“Three years after the Seattle Central Library opened to starbursts of praise, including mine, I am trying to understand why, when I need to spend a working day at a library, I retreat to the Bellevue Regional instead of Seattle’s downtown flagship. … This library, incredibly, is an uncomfortable place to read.”
Tag: 03.27.07
Memo To Tate: Get An O’Keeffe, For Goodness Sake
“The Tate’s trustees have been self-flagellating again. According to The Art Newspaper, they have recently decided to buy more works by women artists in an attempt to rectify the gross gender imbalance in the collections across all four Tate branches. It’s a laudable resolve, of course.” So, if they’re filling gaps, which artists should be on the wish list?
Canada Phasing Out Museums’ Art-Transport Service
“Even as federal politicians are scheming and dreaming of ways to fund national museums in Winnipeg and Calgary, and bring national heritage treasures to the regions, the federal bureaucracy is quietly killing a program that supports the transportation of such treasures. Exhibition Transport Services (15-metre-long, climate-controlled trucks, and drivers trained to handle art) is to be phased out by April, 2008. Alarmed gallery and museum directors calculate that switching to private-sector carriers will up their costs by as much as 30 per cent.”
Wolf Trap Goes Green
“At Wolf Trap, operas are staged in 18th-century barns and picnickers enjoy summer concerts from a sloping lawn. A national park and performing arts center outside Washington, Wolf Trap will further connect nature and the arts with an environmental initiative that includes using energy- efficient vehicles, planting more trees and attempting to create a paperless office. … Wolf Trap hopes its environmental project becomes a ‘model and resource for arts presenters across the country’….”
Has Macular Degeneration Sidelined Joern Utzon?
“His eyesight is fading, but at 88, Joern Utzon’s mind remains sharp, and he still makes sketches to improve his masterwork, the Sydney Opera House. The building’s custodians and Utzon’s family have denied recent charges that a degenerative eye condition has left the Danish architect unable to contribute fully to renovations underway on the landmark building and that his name is being used to push through substandard work.”
Orange Co.’s Ballet Pacifica In Peril Of Shutdown
“Barring a $500,000 bailout by donors in the next month, Orange County’s premier ballet troupe will go out of business after 45 years, its two top managers said Monday. Ballet Pacifica’s remaining performances … have been canceled, and its training academy will close Friday.” Its “demise would deepen a widespread belief that Southern California is not fertile turf for dance; Los Angeles has not had a major ballet company since the Joffrey Ballet’s Music Center residency ended in 1990.”
Given Choice, More United Way Donors Choose Arts
“In Los Angeles, about two-thirds of the $47 million that United Way gave away last fiscal year went to nonprofits selected by contributors, one of the highest ratios in the country. Most of the donor-designated cash ends up in the arts and education, mainly with big institutions that do not specialize in aiding the poor or target problems such as low school graduation rates. … ‘Disney Hall is great, but we need to care about the people who live in the shadows of the buildings down the street from it,’ said L.A. United Way President Elise Buik.”
Book Prize Goes To Carnegie Bio
“David Nasaw has been named the winner of the $50,000 New-York Historical Society American Book Prize for his biography, ‘Andrew Carnegie’ (The Penguin Press).”
Engineers To Search For Homer’s Ithaca
“A geological engineering company said Monday it has agreed to help in an archaeological project to find the island of Ithaca, homeland of Homer’s legendary hero Odysseus. It has long been thought that the island of Ithaki in the Ionian Sea was the island Homer used as a setting for the epic poem ‘The Odyssey,’ in which the king Odysseus makes a perilous 10-year journey home from the Trojan War.”
The Curious YouTube Awards
“Now we have the 2006 YouTube Video Awards, a product — so the intro on the awards page says — of ‘the YouTube community.’ But given that the rushed and almost certainly screwy voting commenced only once the nominees were published by YouTube, this community project doesn’t seem quite organic. The dread idea of arts administration has come to YouTube. And in a real insult to the speedy Web world, this 2006 event has happened well into spring 2007, honoring bygone achievements.”