What’s the next big thing in British art? “Prepare yourself to be truly shocked. For the next big thing in modern British art is the New Gentleness. And it involves lots of that supposedly endangered species, the painter. Massed watercolourists are not about to storm Tate Britain and ransack the Turner prize show, but something is stirring, though no one dares to use the word movement.”
Tag: 01.01.03
Homeless Choir Packs It In After 1000 Performances
A homeless choir formed in Montreal in a men’s shelter in 1996 to sing Christmas carols for spare change in the city’s subway, has finally disbanded, a thousand performances later. “The group achieved international recognition, including an invitation to sing at Paris’s busiest subway stations in 1998. The choir also released two CDs, was the subject of a book and a TV program and performed at the Just for Laughs comedy festival as a free street act.” Why quit? Many of the singers found jobs and their lives became more stable.
Speak This – Controversy of the Spoken Word
“So what if Vancouver has become one of the hottest venues on the North American spoken-word circuit? Is there any correlation between the groundswell of so-called ‘street poetry’ in Vancouver and the West Coast’s domination of all those august literary prizes?” Perhaps… but perhaps not. Even those who practice the art can’t agree. Some of them don’t even like one another. And they don’t like the publicity. Or even necessarily the artform. “To treat poetry as performance is crude and extremely revolting.”
The Problems With Museums
Christine Temin believes American museums need help. “Museums in this country desperately need not just financial help but help in defining their mission, their audience, their ethics. Over the past couple of decades they’ve made considerable noise about trading elitism for accessibility, and that’s certainly backed up by, among other things, a steep increase in education programs, some more effective than others. But $20 tickets to special exhibitions and $15 general admission – the current fees at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston – don’t exactly make the museum more accessible.”
The Man Who’s Building A Concert Hall
Glenn KnicKrehm is builing a performing arts complex in Boston. He’s putting $20 million of his own into the project, is raising the rest, and is steeping himself in acoustic theory. “He was a transplanted Californian who loved the Boston area but believed there was a hole in the cultural scene. There weren’t many prime spots for performance. And those that did exist, Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall, were run by massive cultural institutions. Smaller arts groups scrambled for open dates in second-tier spaces.”