A Graves Disappointment Much has been made of the cultural building boom going on in Minneapolis, but Blair Kamin says that not all the new stuff is worthy of attention. In particular, architect Michael Graves' new addition to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is a major disappointment. "Some neighbors of the museum liken his addition to a mausoleum or a big-box store, a not-so-veiled shot at the wing's chief sponsor, Minneapolis-based Target Corp." Chicago Tribune 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 10:44 am
- Functional But Flawed Cesar Pelli's newly opened Minneapolis Central Library cuts an imposing figure on the northern edge of the city's downtown. Pelli designed to building to be adaptable well into the future, and to function as a public gathering space in the city center. "But the library falters as a public presence, owing to the aesthetic gulf between its expressionistic roof and its plain-Jane wings. Pelli's attempts to elevate the mundane wings above the level of a suburban office building cannot overcome their banal geometry. [Still, the building is] light-filled and democratic in spirit, endeavoring to make people feel comfortable rather than intimidated." Chicago Tribune 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 10:38 am
D.C. Follies "Frank Lloyd Wright came tantalizingly close to redefining the Washington skyline. The master architect was commissioned to design a $15 million complex at the corner of Florida and Connecticut avenues. Two drawings from 1940 -- which appear in an exhibition opening today at the National Building Museum -- show how the neighborhood above Dupont Circle could have become a stunning landmark equal to New York's Rockefeller Center." So what happened? Wright's self-importance apparently rubbed the Washington bureaucracy the wrong way, and what could have been a major urban initiative died at the hands of the local zoning code. All of which explains how Wright came to build a major skyscraper in the middle of an Oklahoma prairie. Washington Post 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 9:32 am
Let's Make A Deal In an effort to resolve amicably a dispute over looted antiquities, Italian authorities have offered a deal to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. "If accepted, the deal would be similar to that struck earlier this year by the Italians with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Met agreed in February to return six objects --including the famous, 2,500-year-old Euphronios krater. In return, the Met will receive objects 'of equivalent beauty and importance' for as long as four years, the longest Italian law will allow. In addition, the Italians will permit the Met to conduct archeological digs in Italy, and to take out loans of works discovered." Boston Globe 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 8:35 am
The Met's Glass House "For eight years, curators, conservators, lighting experts and stonemasons have been methodically making small but significant improvements to the five medieval cloisters that were fashioned into [a Metropolitan Museum of Art branch operation] in 1938... The most noticeable addition by far, however, is just beginning to become visible. A wall of windows in the Early Gothic Hall that face west overlooking the Hudson has been carefully restored and given an exterior protective glazing in preparation for the addition of 14 panels of mainly 13th-and 14th-century stained-glass windows." The New York Times 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 8:20 am
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Organized Music A majority of most orchestral audiences probably don't even realize that the tuxedo-clad musicians in front of them are affiliated with organized labor, but American orchestras have been union shops since the turn of the 20th century. Well, most of them. The Boston Symphony, one of America's top bands, furiously resisted all organizing efforts for nearly half a century before finally embracing the union in 1942. Since then, Boston's musicians have become some of the most influential in the country. Boston Globe 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 9:52 am
Spoleto's Pull Charleston, South Carolina may not be one of the first cities you think of when listing the world's classical music centers. But "during late May and early June, the cultural life of smallish Charleston is virtually synonymous with Spoleto Festival USA," a major music festival that takes over the entire city and has long since been embraced by the entire populace. Toronto Star 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 9:26 am
Barenboim's Last Chicago Hurrah This weekend, Daniel Barenboim conducts his final concerts as music director of the Chicago Symphony. "Barenboim has had his differences with CSO players, and some of them are doubtless happy to see him go. But Thursday night's Mahler offered a glimpse of conductor and virtuoso orchestra clearly willing to go for broke." Chicago Sun-Times 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 8:46 am
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Hecht On Trial: A Victim of Changing Interpretations? For a man accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of Italian antiquities, 88-year-old Robert Hecht doesn't cut a very imposing figure. In fact, many in the art world say that the collector is being unfairly made an example of. "Hecht is a man who has seen the world pass him by. In the 1950s, shortly after his arrival in Italy, he bought antiquities on the streets of Rome. No one had a problem with it. The shops, Hecht said, would happily ship the ancient cups, coins and statues out of the country if you couldn't take them home yourself. Now, Hecht finds himself on trial for allegedly doing the very things that were accepted practice half a century ago." Baltimore Sun 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 10:30 am
Of Art And Nation When a major cultural site is looted, as happened with Iraq's National Museum in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion in 2003, a curious mix of artistic concern and nationalist passion dictates what happens next. And whether the backdrop is the wartorn Middle East, tribal Africa, or the supposedly "civilized" West, "the elegant lingo of art curators [falls] by the wayside in a high-stakes tit-for-tat." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (AP) 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 9:15 am
