This season’s art auction sales held up. But there are ominous signs. “The law of diminishing returns suggests we are coming to the end of the back-toback, buy-to-sell cycle. The best of the “turning” and profit-taking has gone, and the contemporary collectors have stocked up on the prizes they missed first time round. This does not produce the growth the market needs. Not only are we looking for a new generation of artists, we’re desperate for a new wave of collectors.”
Tag: 02.18.03
Making A Point At Berlin Fest
“The upset winner as best film at the politically charged Berlin Film Festival is In This World, a faux docu-drama about refugees from Afghanistan journeying to Europe. The awarding of the Golden Bear prize to Michael Winterbottom’s film ahead of favourite The Hours and other high-profile titles Adaptation, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind and 25th Hour, was seen as a pointed anti-war statement from the seven-member jury led by Canadian director Atom Egoyan. The festival was overshadowed by protests at U.S. military intentions against Iraq. The closing awards ceremony on Saturday took place against the backdrop of a massive anti-war demonstration in the German capital.”
Slapping The Mouth You Feed?
With funding for public broadcasting under fire in Canada, you would think that the CBC would take all the help and support it could find. But a new organization agitating on behalf of the $900-million-a-year public network is being regarded with some suspicion by CBC higher-ups. Our Public Airwaves, a pro-CBC lobbying group which sprang into existence last summer, has so far done nothing to which the company could object. But OPA is a creation of the two unions representing CBC workers, and at a time when relations between management and labor have not exactly been cozy, the CBC brass are not openly embracing the group.
For Canadians, By Canadians
“Last March, Grant Dexter cheerfully stepped into the mess that is the North American recording industry to launch MapleMusic Recordings, an independent Toronto record label built on Dexter’s successful music e-commerce portal, MapleMusic.com. At the time, Dexter declared that the label would promote great Canadian pop music to Canadians, and treat artists fairly, spending reasonable time and money developing their music – and their markets.” The music industry was amused at Dexter’s efforts. Now, they’re amazed, after Maple successfully launched two top singers into the upper echelons of recording success in its first year alone.
Chicago Makes Some Subtle Cuts
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, trying to dig out from under a massive deficit, announced its plans for next season this week, and while there will be no ticket price hikes, there won’t be much in the way of innovation or excitement either, says John van Rhein. “Like [Chicago] Lyric Opera, the CSO has had to forgo expensive operatic, as well as choral, projects until the bottom line gets stronger. The Symphony Center Presents vocal series has been suspended indefinitely. There are pockets of repertory adventure in the course of the 113th season, but a lot more that suggests the very thing music director Daniel Barenboim says he deplores — ‘falling into conventional solutions and programs when the financial situation is difficult.'”
Lower Ticket Prices – What A Concept!
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is rolling back ticket prices to 1998 levels, and offering a new package of discounts and ticket deals in an effort to get more people into their hall for the coming season. Aside from being simply cheaper, the new ticket plans give subscribers more options to tailor the concert schedule to their own life, a strategy more and more orchestras are adopting. The PSO is running at a deficit, and is also searching for both a music director and a new chief executive.
Lou Harrison: “The Take-Home Pay Is A Melody”
Kyle Gann remembers Lou Harrison, who died recently at 85. “The ‘greatest living composer’ label some pasted on him in recent years was an uneasy fit. He was too one-of-a-kind personally, too multifaceted musically. His works contain passages of aimless wandering that are hard to defend to skeptics, yet emblematic of what we love about him: that he relished life and didn’t believe in hurrying.”
Using Satellites To Catch Graffiti Taggers
A company in Southern California has developed a system of satellites and high-tech sensors to catch graffiti taggers. “TaggerTrap, a graffiti eradication system being tested in several California cities, uses global positioning system technology, cell phones and sensors that recognize the ultrasonic pitch of spray cans to alert police when vandals begin their work.”
What’s Up With These Poets?
Poets have been much in the news of late. Poets are suddenly controversial (again). “Why poetry, why now? The answers might not be particularly mysterious. We are now into the second year of a period when words are being policed with particular vigor, hemmed in by off-the-record advisories as much as by Patriot Acts and Total Information Awareness. But such measures can’t help but suggest that words themselves matter, now more than ever. Poets have been saying that all along.”
Death Of The Blues?
The US Congress declared 2003 the Year of the Blues. But the blues are in trouble. “When the blues tries to grab a mainstream crowd, it cleans up and cools down a genre that began as raw field songs and work hollers. Today’s popular version reeks of facsimile, with theatricality replacing raw passion, and mimicry usurping originality. Rare is today’s blues singer or guitarist who doesn’t call to mind his biggest influences with familiar riffs first played with fire a half-century ago. Rarer still is the songwriter who can craft an inventive blues tune. It is as if imagination has been banned.”