a bonding bill that will provide $11 million towards the project. "When it's finished, the Shubert will immediately become home base for a host of dance groups, including James Sewell Ballet and Minnesota Dance Theater." Minnesota Public Radio 06/01/06
Posted: 06/01/2006 8:11 pm
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