“As the rambunctious entertainers of the Internet make their plays for the showbiz big leagues, these overnight superstars are enjoying the standard introduction to Hollywood. Which means not just glad-handing agents and Kafkaesque ‘lunch meetings’ but also the bitter falling-out with your partners from the ‘hood, complete with morning-after mudslinging.” Case in point: the meteoric rise and disastrous fall of the video blog, Rocketboom.
Author: sbergman
Chicago’s New Leading Theatre?
“At a time when young audiences demonstrably are rejecting stolid, text-based theater for more eclectic performance styles, the maturation of the [House Theatre of Chicago] has excellent timing. This is the theater company that could — should — be a new leading public face of Chicago’s off-Loop. This is the House’s moment. “
Major Art Dealer Felled By Heart Attack
“Robert Noortman, a gregarious, risk-taking dealer who was a major force in the market for old master and French Impressionist paintings, died on Sunday at his castle in the Belgian countryside, just over the border from his base in Maastricht, the Netherlands. He was 60.”
Why Won’t Americans Watch Foreign Films?
This is a golden age of global filmmaking, according to nearly any critical standard. But American moviegoers don’t appear to have any interest. “The movies are out there, more numerous and various than ever before, but the audience — and therefore the box-office returns, and the willingness of distributors to risk even relatively small sums on North American distribution rights — seems to be dwindling and scattering.”
Producers Pick Sunshine Over Drama
“Low-budget film Little Miss Sunshine has won a key movie award that is one of the main pointers to Oscars success. In a surprise decision, the quirky family comedy was named best picture by the Producers Guild of America. Little Miss Sunshine had been seen as an Oscars outsider – but beat fancied contenders Babel, The Departed, The Queen and Dreamgirls to the PGA award. The winner of best picture at the Oscars has matched the PGA’s choice in 11 of the last 17 years.”
Playing The Waiting Game In Philly
With Christoph Eschenbach preparing to depart the Philadelphia Orchestra in mid-2008, speculation is rife over who the orchestra will pick to replace him. “No name is likely to garner more speculation next season than Vladimir Jurowski,” but the most likely scenario is that the orchestra won’t have a new leader in place when its current one leaves.
Dialing For Dollars (But Who Takes Home The Cash?)
“Telephone pleas for donations can draw big bucks for charities, but even bigger ones for the companies making the calls. Private telemarketing companies calling on behalf of more than 450 nonprofits in New York collected $190 million in 2005 — the best year since 1999. But as much as 90 cents of every dollar donated never reaches the nonprofit and is kept by the telemarketing companies.”
Failing To Plan…?
Arts groups, particularly successful ones, are extremely susceptible to cults of personality surrounding their most visible leaders. Andrew Adler says that the star power of some arts leaders actually works against the long-term sustainability of the groups they lead, because such organizations frequently fail to plan for a future without their stars.
A Less Obvious Gehry
Architect Frank Gehry is designing another concert hall, this time in Miami, to house the New World Symphony, which bills itself as America’s orchestral training academy. But “in contrast to Gehry’s bravura landmarks such as the Guggenheim in Bilbao or the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, you won’t be able to take in the essential idea at a distance. This building won’t swoop, nor will it curve, bow, bend or dance. It is subtle rather than obvious — a building that requires participation, which is really the whole point.”
Is Digital Art Destined To Disappear?
The rise of digital art has wrought many changes in the art world, but one of the biggest challenges for those who use computers to create their art may be avoiding technological obsolescence. “Is this work – perfectly preserved in binary code – doomed because it will be superseded by future hardware and software?” And when art is designed to be fluid, how do you even define what constitutes the art, anyway?