As anyone who reads ArtsJournal’s visual arts blogs well knows, the sale of Thomas Eakins’ The Cello Player by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is not sitting well with many in the local or national art scene. “The deal, some say, has soured what had been a heady community fund-raising effort to keep Eakins’ masterpiece, The Gross Clinic, in Philadelphia – because now a leader of that effort has done precisely what many donors were upset about in the first place: sold a treasured painting in a secret transaction.”
Tag: 02.02.07
Quebec Politicians Curry Favor With Film Cash
“With a provincial election looming and Quebec filmmakers eager to bounce back from a relatively poor performance last year, Quebec’s major cultural organization has announced a 42-per-cent hike in its annual base funding for movie projects in the province.”
The South Asia Boom
Indian and Pakistani writers are suddenly hot in America, as vague awareness of the subcontinent turns to curiosity about its culture. The rise in South Asian lit can probably be traced back to Salman Rushdie, but the real catalyst for the new interest in such authors is likely due to “the increasing visibility of Indians and Pakistanis in the U.S.”
Nothing Says Education Like A Lavish Penthouse
In almost any city but New York, The Manhattan School of Music would be the most famous conservatory in town. But MSM has long operated in the shadow of Juilliard, known around the world as one of the finest music schools anywhere. Now, in an effort to project a more glamorous image to prospective students and donors, MSM is unveiling a spectactular new… um, penthouse apartment? For the school’s president? Ooookay.
PBS To Launch Spanish Network
The Public Broadcasting System is starting a new digital channel aimed at Latino audiences in cities around the U.S. The new channel, which will offer “a mix of Spanish-language children’s and adult programming with an educational focus,” will be carried by 18 stations reaching 60% of the nation’s Spanish-speaking population.
Campus Choice Under Attack
“Today in academe the core freedom for faculty to choose is under attack. It has long been argued that faculty members should have the ability to construct their own courses within a general framework so long as that course covered certain topics, and was done so with the proper amount of intellectual rigor. This long tradition of choice is now besieged on campuses across the country by both committees and student activists.”
No Future For Beck’s Futures
Beck’s is pulling out of the Beck’s Futures Award. “The award, sponsored by the German beer maker, was established seven years ago as the Institute of Contemporary Art’s rival competition to the Turner Prize and was open to any modern artist. But the contest will not take place this year and may be scrapped altogether in favour of a music prize.”
Kitchen Sink Circling The Drain; Others May Follow
Kitchen Sink, a much-celebrated quarterly art and culture magazine based in Oakland, is in serious danger of folding after only a four-year run. “It was always a labor of love, existing month to month, so when its distributor, the San Francisco-based Independent Press Association, folded several weeks ago, ‘it just compounded the problems we were already having,’ said Publisher Carla Costa.” The IPA’s collapse has left several publications in the lurch, and everyone is scrambling for new options.
50 Years Of Film Outside The Hollywood Spotlight
“The San Francisco International Film Festival may not rank as an industry event that gets buzz off movie deals and celebrity sightings, but this April it will become the first film festival in the Americas to celebrate its 50th anniversary — and it is diligently documenting its cosmopolitan history.”
Can Oprah Save The Color Purple?
The Broadway version of The Color Purple got a major publicity boost when Oprah Winfrey added her name to the marquee. “With some innovative marketing – and a big push from Oprah, who invested $1 million in the show – The Color Purple caught on with black audiences, a group Broadway has tried (and largely failed) to capture in the past.” But the production is struggling now, and Michael Riedel says that The Big O needs to use her awesome powers of consumer persuasion to change that.