The Characteristics Of A Winner "After 17 World Cups, there's now a mass of empirical data, and, using the most sophisticated methods available, we can now determine the political and economic conditions that yield soccer glory..." Canada.com 06/09/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 6:39 pm
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Is Art A Good Investment? Let's Do The Numbers... According to a leading index tracking art sales, "over the last 50 years, stocks (as represented by the S&P 500) returned 10.9 percent annually, while the art index returned 10.5 percent per annum. And in the five years between 2001 and 2005, art trounced stocks. But not all art performs equally. In recent years, old masters haven't done so well, while American art before 1950 has been soaring—up 25.2 percent in the last year alone. And across categories, masterpieces (like the Klimt that Lauder just bought) tend to underperform lower-priced paintings by a substantial margin." Slate 06/22/06
Posted: 06/22/2006 6:29 am
Hadid - The Over-Rated Architect Zaha Hadid gets a lot of buzz these days as architect of the future. But Witold Rybczynski thinks she's over-rated. "The urbanism is slightly frightening—a vision of the city that appears unrelated to either human use or occupation. Brasilia on speed. Walter Gropius once said that an architect should be able to design a city or a teacup. Whatever the merits of such a dubious claim, even Gropius wouldn't have suggested that teacups and cities were interchangeable. In Zaha's world, they are." Slate 06/22/06
Posted: 06/22/2006 6:24 am
A Controversial Shakeup At The Brooklyn Museum "Beginning next month, the museum will do away with traditional departments like Egyptian art, African art and European painting and instead create two 'teams,' one for collections and one for exhibitions. Arnold L. Lehman, the museum's director, said in an interview that the changes were intended to make the museum's relatively small curatorial staff more efficient and to encourage curators to exchange ideas more freely. But some curators see the changes as a way of diminishing their traditional power to conceive, propose and organize exhibitions." The New York Times 06/22/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 8:18 pm
Getty Will Return Art To Italy The Getty has agreed to return dozens of antiquities in its collections to Italy. As part of the proposed deal, Italy will lend the Getty objects "of comparable visual beauty and historical importance," according to a joint statement released late today. A final agreement, "which will include mutual collaboration, research and the exchange of important antiquities," is expected to be concluded in early summer, the statement added.
Los Angeles Times 06/21/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 7:51 pm
Paris Indigenous Art Museum At Cross Purposes Paris' new museum for indigenous art has been mired in controversy for 11 years. "The Musée du Quai Branly - the biggest museum to be built in Paris since the Pompidou centre in 1977 - is Mr Chirac's attempt to cast himself as the defender of art from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. A long-time fan of indigenous artefacts, he also wanted to leave Paris with an architectural imprint to rival François Mitterand's legacies, such as the glass pyramid at the Louvre." The Guardian (UK) 06/21/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 7:16 pm
A Record Price - Why Klimt? Why Now? "Why should it be Klimt - a modest, quiet man - who set this record and not Picasso or Matisse or Hirst? Forget the cliche of Klimt - the gilded Valentine cards, the Athena posters; in short, The Kiss, the one image by this artist that we all think we know. Klimt is so often undervalued, just because of this travestied masterpiece. So tear your mind's eye away from it. The paintings by Klimt displayed on these pages are pieces of modern intellectual history to set beside a formula scrawled by Albert Einstein or a score by Arnold Schönberg." The Guardian (UK) 06/21/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 7:12 pm
Hockney Sells For Auction Record £2.6 Million A new record has been set for sales price of a David Hockney painting. "The painting, dating from 1966, had been in a private collection in California for the past 20 years. The piece, in Hockney's minimalist style, depicts the moment someone hits the water, diving into a swimming pool." BBC 06/21/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 6:22 pm
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Still Learning Toronto's New Opera House Robert Everett-Green isn't ready yet to pronounce on the acoustics of Toronto's new Opera House: "I've been in the hall four times (five, if you count a hard-hat tour) and heard music from six different seats on three levels. It has been a steep learning experience so far, and I'm not just talking about the stairs up to the fifth ring. One thing I'm sure of is that it's mighty interesting to have a new opera house on the block." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/22/06
Posted: 06/22/2006 7:11 am
France Compromises On iTunes Dispute The French National Assembly voted in March to "force companies like Apple Computer to make their online music stores and players compatible with rival products, but key members say they have agreed to many of the weaker measures endorsed by senators." Wired (AP) 06/21/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 6:55 pm
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A Plan To Help Diversify Chicago Arts Leadership The Chicago Community Trust is investing $1 million in a program to try to diversify management of the city's cultural institutions. "The trust cited data showing that non-Hispanic whites fill 88 percent of the management positions of arts and cultural institutions nationwide. Among the six participant institutions, whites compose 82 percent of management posts, African-Americans 9 percent, Latinos 5 percent and Asians 4 percent." Chicago Tribune 06/22/06
Posted: 06/22/2006 6:54 am
Sex Sells. But What's The Point? "When you talk to people about raunch culture in terms of a specific company or corporation they just say: 'Oh, well, sex sells.' That's our justification for everything. And Barbie-doll images of women - long legs, fake breasts, blonde hair - are a glossy advertising shorthand that simultaneously appeals to everyone and no one, shifting units in a way that more complex, varied and substantive sexual images never could. 'My book is not an attack on the sex industry,' says Ariel Levy. 'It's about how the sex industry has become every industry." The Guardian (UK) 06/21/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 7:57 pm
