Tag: 01.27.06

Italy Says Talks With Met Museum Have Soured

An Italian culture ministry lawyer says talks between his government and the Metropolitan Museum on disputed artifacts have soured. ” ‘I’m very worried,’ said Maurizio Fiorilli, a ministry lawyer involved in the talks, saying the Met’s lawyers are demanding excessive proof that the objects were stolen. The Met said it doesn’t see any snag in the talks and expects to send Italy a proposal for a settlement next week.”

Christie’s of Arabia

It’s not a new development, but increasingly, it has become impossible to ignore the fact that the world of high art (and the acquisition of large amounts of it by private collectors) has expanded well outside its traditional Western borders. A milepost will be planted this spring, when Christie’s opens its newest auction house – in Dubai.

Art As Black Market Collateral

As prices for contemporary art sold at auction have spiralled out of control, the number of major art heists has been rising as well, and there’s a very real connection between the two events. “Art is often stolen for use as collateral in arms and drugs deals or as a commodity that can be exchanged between criminal organisations… Art works often circulate in criminal networks… for years, only turning up by chance when police raids aimed at other illegal activities uncover them. But it is not uncommon for insurance companies to pay a ransom for the return of valuable works, and this underpins their value as illicit goods.”

Getty Museum Director In Rome For Talks With Government

New Getty Museum director Michael Brand has this week’s reopening of the Getty Villa on his plate. But he’s not in LA. He’s in Italy meeting with Italian culture minister Rocco Buttiglione to discuss contested items in the Getty’s collection. “The Getty’s objective is to develop a fuller sense of all the evidence available regarding the objects in question. We want to be in a better position to continue our dialogue with the Italian government.”

Bloodless “Lestat” Might Die In SF

The new musical “Lestat”, based on Anne Rice’s “The Vampire Chronicles,” is in trouble in its San Francisco run, and might not make it to Broadway. “A production source says Warner Bros., which is producing the $12 million musical, has told the creative team that, unless the changes are sweeping and effective, the lid on the ‘Lestat’ coffin will be hammered shut in San Francisco.”

Alfred Brendel At 75

“The quality of Brendel’s alertness — his sensual intellectuality or his intellectual sensuality, whatever it is — is breathtaking; and it is refined, solidified, by technique and scholarship and reflection, so that he never falls back solely upon the force of his own subjectivity. Like all musicians, he is an interpreter, but he is not another jolly manufacturer of “interpretations.” It is the music itself that Brendel desires to disclose. He believes that at the piano he can narrow the distance from the real. Brendel’s pianism is neither personal nor impersonal. That is its uncanny achievement.”

Mail Glitch Hits SF Ballet Ticket Holders

San Francisco Ballet’s new season opens this week. But many of the company’s season subscribers hadn’t received their tickets. “Subscribers ordinarily receive their tickets in December, well before the season opens during the last week of January. But as of Jan. 9, subscribers still had not received their tickets. The problem apparently lies with an Illinois company that was hired to provide the ticket services but ‘completely blew it’.” How? They sent tickets third-class mail rather than first-class.