Taxidermy Enjoys A New Chic "For generations, the art of preserving dead creatures has been considered at worst barbaric and at best a relic of 19th-century colonialism. Now, however, a new breed of artists and collectors are discovering taxidermy. A manky hoof or a moth-eaten fox head that once adorned your granny's spare room is probably propped on the wall of an expensive restaurant. A new shop selling taxidermy is opening next year in London's achingly fashionable Shoreditch. Kate Moss has just spent several thousand pounds on a piece of taxidermy sculpture - a dead bluetit on a prayer book - by the east London-based artist Polly Morgan." The Guardian (UK) 08/08/06
Posted: 08/08/2006 3:03 am
Is The Pompidou Accident-Prone? "Since its opening in 1977, the Pompidou Center's Musée National d'Art Moderne has been counted among the world's most admired and most visible museums of contemporary art, beginning with its startling Paris building, its outside walls industrially festooned with ducts and fixtures. But in some circles, the institution has also acquired a reputation as a place where bad things sometimes happen to borrowed art." Los Angeles Times 08/07/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 10:53 pm
Sotheby's On The Fast Track Sotheby's CEO William Ruprecht is riding high times at the auction company. "Will we have the top lot of the season? Who knows? In the first six months, we grew about twice as fast as Christie's. But we're not in a race with Christie's. We're not in the same game. We focus on the high end, not on the mass market. We don't sell Star Trek memorabilia as a major part of our effort. We don't do online sales. We brought that to the art market five years ago, and we ditched it. Guess why." Bloomberg.com 08/07/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 9:52 pm
Saskatoon's Next Year Gallery Saskatoon's Mendel Gallery has had ambitious plans for an expansion. It deserves to grow. But funding for the project seems always ready to come... next year. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 08/07/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 9:22 pm
Russians Examine Museum Security Russian authorities are scrutinizing security at the Hermitage Museum after recent thefts. "As authorities announce the return of some of the Hermitage items, attention is turning to the glaring lack of control at Russian museums since the 1991 Soviet collapse. Security and inventory systems are antiquated, with curators often keeping records by hand in notebooks." CBC 08/07/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 6:53 pm
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Ad Money Up Front, Coverage To Follow When Tim Mangan's old roommate sent a review copy of his CD to Fanfare magazine, he got a curious response. "The editor of Fanfare, Joel Flegler, had sent him a letter quoting ad rates. If my roommate bought an ad, it said, his recording would be reviewed. If he bought a bigger ad or placed ads in consecutive issues, the editor would arrange for my roommate to be interviewed. The ad rates ranged from $706-$1,853. If he didn't buy an ad, a review might be forthcoming but there was no guarantee, and his CD would not 'be given top priority.' My roommate asked me if he should consider the deal." Orange County Register 08/06/06
Posted: 08/08/2006 6:13 am
Russians Dump Pianos During the days of the Soviet Union, playing the piano was officially encouraged as a path to excellence and cultural superiority. But now Russians are dumping the instruments. "Pianos are being forced out by Ikea furniture and Japanese stereo systems as young professionals turn their back on their parents' dreams of having a classical pianist in the family. The scramble to get rid of the instruments is seen as the latest blow to Russian cultural prestige in the wake of high-profile artists opting to ply their trade abroad and even taking foreign citizenship." Scotland On Sunday 08/06/06
Posted: 08/08/2006 12:26 am
50 Years In Santa Fe John Crosby founded Santa Fe Opera in 1956 "among the high hills a few miles north of the city. Over the decades of his visionary and sometimes autocratic stewardship, Crosby evolved a trademark artistic profile that has made Santa Fe Opera one of the nation's most distinctive companies..." San Francisco Chronicle 08/07/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 11:26 pm
That Music And Sex Thing (Yes! There's A Link!) "Teenagers who listen to songs with raunchy lyrics start having sex earlier than those who listen to other types of music, according to a new study in the US." The Guardian (UK) 08/08/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 10:31 pm
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When A County Arts Program Gets Crowded Having grown accustomed to the county government providing their performance and rehearsal spaces, some arts groups in Arlington County, Virginia, are suddenly seeing the downside of a successful public program: uncertainty about where they'll be in the near future. "Under the umbrella of its Arts Incubator, the county is working with 55 arts groups and nine arts spaces (compared with 10 groups in 1990). As the program has grown, so has competition for new locations. Theater groups are feeling the squeeze because the county can't accommodate them all. And the real estate boom has sent rents for other spaces out of reach for many who might rent commercial venues." Washington Post 08/08/06
Posted: 08/08/2006 4:48 am
New Orleans Rebuilds Locally "Ever since a botched attempt to develop a comprehensive plan for New Orleans fell apart last winter, city and state officials have been straining to avoid the sticky racial and social questions that are central to any effort to rebuild and recover after Hurricane Katrina. Their solution, hammered out in July, was to turn the planning process over to a local charity, the Greater New Orleans Foundation." The New York Times 08/08/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 10:59 pm
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Director Daniel Schmid, 64 "Daniel Schmid, one of Switzerland’s best-known film and opera directors, died on Saturday in his hometown, Flims, in eastern Switzerland. He was 64." The New York Times (AP) 08/08/06
Posted: 08/08/2006 3:17 am
The Artist And His Charity Glass artist Dale Chihuly is a philanthropist involved in many charities. And one of them... reports the Seattle Times... also seems to benefit Chihuly along with 33,000 seniors... Seattle Times 08/07/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 11:31 pm
Barnes Foundation Gets A New Leader He's Derek Gillman, 53, "president and chief executive of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, a prestigious art school and museum known for its collection of 19th- and 20th-century American paintings. Trustees at the Barnes cited Mr. Gillman’s experience with complex museum expansion projects, a familiarity crucial to the Barnes as it charts the move of its fabled collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art from suburban Merion to a new building in downtown Philadelphia." The New York Times 08/07/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 5:59 pm