When Diversity Becomes Divisive Issues of diversity and assimilation are nothing new in France, but religious and ethnic tensions have been running particularly high of late, and a new museum celebrating "tribal arts and culture" is sparking new battles in an old debate. "Some critics say the decision to show indigenous art in isolation could create or reinforce a 'them and us' mentality." Los Angeles Times (Reuters) 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 8:56 am
Grave Robber Uncovers Archaeological Stunner "Hoping for leniency in a coming trial, an accused tomb robber led Italian officials two weeks ago to a startling discovery on a sun-scorched hilltop here: the oldest Etruscan burial chamber ever found. The tomb, dating from at least the seventh century B.C., was shown on Friday to reporters who were taken by bus to the site, less than 13 miles north of Rome. For now, archaeologists have named it the Tomb of the Roaring Lions." The New York Times 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 8:26 am
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Ligeti's Unique Modernist Voice Composer Gyorgi Ligeti, who died last week at 83, "could be mistaken for one of many atonal modernists, whose presence in traumatized post-World War II culture is explained by a global need to put emotions on hold. Ligeti no doubt used modernist musical systems popular among the cerebral musical inventors of the 1960s and '70s. But his Holocaust experience shows his modernist stance to be anything but a means of emotional insulation. Quite the opposite... While other composers wrote music of disillusionment, Ligeti's seemed to arrive from a time when illusions weren't reasonable expectations." Philadelphia Inquirer 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 10:04 am
The Great Garrison Gulf More than three decades after A Prairie Home Companion first hit the air, host/writer/self-appointed Midwestern everyman Garrison Keillor has become one of the most beloved and reviled figures in American culture. "Keillor is the shock jock of wholesomeness... The mere sound of [his] voice—a breathy baritone that seems precision-engineered to narrate a documentary about glaciers—is enough to set off warfare between the generations." Slate 06/16/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 9:37 am
A Poet's Poet America's new poet laureate is not exactly what you might expect of a writer in such a prominent position. "At age 77, living what has been a well-filled but private literary life, Donald Hall is a bit shocked at the intense national media attention to his appointment." Hall has been publishing poems for over forty years, and in the often-snarky world of American literature, he stands out as a writer about whom no one seems to have a negative word to say. Boston Globe 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 8:28 am
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The New Guthrie A week from today, Minneapolis's Guthrie Theater will inaugurate its massive new home on the Mississippi riverfront. It's a big deal for the theater, of course, but the opening will also be a watershed moment for a city that has spent the last decade transforming a moribund downtown into one of the most vibrant urban areas in the country. "At 285,000 square feet, the new building is more than three times larger than the old Guthrie. Its bends, bows and cantilevered, 12-story-high 'Endless Bridge' render the architecture of Frenchman Jean Nouvel unmistakable along the riverfront. Three theaters within will draw thousands of people to the area, but the Guthrie also will be open day and night." St. Paul Pioneer Press 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 11:46 am
- Adjusting The Thrust The new Guthrie complex sports no fewer than three performance spaces within its huge blue shell, each with its own theatrical mission. But the legacy of this company has always been predicated on its use of the "thrust" stage, which can make an audience feel like it's in the middle of the action, but can also limit a director's choices. In designing the new stages (one of which is a thrust,) the Guthrie's artistic team is hoping to preserve most of what Twin Cities audiences are used to seeing, but open up a wider range of options for the future. Star Tribune (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 11:45 am
- So, What's Next? The Guthrie is only the latest in a recent string of major arts initiatives in Minneapolis, and Dominic Papatola says that it would be a mistake to stop now. "It took upward of $350 million to complete the [Walker Art Center], Guthrie, [Children's Theater Company] and [Minneapolis Institute of Arts] projects... But while it's all over, we should also remember that it's just beginning. The aftershocks of the first cultural building boom can already be felt." St. Paul Pioneer Press 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 11:44 am
Stratford Finally Crosses The Color Line The Stratford Festival is one of Canada's enduring theatrical institutions. So how can it be possible that next week's opening of a 1997 play by Djanet Sears marks the first time that the festival has featured a work by a black playwright, or an all-black cast? The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 8:50 am
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Running Scared How seriously are U.S. broadcasters taking the government's threat of a major crackdown on foul language and obscenity? Very seriously. Even high-minded PBS, which is feeling particularly vulnerable after several years of right-wing attacks from within, is overhauling its internal regulations on language and content. "The FCC has said it takes context into account when it reviews indecency complaints... But some broadcasters say recent FCC rulings have been arbitrary and confounding." Boston Globe 06/17/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 8:40 am
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Is American Dance As Good As Dead? An increasing number of young American dancers are heading to Europe to seek work. Some hope to build a career that will someday lead to professional prospects back home; others don't expect ever to return. "While many American dance companies scramble to stay afloat, Europe is stocked with stable and respected companies buoyed by state funds. And a generation of Americans has successfully come of age there... There is a sense, at Juilliard and elsewhere, that the era of great American dance has passed. Europe, in contrast, seems a fertile ground for new work, especially in contemporary ballet." The New York Times 06/18/06
Posted: 06/18/2006 10:15 am
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