Creating A Marketplace of Ideas: But First, The Bill Do we get the culture we deserve? William Osborne takes a look at the way America and Europe promote their cultures. There is, he reports, an obvious reason why Europe has more orchestras, operas, and dance companies and why the citizenry seem more culturally literate. ArtsWatch (AJ) 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:01 pm
Will How We Consume Music Change The Music Itself? "Although there has been plenty of debate about the legalities of downloading, one important question has so far gone unasked: will downloading affect how pop music sounds in the future? In other words, will the way that people access music have an effect on the content of that music?" CBC 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 5:17 pm
More Acropolis Museum Maneuvering (Will It Ever Be Built?) A day after the Greek government ordered a halt to constuction of the Acropolis Museum, "court sources yesterday said that a senior prosecutor has ordered that criminal charges be brought against senior Culture Ministry officials who approved the project." Kathimerini (Greece) 03/12/04
Posted: 03/12/2004 8:50 am
Kimmelman: This Whitney Biennale Is A Winner That this year's Whitney Biennale is "the best in years," writes Michael Kimmelman, won't stop the usual carping and complaining. The Biennale's three curators "overcame the inevitable strains and nicely capitalized on their differences in taste, coming up with the most cogent and layered biennial in years." The New York Times 03/12/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 7:42 pm
Saltz: A Moratorium On Projectors Please! "By now, almost everyone would agree that the traditional Warhol-Richter-Walter Benjamin defense of the use of photography in painting, the "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" argument, and the chatter about "interrogating representation" or "investigating the problem of the photograph," isn't just dated, it's shtick. We all know that photography is a remarkable and remarkably complex way of seeing and picturing the world; that the space between the photograph, the photographer, and the thing photographed is incredibly rich; that the graphic field of the photograph is often scintillatingly alive, specific, and very post-Renaissance; and that reproducing photographs in paintings once represented a significant repudiation of dearly held beliefs." But... Village Voice 03/08/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 7:12 pm
Transforming Chicago's Urban Living Room Chicago is transforming Grant Park, at the center of downtown, into what mayor Richard Daley calls "one of the finest recreational and cultural spaces of any city in the world." When it opens next summer, the "re-christened Millennium Park will feature a 125-tonne steel sculpture by Anish Kapoor, a 220-foot-long video-fountain by Catalan artist Jaume Plensa, a gleaming metallic bandshell by Frank Gehry, and a garden by landscapist Kathryn Gustafson, who won the Princess Diana Memorial competition for Hyde Park." The Art Newspaper 03/05/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:26 pm
- Chicago's Vastly Ambitious Millennium Park By the time of its opening in the summer, the park will have cost in excess of $400 million; more than twice the figure originally envisaged. The Independent (UK) 03/12/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:13 pm
African-American Art Market Heats Up "Prices for African-American art have been steadily increasing as more and more lower-end black memorabilia have shown up in flea markets, antique shows and auctions for the past 15 years. While offensive items like vintage mammy and minstrel cookie jars, salt-and-pepper shakers and dolls may sell for up to $500 each, slave documents, books and other printed matter fetch four figures at auctions. At the top, art commands tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars." Forbes (Reuters) 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 4:32 pm
Hazlewood: If Bach Was A Beatle, Vivaldi Was A Rolling Stone Former punk-rocker Charles Hazlewood is the BBC's new "face of classical music," and he takes a particularly populist approach to his shows: "There is a terrible conservatism, like a cancer, right in the heartlands of music-making, a tremendous resistance to change, an absolute horror of the idea that more people might connect with music. That infuriates me more than I can say. The very idea that people are too stupid to get their heads round what a fugue is is beyond me. I think it's total bollocks and it drives me mad." The Telegraph (UK) 03/12/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 7:04 pm
Are The Music Charts Obsolete? Music producers are fascinated with the demographic shift in music sales. Instead of kids driving the charts, it's older fans with money to buy CDs. But "the problem is that the whole concept of the charts may have become outdated, certainly as a measurement of units of music consumed. A large and ever growing proportion of young people simply no longer go into record shops, or even listen to the radio, but that does not mean they are not interested in music." The Telegraph (UK) 03/12/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:56 pm
More On Voigt - An Exceptional Case? Soprano Deborah Voigt's sacking by Covent Garden because she was too big for the costume designed for the production is an example of misplaced priorities. "Voigt's case is exceptional: it's hard to think of another singer who was dumped for not having the right looks. What is noticeable is that European companies are giving stage directors an increasingly active role in casting. In some cases, it's the only way to attract a top-flight director. Visual realism is becoming as important as the right voice type." Financial Times 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:39 pm
