Today Warren Buffett, Tomorrow... Bruce Willis, Perhaps? Will the recent philanthropic commitments by billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett lead other wealthy types to follow suit and commit a significant portion of their assets to charitable use? Time will tell, but the Gates/Buffett announcement has already inspired the richest Japanese action star in the world to folllow suit. "Jackie Chan announced Wednesday he has bequeathed half of his fortune to charity." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 5:32 am
Honesty - The Eyes Have It Researchers have discovered that merely posting photocopies of eyes in a room makes people behave more honestly. "Eyes are known to be a powerful perceptual signal for humans. People behave more cooperatively when they are being 'watched' by a cute image of a robot or even abstract 'eye spots' on a computer screen. But this is the first time anyone has observed the effect in a natural situation, with people using their own money. It could have far-reaching implications." New Scientist 06//27/06
Posted: 06/27/2006 8:21 pm
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They Have Art-Hating Right-Wing Politicians In Canada, Too "You would think that the proposed Portrait Gallery of Canada would be a project that a Conservative government would love: no difficult art, no greased cones or high-concept videos -- just a stirring assemblage of Great Canadians, and those who've come under the scrutiny of Great Canadian portraitists... However, funding for the portrait gallery has been repeatedly stalled. Lately, Ottawa is buzzing with rumours that the project may be abandoned by the Harper government." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 5:37 am
Southwest Bait-and-switch? The Southwest Museum's deal with the Gene Autry Museum has critics screaming bait-and-switch. "The dispute illustrates a continuing issue in the museum world. When cash-poor but collection-rich institutions are forced into partnerships with their opposites, often no one is left happy." The New York Times 06/28/06
Posted: 06/27/2006 8:00 pm
Hirst Out To Replace Shark Artist Damien Hirst is in negotiations to replace the shark in his iconic work featuring a shark in formaldehyde. "The animal suspended in formaldehyde has deteriorated dramatically to the naked eye since it was first unveiled at the Saatchi Gallery in 1992 because of the way it was preserved by the artist. The solution which surrounds it is murky, the skin of the animal is showing considerable signs of wear and tear, and the shark itself has changed shape." The Art Newspaper 06/27/06
Posted: 06/27/2006 7:21 pm
National Palace Museum Back Online Taiwan's National Palace Museum is about to open a newly completed renovation. "The museum houses the largest collection of Chinese art and artefacts in the world, consisting mainly of holdings of the last emperor of China, Pu Yi, who was forced out of the Forbidden City in Beijing in 1925. The holdings were then moved from city to city to avoid looting by the Imperial Japanese Army. Most of the collection was transported to Taiwan in the late 1940s by Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the former Republic of China." The Art Newspaper 06/27/06
Posted: 06/27/2006 7:18 pm
The Next Stage - Art As Home-selling Enhancement Want to sell your house? It might sell better with some great art in it, and so you hire a "home stager." "Home staging is a trend that's been around at least 10 years in the hot real-estate markets of San Francisco and Los Angeles, and is now keeping up to 20 different enterprises in business here in Seattle. Using original art rather than inexpensive pastoral prints is the newest twist." Seattle Weekly 06/21/06
Posted: 06/27/2006 5:14 pm
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More Red Ink In Milwaukee, But Less Of It The Milwaukee Symphony will end its fiscal year with a $688,000 deficit, and $8 million in outstanding credit lines. But it's not all bad news - the orchestra has hit its fundraising targets for the year, and even the red ink is within the bounds of the ensemble's strategic plan to eventually balance the budget. "Subscriptions fell from 10,285 to 9,805 in 2005-'06, continuing a seven-year trend. But the orchestra set records for single-ticket sales, which jumped from about 14,200 in 2004-'05 to 21,000 this season." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 4:43 am
Montreal's New Hall - So Far, It's All In The Mind The details surrounding the Montreal Symphony's new concert hall have been officially announced. "But long-suffering local music lovers should not hold their breath. While the proposed facility on the neglected northeast corner of Place des Arts has an estimated price tag - $105 million - it does not yet have a builder or architect and is not expected to materialize before 2011, the last year of Kent Nagano's contracted tenure as MSO music director. What was unveiled yesterday was less a concert hall than a hypothetical five-year plan to build one as the first cultural private-public partnership in Quebec." Montreal Gazette 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 4:34 am
Springer Opera Comes To End (Maybe Forever?) Jerry Springer the Opera is winding up its controversial tour in the UK. Despite rave reviews, the tour was a financial disaster after fundamentalist Christians attacked the tour. Many theatres pulled out and ticket sales were low. "This will be the last chance to see it, as its co-author Stewart Lee says glumly that he doubts it will ever be performed again. It shows how insidiously the tentacles of religious zeal invade every sphere of national life, despite the very small number of religious practitioners in this most secular of nations." The Guardian (UK) 06/27/06
Posted: 06/27/2006 7:37 pm
One-Click Buy Music Over Your Phone... A UK phone company will offer the service. "While tuning in to digital radio stations through headphones, listeners will be able to click a 'buy' button on their phone and have the track downloaded to their phone. Record labels, buffeted by digital piracy in recent years, and commercial radio stations suffering an advertising drain to the internet hope the digital solution will help them to fight back. But it will pose another challenge to high street record stores, already struggling to compete with the convenience of digital downloads."
