Category: today’s top story

“When will The Art Newspaper and the rest of the media and political world get it into their heads that no one owns Matisse and Picasso, or for that matter Botticelli or Caravaggio, any more than they own Shakespeare, Chekhov, Beethoven or Shostakovich? Issues of copyright regarding writers and musicians do at least have statutes of limitation placed upon them; it is more than high time that similar limitations were placed on art and material culture.”

“The world’s largest art and antiques fair, beginning this week in the Dutch city of Maastricht, puts $1 billion worth of paintings and other works up for sale in the year’s first test of demand from buyers outside the auction rooms.”

“Eleven years after the publication of her best-selling Holocaust memoir – a heartwarming tale of a small Jewish girl trekking across Europe and living with wolves – [Misha Defonseca] yesterday admitted the whole story was a hoax.” The confession followed revelations in the French and Belgian press that Defonseca was not who she has been claiming to be.

“For years now, educators have been warning that U.S. society might soon be spending more on prisons than colleges. In five states, that moment has arrived.”

“Nearly half of all teenagers bought no compact discs, a dramatic increase from 2006, when 38 percent of teens shunned such purchases, according to a report released Tuesday. Two years ago, teenagers accounted for 15 percent of CD sales. In 2007, the figure was 10 percent.”

“The Metropolitan Opera and the Juilliard School have agreed to pool their resources in a program for young opera singers, as well as pianists who hope to work as vocal accompanists or opera conductors… James Levine, the music director at the Met, will be its artistic director and will conduct the participants and the Juilliard Orchestra in an annual opera performance.”

“Like the evening news broadcasts, the Oscar is a relic, a cobwebby holdover from a bygone media age when Big Events earned Big Audiences. Those days are going, going, gone. The Grammys’ ratings were down, the Emmys were down, the Golden Globes would’ve been down even if it hadn’t been eviscerated by the strike.”

“In North Korea, the purpose of music, like that of all the arts, is to serve the state. Maestro Kim Jong Il — who in his youth oversaw the transformation of North Korean cinema, opera and performing arts into ‘revolutionary’ forms — understands that mission full well. It remains to be seen how he’ll use the Philharmonic’s concern internally — North Koreans were informed of the visit only on Friday.”

“Unsurprisingly, counting total attendance immediately catapults the great, historic museums of art and culture high up the list: the Louvre in Paris comes first with 8.3m, the British Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Vatican Museums, the Hermitage, the Prado, all do well here.”

“The Internet is becoming real now in a way it has never been before. It’s becoming the main medium in which consumers engage to get information and to communicate. You can see this happening in advertising, you can see it happening in telecom, video with YouTube, with music, with newspapers and magazines. It is all shifting en masse, and all consumers are basically moving over to the Internet.”