Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center is about to unveil its huge expansion, turning the city’s modern art showcase into an even more prominent local landmark than it already was. But a few blocks away, the more tradition-bound Minneapolis Institute of Arts is preparing to open 27 new galleries, and it, too, will be putting the focus on recent art. “Officials at both the Walker and the MIA dismiss the notion of a rivalry, even though they clearly are fishing for donors in the same relatively small pool of big-time Twin Cities area art collectors.”
Tag: 03.06.05
Caravaggio, Brought To You By The Religious Right
“Day after day the crowds flock to the National Gallery’s ‘Caravaggio: The Final Years’ exhibition, fascinated in equal measures by the artist’s debauched lifestyle and the power of his paintings… But what the crowds are unlikely to appreciate is that the acclaimed exhibition was made possible thanks to the generous donation of a reclusive US millionaire who bankrolled a fundamentalist religious movement founded by a man who endorsed the execution of homosexuals and adulterers.”
In A New York State Of Mind
There is no easier way for a dance troupe to achieve validation than to score a hit in New York City. And this week, both of Colorado’s high-profile dance companies are paying the Big Apple a visit. “But if the potential payoff for these trips to New York is big, so are the risks. Instead of the endorsement they crave, some companies get spanked.” What’s the solution? Well, it never hurts to hire a publicist with extensive knowledge of New York’s strange and powerful arts world.
Art On The Defensive
Is the world of art becoming cowed by a culture that is increasingly hostile to anything that smacks of intellectualism? “Faced with pre-emptive, Internet-driven attacks on what they might do or say at any given moment — and self-fulfilling prophesizing as to whom they surely will offend — movie stars, comedians, even news anchors, increasingly spend their time in reactive mode. Good art — and lively entertainment — sets agendas. Defensive art typically is unwatchable.”
Does New Have To Mean Noise?
When the Boston Symphony hired James Levine as music director, it knew that its audiences would be in for a healthy dose of modern music amid the Sibelius and Beethoven. But less than a year into Levine’s tenure, some are beginning to ask why the maestro seems to go out of his way to select the most tiresome, unlistenable examples of 20th and 21st-century music. “Most of those contemporary composers favored by Levine, such as Elliott Carter and Milton Babbitt, have little patience with anything that smacks of tonality or emotional catharsis. These sons of Schoenberg… also could not care less about music that could rebuild an audience for classical music.”
Scottish Writers Revolt
Scotland’s authors are proposing to break away from the Scottish Arts Council and are asking the Scottish Executive to start a special funding board just for literature. The move follows a dismal year for the Arts Council, and a similar breakaway request from Scotland’s four largest performing arts groups.
Max Fisher, 96
Detroit’s most famous classical music benefactor wasn’t a big fan of music, and rarely attended concerts at the glittering performing arts complex that bears his name. Max Fisher’s generosity was a gift not so much to an orchestra as to a city he loved, and desperately wanted to see brought back. Fisher died this past week, leaving behind a rich legacy of philanthropy born of an abiding sense of duty.
The Money Behind The Curtain
They don’t play instruments, paint landscapes, or take bows, but those wealthy men and women who sped their evenings in formalwear, going from cocktail party to reception to gala, are an integral part of any city’s cultural scene. In tony Boston, the glitterati have traditionally formed a very exclusive club, but things are changing. “Gone are the closed ranks of the Boston Brahmin, when your place in the Social Register was a question of pedigree. Today, membership in the club is more dependent on how much you can do — and give — for worthy causes. And, with the pool of local corporate benefactors shrinking through mergers and out-of-town ownership, the donations from this club are becoming more critical to a wide array of the city’s social services and the arts.”
Learning To Reach Out
Studying music in a conservatory is very different from being a professional musician, as graduates of such cloistered institutions as Juilliard and Curtis quickly discover. But an innovative outreach program at Boston’s New England Conservatory is aiming to prepare its young participants for the work they will be expected to do as professionals, as well as bringing high-quality, low-cost music to underprivileged corners of the community.
Chicago’s Other Top Conductor
Even as the Chicago Symphony prepares to usher in a new era with the departure of music director Daniel Barenboim, one familiar face at Orchestra Hall won’t be going anywhere. Pierre Boulez, the onetime enfant terrible of contemporary music, has made a home for himself in Chicago as the CSO’s principal guest conductor, and some would argue that his effect on the orchestra has been more profound than even the music director’s. “His presence has enlivened the contemporary music scene throughout the city. Some listeners who hear his lucid, highly honed performances of new music with the CSO have been tempted to seek it out elsewhere.”