From Mali To America (And Back) American musicians are studying the music of Mali (think Timbuktu) and its direct connections to American blues. "It is quite obvious that several African musical traditions have had a major impact on Western music styles. Jazz, blues, rock and roll, salsa, funk, and hip-hop would not have existed without Africa's influence and genetic pollination. What's intriguing about the Mali connection is that it is so direct and palpable." Christian Science Monitor 03/12/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:13 pm
Cultural Capital? Us? We're Honored... But No... A day after an international group announced that the Canadian province of Saskatchewan would be the "2005 American Capital of Culture" governmental officials turned down the honor. "It turns out the Spanish-based organization of the same name wanted $500,000 US to pay for an international promotional package to extol the virtues of Saskatchewan's 'great cultural tradition in the editorial and audiovisual sectors, as well as in folk art and visual arts'." Canada.com (CP) 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 7:35 pm
- Previously: The Culture Capital Is... And the "American Capital of Culture" for 2005 is... (what? You didn't know there was such a thing? Me neither... shhh, just listen...) the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. OK. "The province has been elected as the American Capital of Culture for 2005 by an organization of the same name with headquarters in Barcelona, Spain. A news release from the group says the designation was made to coincide with the province's 100th anniversary. But it's not clear how much money the province would have to spend for that recognition." Canada.com (CP) 03/10/04
Is Gay The New Black? "It's never been more fashionable or popular to be gay or lesbian than now, if television coverage is anything to go by. If they're not building or renovating homes, they’re winning Oscars and thanking their boyfriends, getting married in San Francisco, or "zhushing" straight guys. Does this mean queer is the new black?" The Age (Melbourne) 03/12/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 7:28 pm
Vendler Chosen For Jefferson Address Helen Hennessy Vendler has been chosen by the National Endowment for the Humanities to deliver this year's Jefferson Lecture. Vendler is "a leading interpreter of English language poets, a professor at Harvard for nearly 25 years, and has written extensively on William Shakespeare, William Butler Yeats, Seamus Heaney and John Keats." Washington Post 03/12/04
Posted: 03/12/2004 8:07 am
Virtual Orchestra Maker Files Suit Against Musicians "A Manhattan company that makes a so-called virtual orchestra machine, an advanced synthesizer used to mimic the sound of live musicians, has filed an unfair labor practice claim accusing the Broadway musicians' union of unfairly preventing theater and music companies from using its product." The New York Times 03/12/04
Posted: 03/12/2004 6:52 am
- Virtual Orchestra Wins West End Les Miz Job The British Musicians' Union concedes that it can't stop producer Cameron Mackintosh from using a virtual orchestra for Les Misérables. The virtual music box Sinfonia, "widely used in US touring productions, needs only one operator who can synchronise its output with that of any real instruments left in an orchestra and with the voices of singers on stage." The Guardian (UK) 03/12/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:46 pm
Reinventing The TV Book Clubs "Television book clubs have scaled back from their headiest days a couple of years ago, but even brief on-air segments now have flourishing afterlives online. The "Oprah" site is by far the richest, but "Today" and "Good Morning America" also have online extensions of their book clubs, where readers can find substantial excerpts from books along with interviews and online chats with authors. These sites create an endless loop between television and the Web." The New York Times 03/12/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 7:45 pm
Groups Sue Over DVD Copy-Protection Law Last year America's FCC decided that DVD players would have to incorporate copy-limiting technology. Now a coalition of consumer advocacy groups is suing over the new law. "What is at stake is what kind of rights we have when most media is digital. We want to make sure that rights aren't taken away because the material is in a different format. We want this technology to be the best it can be, not the second- or third-best." Wired 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 6:31 pm
The Changing Face Of The Fabulous Nederlanders For over a quarter century, Nederlands Dans Theater has been shaped by Czech choreographer Jiri Kylian, long its artistic advisor and still chief provider of its repertory. But, judging by its opening program of a two-week New York run, Tobi Tobias writes that "the choreographer has abandoned the rooted-in-the soil-eyes-on-the-stars mode in which he forged his reputation for the sex-cruelty-and-angst-as-gorgeous-visuals realm that we know best from high-end fashion photography of the last decade." Seeing Things (AJBlogs) 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 7:54 pm
Ballet Pacifica Lives Southern California's Ballet Pacifica isn't dead after all. The company is going to present a new story ballet and is looking for a new artistic dirctor. "This is the first news about the future of the 42-year-old chamber-size ballet troupe since late January, when Christina Lyon, a former dancer with American Ballet Theatre, resigned as artistic director. Lyon had been in the job only seven weeks. Her departure came just days after the board canceled Ballet Pacifica's spring repertory season and its respected Pacifica Choreographic Project." Orange County Register 03/11/04
Posted: 03/11/2004 7:02 am