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Vienna State Opera Opera Sacks Mezzo Last week Olga Borodina was to have made her debut at the Vienna State Opera. "Instead, just as the performance was about to begin, a State Opera representative gave a statement from chief executive Ioan Holender that 'an atmosphere has developed which required the Staatsoper to distance itself from this commitment [to Borodina],' that Agnes Baltsa was replacing Borodina at short notice despite an injured leg, and that the company would not be working with Borodina in the future." PlaybillArts 06/21/06
Posted: 06/22/2006 6:04 am
One Man's Ordeal Over Broken Vases "In January, Nick Flynn was caught on camera as he fell down a staircase at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, smashing three 17th-century vases worth an estimated £500,000. He blamed an untied shoelace, but the authorities weren't so sure. Then on Tuesday, police said they would not press charges." Still, it's been a six-month ordeal... The Guardian (UK) 06/22/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 8:11 pm
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"Corrie" To Make It To NY My Name is Rachel Corrie will be coming to New York after all. A planned production was canceled earlier this year. But "Pam Pariseau and Dena Hammerstein, partners in James Hammerstein Productions, are bringing the play, critically acclaimed in London, to the Minetta Lane Theater in Greenwich Village. Previews are to begin on Oct. 5, with an opening scheduled for Oct. 15. The play is to run for 48 performances, closing on Nov. 19." The New York Times 06/22/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 8:14 pm
Singing Praises Of Temporary Theatres The Royal Shakespeare's new temporary theatre, built to house the company while its new permanent home is being built, is a real stunner. And that poses the perhaps heretical notion that "the best theatres aren't always those over which architects have laboured long and hard..." The Guardian (UK) 06/21/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 7:08 pm
On Broadway - Enough With The British, Already! "When God created the middle class, He had only the British in mind. New York theatergoers’ Anglophilia is an incurable case of reverse snobbery, however, and the ghost of Noël Coward, for one, wishes to say from his chaise lounge in the sky, 'Ta ever so'." New York Observer 06/21/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 7:03 pm
Denver Gets A New Set Of Theatre Awards "Denver Center took home eight out of 20 awards - including best season for a theater company - during the event at Denver Civic Theatre. The new awards, administered by the Colorado Theatre Guild, are named after local theater veteran Henry Lowenstein." Rocky Mountain News 06/21/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 8:48 am
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ACLU Protest Book Ban In Florida Schools The ACLU is contesting a Miami-Dade County school board decision to remove a book from its library shelves. "Last week, the board voted 6-3 to remove 'Vamos a Cuba' and its English-language version, 'A Visit to Cuba' from 33 schools, stating the books were inappropriate for young readers because of inaccuracies and omissions about life in the communist nation." Yahoo! (AP) 06/21/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 6:47 pm
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Studio Sues Over Student Film A Yale film student uses a bootlegged script and shoots a scene from Oliver Stone's upcoming 9/11 movie. The project is a hit on the internet and Stone's studio is suing. "If this was just a class project that would be seen by a very limited audience, that's not such a big deal. But when it is on the Internet and starts spreading and causing confusion, we have to exercise our copyright." New York Daily News 06/2206
Posted: 06/22/2006 7:24 am
A Film Fest In Film's Backyard Why does Los Angeles need a film festival? "So many people in L.A. are, quite frankly, ground down by life in the industry. We want to remind them why they came here in the first place. We want to remind them that it was for a love of film." Oh, right, film. The stuff that came before the designer gowns, competitive canapes and celebrity pregnancy countdowns." Los Angeles Times 06/22/06
Posted: 06/22/2006 7:17 am
Uproar Follows CBC Decision To Bump Newscast For Reality Show " 'I cannot think of two types of programming that are more at odds with each other. It's a terrible decision, I think it's a wrong decision. It seriously diminishes . . . the spirit and letter of the public broadcaster. It's almost as if the CBC is at war with itself'. CBC's new programming team, led by executive vice-president Richard Stursberg, has made no bones about the need to shake up a public network that has seen ratings slide the past couple of years as audiences bailed in droves." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/22/06
Posted: 06/22/2006 7:06 am
Free Mobile TV A Hit In Asia Japan and Korea have launched free broadcast TV to mobile devices, and they're a hit. "According to analysts Informa Telecoms and Media, more than 210 million people across the world will be watching TV on mobile devices by 2011. Asia-Pacific will lead the way in mobile TV growth. Informa forecasts more than 95 million subscribers in the region by 2011." BBC 06/22/06
Posted: 06/22/2006 6:11 am
FCC To Consider Media Ownership Rules The Federal Communications Commission says it will reconsider media ownership consolidation rules. "The rules are of great concern to giant media companies in an era of mergers and convergence of print and broadcast media inside individual companies. But they also affect every American through their impact on the credibility of news outlets, on the quality of public debate and on 'whether TV and radio offer entertainment that is creative, uplifting and local or degrading, banal and homogenized'." Yahoo! (AP) 06/21/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 6:44 pm
Moonves: CBS In The Movies? CBS president Les Moonves says the network might get into the movie business. "He said the television and radio broadcaster would be interested in producing six to eight movies a year on smaller budgets of $20 million to $30 million. We could get in a small way, doing six to eight movies a year in a risk-free way'." Yahoo! (Reuters) 06/21/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 6:41 pm
PBS Is Getting Tough On On-Air Swearing The new PBS policy includes blurring peoples' mouths to prevent viewers from seeing the "obscenity". "PBS officials and filmmakers say they've long taken care to ensure that their shows don't use swear words gratuitously. But cursing is sometimes necessary, in service of the truth, said Ken Burns , the veteran documentarian." Boston Globe 06/21/06
Posted: 06/21/2006 6:29 pm
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The Curiously Uneven Royal Ballet "As the Royal Ballet marks its 75th anniversary, do we find the troupe in good health, paying due homage to its signature creations while striding confidently into the future? Well, not exactly, based on this initial view..." Washington Post 06/22/06
Posted: 06/22/2006 6:37 am
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