“While pop musicians and classical composers alike are always going on about computer software, acoustic instruments and the people who play them are a far more cultish affair. They’re still doing things by hand in traditional, sometimes outlandish, sometimes messy ways.”
Tag: 03.08.08
When The Movies Got Smaller
“The movie medium we have loved — huge motion pictures projected in dark chambers for large groups of people — faces fierce competition, and not just from its old bugbear TV. Now theatrical films must compete with such new media as Web movies, as well as the transmigration of TV programs and feature films to computer screens, iPods and telephones. The trend won’t be reversed in the foreseeable future.”
Why We Need A Literary Canon
“In the later 20th century, as waves of critical theory broke over the academy, the idea of the canon came under attack on the grounds that it was a club for dead white males, that it excluded much other work of value and interest, that it must be dismantled or at any rate radically revised. As Marx observed: ‘All that is solid melts into air’ – in this case into noise, the Babel of mass disempowerment.”
Canada’s Embattled Culture Minister
Canada’s Heritage Minister has been under fire from all sides recently, accused of snubbing arts leaders and promoting censorship. “While it can’t be easy for women in [Stephen] Harper’s testosterone-filled cabinet (seven of the 32 ministers are female), it must be even harder as the minister promoting arts and culture, an area that many Tories believe is frivolous.”
Big Money For The Arts In B.C.
The provincial government of British Columbia has pledged CAN$50m to the construction of a new home for the Vancouver Art Gallery. “The $50-million is part of $209-million in funding for the arts that also includes $150-million to create a general cultural fund.”
New Director For Women’s Museum
Washington, D.C.’s National Museum of Women In the Arts has named its chief curator, Susan Fisher Sterling, as the institution’s new director. The museum “often does groundbreaking work but is just as often overlooked in the lineup of Washington museums,” and Sterling will be tasked with raising its profile.
Whitney Biennial Just Not As Bad As We’d Hoped
“At first, the 2008 Whitney Biennial seemed destined to be the bad mother of all major museum shows. This would be ideal, of course. Hating the Whitney – the Super Bowl of American art – is a time-honoured tradition, like dissing Darth Vader… Yet, once again, the Whitney Biennial has failed to deliver on its promise of badness.”
Replacing A Legend Is Never Easy
“With Judith Jamison’s announcement last month that she plans to retire as artistic director [of Alvi Ailey American Dance Theater] by 2011, the question for the company is who can possibly succeed her?”
Planning Philly’s Architectural Future
Philadelphia is going through a wave of downtown development, which is changing the look of one of America’s oldest cities. One developer is hoping to completely reinvent a moribund section of the area known as Center City with a pair of skyscrapers anchoring a street level complex. Commence debate…. now.
Quarterlife Still Alive & Kicking Online
When the web-based TV show “quarterlife” got a chance at a prime time slot on NBC, but was canceled after one episode, some critics saw it as a clash between new and old media. But the show’s creator sees it differently: “we’re doing just fine on the Internet, thank you very much.”