“The March contemporary art sales held last week at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury are the Off Off Broadway of auctions. Ignored by the broader world, they are where damaged or failed works go, where ideas are tried out, where works by veterans whose careers have stalled often end up.”
Tag: 03.15.11
Conductor Yakov Kreizberg Dead at 51
He “was Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Netherlands Philharmonic and Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, and principal guest conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra (not to be confused with the Vienna Philharmonic). Past posts included that of principal conductor of the Bournemouth (U.K.) Symphony Orchestra and that of general music director at Berlin’s Komische Oper.”
England’s Theatre Funding Is Too London-Centric (Says London Critic)
“[The] real inequality is between the funding that pours into London, and that which goes to the rest of the country. Out of £325m distributed by ACE, £168m goes to London. Put simply, the founding vision of JM Keynes for the Arts Council ‘to decentralise and disperse the dramatic and musical and artistic life of this country’ has not materialised.”
People Just Can’t Stop Arguing Over the ‘Arabic Booker’
“But although this year’s prize goes to two worthy novels and breaks two glass ceilings, it’s more likely to generate additional controversy (was Raja Alem chosen because she’s a woman? Did Achaari win because of his political connections and the novel’s western-friendly subject matter? …) than to quell it.”
When Artists Write the Actors’ Scripts
“In art we’ve seen the emergence of writing, using language along the lines of scripts and live recitals, and we feel that now’s the moment to put it together with the discipline of theatre and see what happens,” explains the director of London’s Whitechapel Gallery, where the likes of Sally Hawkins and Jonathan Pryce will perform scripts by half a dozen prominent artists.
Ansel Adams Trust Wins Settlement Against Possessor of ‘Lost’ Negatives
“Ending a legal dispute that began last summer, Rick Norsigian has agreed he will stop using Ansel Adams’ name, likeness, or the ‘Ansel Adams’ trademark as he continues to sell prints and posters of Yosemite National Park and coastal California that he has long contended document ‘lost negatives’ shot by the great nature photographer.”
Canadian Midlist Authors Endangered?
“An e-book market cluttered with the self-published but unedited, and a beleaguered professional publishing arena where only a few bestselling writers can make a living is a particularly unfriendly scenario for Canada, a nation that has produced few bestselling genre writers but many mid-list literary writers.”
NYCity Ballet Proposes A Social Media Contract For Its Employees
“While comparable to corporate policies governing employees’ online conduct, the rules would be a departure from the laissez-faire approach taken by the ballet until this point.”
Canadian Book Publishing – In Real Trouble
“How did people get the idea that there are electrified fences against foreign investment in Canadian literature? Unlike the protected business of banking, for example, there are no barriers to the free flow of books into Canada.”
Art Historian Leo Steinberg, 90
“Though trained in the study of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, he wrote as insightfully about modern art as he did about the old masters. The titles of his two best-known books, Other Criteria: Confrontations With Twentieth-Century Art (1972) and The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion (1983), suggest the range of his interests.”