No one expected “Chicago” to become this big a hit. “But the movie’s domestic box office is now double that of ‘Moulin Rouge,’ the only other movie musical to fly in years, and, unlike that predecessor, ‘Chicago’ didn’t have to throw in David Bowie and Beck to entice the musical-phobic youthful demographic thought to spurn show tunes by John Kander and Fred Ebb. Young audiences have turned up anyway. Everyone has. The film has touched a nerve this year as no previous incarnation of Watkins’s play (there were two previous film versions) ever did.” Why? Even though the musical traces its roots back to 1926, its themes are timeless.
Tag: 03.23.03
Art & Auction Magazine Sold
Louise Blouin MacBain, former CEO of auction house Phillips has bought struggling “Art & Auction” magazine from LVMH Moët Hennessey Louis Vuitton, with plans to “redesign the 25-year-old magazine and develop a sister newsletter on art market data and investment trends. She plans to nearly double the magazine’s circulation of 22,000 over the next three months by expanding into Germany, France and England.”
If It’s Really Art, It Doesn’t Fit In A Cliche
Blake Gopnik has had it up to here with silly cliches about what art is or isn’t. In fact, he has a top ten list of the silliest pigeonholes critics and pundits try to force art into. Included are such gems as “Good Art Is The Mirror Of Its Times,” “Good Art Is Abstract,” and “Good Art Is Finely Crafted.” Says Gopnik of that last cliche, “a cuckoo clock is finely crafted.”
The New Irish Architects
“Paradoxically, despite the fact that architecture now seems more than ever to be dominated by that flying circus of the perpetually jet- lagged who get to build everything, architecture is one of those areas in which, given the right circumstances, the differences between the metropolitan and the provincial count for much less than they do in most other cultural forms. The new names that are beginning to attract international attention in architecture are as likely to be from Croatia, Iran or China and Ireland as they are from America or Japan.” And now Irish architects are making their move.
Harvey’s Way
Harvey Weinstein is not a popular man in Hollywood. The Miramax cheif is known far and wide in the industry for being completely ruthless, infuriatingly single-minded, and unconcerned with such niceties as rules and taboos. He has been accused of trading favors and even cash for Oscar votes, but no one can deny that the strategy has worked. However, some in the business contend that Weinstein’s constant overreaching and bullying PR campains on behalf of mediocre flicks are costing his studio’s best films the recognition they deserve.
So You Wanna Be A Choreographer
There’s a lot more to creating a dance than just throwing on some music and making up steps. Choreography is a finely adjusted blend of research, flair, and precision, and the thought of creating a scriptable dance is an awfully daunting one for those who have never seen it done. But if you’d like to give it a try, famed choreographer Mark Morris would be happy to tell you how he does it.
Margaret Atwood Sees Her Word Turned Into Music
Writer Margaret Atwood was suprised when she was approached with the idea of turning her book “The Handmaiden’s Tale” into an opera. “I was aware of the problems the creators of the opera must have faced. The novel has much internal monologue: how would they handle that? How to convey the back-story to the plot? Would the costumes look not strange and ominous, but merely silly?”
California’s Perpetual Museum-In-Progress
The California African American Museum reopens this week after a $3.8 million renovation. This is good news, but the state’s budget crisis has once again put the museum at risk. The CAAM was created 25 years ago, but it has never really had the opportunity to become financially stable, since a heavy reliance on wildly fluctuating state funding has kept it subserviant to the whims of politicians. The latest round of state cuts will see the museum’s budget shrink by 35%, and the CAAM is scrambling to find ways to make up the difference.
Saatchi’s New Showcase
Collector and professional recluse Charles Saatchi will open a spectacular new public home for his vast collection of contemporary British art later this year, and early indications are that it will immediately become one of the UK’s hottest art destinations. Its proximity to the Tate Modern is also sparking rumors of a not-so-friendly rivalry. But for every visitor who comes for the art, another will come to see if the gallery holds any revelations about the gruff and mysterious Saatchi himself.
Cops And Robbers And Broken Statues
“Fragments of an ancient Roman statue of Apollo, illegally excavated several years ago near the Italian capital, were recovered in London, police said this week.” The fragments were actually discovered in February, but the find was not announced until this week. Authorities had been searching for the artifacts for six years, and had pursued the thieves through at least four European nations. Two people have been arrested in connection with the discovery.