“Confidence levels in the contemporary-art market have fallen 81 percent since May 2008 and may take between three and five years to recover, according to a survey by research company ArtTactic Ltd. ArtTactic’s Western Art Market Confidence Indicator dropped to 10.5 from 56, the lowest level reached since the survey was first conducted in May 2005….”
Tag: 01.20.09
Influential Graphic Designer Shigeo Fukuda Dies At 76
“Shigeo Fukuda, an influential Japanese graphic designer who was known for acerbic antiwar and environmental advocacy posters that distilled complex concepts into compelling images of logo-simplicity, died in Tokyo on Jan. 11.”
Remember When Life Was Good? Back In The Stone Age?
“Although the box-office lure of skimpy fur garments cannot be underestimated, movies like ‘10,000 B.C.’ are popular because they appeal to our sense that life used to be more in sync with the environment. … In short, we have what the anthropologist Leslie Aiello called ‘paleofantasies.'”
American Owns Posters Taken By Nazis, Court Rules
“A German court today declared a retired U.S. airline pilot to be the rightful owner of his father’s poster collection, which was seized by the Gestapo in 1938 and is currently housed in a Berlin museum.” The decision contradicts an earlier judgment.
Help Wanted: Money Manager For A Louvre Endowment
“Eighteen banks, including UBS AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co., are competing for money-management business from an elderly, refined first-time client — the Louvre. The Paris museum, which opened to the public in 1793, says it is starting a U.S.-style endowment next month with the 175 million euros ($230 million) it received to set up an Abu Dhabi offshoot.”
Fact Crowds Out Fiction, And TV Is Poorer For It
“There must be a reason that Buddha and Jesus conveyed their most profound teachings in parables, or fictional stories,” Ken Russell writes. “Stories are the narratives of life, truer than the facts. They’re where we delve deeply into the complexities of human nature.” TV’s current mania for nonfiction, then, can’t be a good thing.
With Bush’s Exit, Nuance Can Return To Political Theatre
“As liberals around the world leap up and down with joy at the inauguration of Barack Obama, theatre-makers also have cause to celebrate: they can go back to making interesting political theatre. For the last eight years, seemingly everyone involved in making theatre has so violently disagreed with George Bush that it’s made for some very tedious work. (Yes, that includes Stuff Happens.)”
Full Speed Ahead For BAM: A $300M Expansion Campaign
“Even as cultural organizations across the city are contracting in a grim economic climate, the Brooklyn Academy of Music has embarked on a $300 million expansion effort that calls for a new theater, three or four spaces for screening films, new festivals for opera and Muslim culture and a shored-up endowment, officials say.”
Christopher Wheeldon On What Dance Needs To Survive
“Everyone’s asking the question: how do you make ballet current, how do you make ballet relevant? I think you just have to make it resonate with people, emotionally resonate. People want to feel connected. I think we alienated people a little bit with that extreme physicality, where you’re not seeing the person behind the leotard, you’re just seeing the bodies.”