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Mom And Dad Just Loved Your Fringe Show All those five-star online reviews for Minnesota Fringe Festival shows: Could it be -- gasp! -- that they're written by friends and family of performers? Star Tribune (Minneapolis) 08/07/06
Posted: 08/08/2006 6:22 am
Air-Rights Money To Benefit NYC Theatre Community? Maybe Not. Two Manhattan theatres are finally taking advantage of a previously unused 1998 air-rights transfer law intended to benefit the theatre community through a surcharge added to the price of the development rights. "But there’s a snag. Though two developers — who are buying the air rights for more than $20 million — are ready to hand over the special payments, the city government is not prepared to accept them. It never created the fund to hold the money or the council that is supposed to oversee it. As a result, it is not clear if the theater community will ever directly benefit from the windfall." The New York Times 08/06/06
Posted: 08/08/2006 3:47 am
For Midtown Revival, "Fantasticks" Clones Its Village Space "Fans of 'The Fantasticks' entering New York's new Snapple Theater Center to see the Off-Broadway revival of history's longest-running musical will notice that some things look very familiar. The show's new home at Broadway and 50th Street has been configured to reproduce the seat arrangement and some of the ambience of The Sullivan Street Playhouse, the gemlike Greenwich Village theatre where the cast sang 'Try To Remember' for nearly 42 years, from 1960 to 2002." Playbill 08/05/06
Posted: 08/08/2006 3:41 am
American Girl Actors Back On The Job "Actors working in musical shows at the American Girl Place theatre in midtown Manhattan returned to work on Saturday after walking out for two days late last week, an Equity official said Monday. Though the two sides have not resolved the central issue -- whether management would recognize the actors' attempts to join Actors' Equity Association and thereby receive the benefits a union contract would provide -- officials at American Girl welcomed the actors back and said they would be paid for the time they missed, according to Maria Somma, a spokesperson for Equity." Back Stage 08/07/06
Posted: 08/08/2006 3:23 am
Royal Shakespeare Company At Full Speed The Royal Shakespeare Company is in the midst of some turbulent activity. At the center of it all? Director Michael Boyd... The Telegraph (UK) 08/07/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 10:49 pm
Actors Protest Scottish Smoking Ban " 'The smoking legislation aims to protect the public from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke,' runs its official line. 'This applies equally to actors, performers and theatrical audiences as it does to other workers and members of the public.' In a country where 13,000 people die every year from smoking-related illnesses, this might seem sensible. And local support for the ban has risen from 56% to 78% since the Smoking, Health and Social Care Act came into force in March. But Scotland had reckoned without the Edinburgh festival, where the appetite for controversy is insatiable, and where artistic freedom is as sacred as the right to a pint at 5am." The Guardian (UK) 08/07/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 10:21 pm
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The Author's Quixotic Task: Catching Oprah's Eye "Oprah Winfrey changed Michele Weldon's literary life. But it took a little doing. The Chicago author and Medill School of Journalism prof's first book, 'I Closed My Eyes: Revelations of a Battered Woman,' a 1999 memoir, had just been published and she thought it perfect 'Oprah' material -- so perfect that four times annually over the next three years, she rang up one of the show's producers to gently pitch its worthiness." The odds of succeeding as Weldon did are extremely slim. "But Oprah's track record is too stunning, the stuff of lore, rife with publishing industry success stories. So authors keep doing what Weldon did: storming the compound -- literally and figuratively -- to gain notice." Chicago Sun-Times 08/08/06
Posted: 08/08/2006 5:50 am
Starbuck's Books Starbuck's is moving into selling and promoting books. "This is the next step of our entertainment strategy. Our plan has been to start with music, take the next step into film and add books as the third leg of the stool." Yahoo! (AP) 08/07/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 7:12 pm
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Teens: Entertain Us, But Do We Have To Leave The House? "For decades, the movie business has followed an inflexible formula: Produce features, show them first in theaters, release them on video, then broadcast them on television." But a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll shows that young people, though still hungry for films, aren't interested in following the old rules about how and when they see them. "If teens and young adults are steering clear of movie theaters, where are they going? If you're reading this story online, you're staring at the answer: a personal computer." Los Angeles Times 08/08/06
Posted: 08/08/2006 4:18 am
Why Aren't We All Watching TV On Computers? "In theory, TVs and PCs were supposed to converge and spawn one hybrid media device. In practice, they touch on the couch without breeding. TiVo buffs up your TV with PC-style software that ends the pain of VCR programming. YouTube delivers a searchable trove of instant-play clips to your computer screen. But when you plunk down on the couch to relax, you probably don't want to search YouTube with a remote wand." Slate 08/07/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 11:44 pm
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In Defense Of Ballet (Sorta) John Rockwell responds to Lewis Segals's rant against ballet in Sunday's Los Angeles Times. "Although I disagree with him on almost every count, there is something salutary about his position. There are so many ballet magazines and ballet Web sites out there now that simply assume the superiority of ballet to all other forms of dance that it is nice to have a corrective." The New York Times 08/08/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 11:07 pm
A Fringe Dance Festival Reaches For The Big Time "Can a dance fringe festival morph itself into a curated big-ticket item and succeed? The newly transformed Toronto International Dance Festival (TIDF) opens Tuesday with Montreal's legendary Margie Gillis and only at the end of its 12-day run will artistic director Michael Menegon know whether his gamble has paid off." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 08/08/06
Posted: 08/07/2006 9:56 pm
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