The Guardian (UK) 06/27/06
Posted: 06/27/2006 7:32 pm
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L.A. Hopes To Finish What It's Starting L.A.'s decision to double its arts grants for next fiscal year is being seen as an important step in bringing California arts funding up to national standard levels. But the state (and the city) still lag far behind other national arts centers in even the most basic levels of arts support. Los Angeles Times 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 5:44 am
New York ATtempts To Rebuild Arts Education "Student-teacher ratios for the arts can be staggering. According to data provided by the department to the City Council this fall, there is 1 visual arts teacher for every 943 students and 1 music teacher for every 1,200. For dance and theater the numbers are even more extreme, with 1 dance teacher for every 8,088 students, and 1 theater teacher for every 8,871. Although about 40,000 teachers have been added to the New York City school system since 1975 — bringing the current total to about 84,000 — no more than 2,000 of them are arts specialists, according to the Center for Arts Education, a nonprofit group. Experts estimate it would cost $150 million to $200 million to hire arts specialists for every school, and the blueprint has no funds attached." The New York Times 06/26/06
Posted: 06/27/2006 8:12 pm
Modernism? It Beagn In The 19th Century "The middle of the 19th century; nearly 150 years ago. Forget what you know. Forget the stale and unjustifiable notion that 19th-century art was tame and gentle, that the impressionists were 'chocolate-box artists', that modernism began in 1900. The truth is that everything great about modern art - and, perhaps more significantly, everything about it that still lives - was invented in the undervalued 19th century." The Guardian (UK) 06/27/06
Posted: 06/27/2006 7:28 pm
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Rings May Close In Toronto By Summer's End The stage adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings may be the biggest thing to hit the Toronto theatre scene in years, but that still may not have been enough to make it profitable. "A new closing date for the Toronto production will be announced within days or weeks, sources say. Although tickets are on sale until Sept. 24, the show may not continue beyond Labour Day... Until now, attendance has been good enough to meet the show's running costs and pay its marketing bills — but not high enough to allow investors to recoup more than a fraction of the money they put up." Toronto Star 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 5:57 am
In Lieu Of West End Loos What? "At the moment, the minimum number of toilets required at a venue is based on an equal male/female split of the largest possible audience. But women end up queuing interminably because they spend an average of 90 seconds in the john, while men are in and out in 35 seconds. West End theatres are especially bad." The Guardian (UK) 06/27/06
Posted: 06/27/2006 7:43 pm
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Broken Process When filmmaker Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers was released last year, it was an instant hit with critics, and a prizewinner at Cannes. But now, a struggling screenwriter is accusing Jarmusch of having lifted much of the movie from his script. But he may have little recourse. "His case was hardly unique, or even all that unusual. When pressed, claims like his were usually squashed by high-powered studio lawyers -- or quietly settled and sealed by both parties. Furthermore, pursuing legal action could kill his chances of ever working in the movies. And bankrupt him in the process." Boston Globe 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 5:20 am
Winking And Nudging All The Way To The Bank Hollywood films never seem to say what they mean anymore. "Saying one thing but selling another has always been most blatant in anti-violence films that glory in bloody action scenes," but lately, even light comedies seem to cloak their blatant consumerist message beneath trite morality plays designed to mask their true meaning. The New York Times 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 5:16 am
The Future Of The Podcast It was a year ago that Apple launched the first version of its iTunes software to include podcasting capability, and the podcast revolution was officially on. "Apple reported 1 million downloads of podcasts in the first 48 hours of the June 28 launch and now will only say that "millions and millions" of episodes of the 60,000-plus shows listed on the site are downloaded each month. By contrast, the largest podcast directory prior to the launch, Podcast Alley, listed just 5,400 shows as of June 28." But podcasting will only be a true business success if it manages to integrate itself into the larger media picture. The good news is, the larger media have begun to sit up and take notice. Wired 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 4:58 am
The Aaron Spelling Formula Aaron Spelling was the most successful creator of American TV shows ever. His "shows exist out of the range of such categories as 'lowbrow' and 'trash' and 'brain-numbing twaddle.' Their pleasures are perfectly sincere and dementedly campy at once" Slate 06/27/06
Posted: 06/27/2006 5:00 pm
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Dancing As Competitive Sport No one actually likes ballet competitions (except, of course, the winners.) But the contests have become a way of life in the dance world, and though "they arouse heated debates about their utility and relevance to the art form," they also serve as a useful way for dancers to hone their skills and perform under pressure. The New York Times 06/28/06
Posted: 06/28/2006 5:10 am
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