Would you take a chance on buying art out of a vending machine? “The Art-o-Mat offers miniature paintings, sculptures and other tiny trinkets for not much more than a pack of Parliaments. The concept has hooked accidental art investors with refurbished vending machines in art galleries, coffee shops and grocery stores nationwide. We’re wanting to reach quality investors who haven’t taken art seriously before, and to support artists trying to make a living.”
Tag: 03.30.03
Oprah’s Classic Depression – Back In The Book Business
So Oprah’s back in the business of choosing books, a year after getting peeved at Jonathan Franzen’s snub of her book club. Only this time she’s recommending classics. “Choosing classics is a good way to avoid the heat from literary snobs like Franzen. Who would dare accuse Faulkner and Fitzgerald of pandering to the masses? Still, the whole thing gives me a chuckle. Is Oprah really improving things by turning to the classics? One of the main complaints Oprah suffered from the last book club, Franzen’s barbs notwithstanding, was that her book choices were too depressing, that they were nothing more than soap-opera sagas filled with family dysfunction and unrelenting sorrow. So are the classics a laugh riot?”
Destroying Angkor Wat With Bad Decisions To “Save” It
So often, conservation attempts at Angkor Wat have resulted in disaster. “Between 1986 and 1993 in an attempt to clean the temple of lichen and prevent water erosion, many exquisite details were erased forever. Concrete was used to fill cracks.” and the damage was irreparable. Now there are more plans – some which seem ill-advised. “Who is making these decisions? The Cambodian body nominally in charge of Angkor’s 100-odd monuments is the Apsara Authority, created by Unesco in 1995. But while the Cambodians are the hosts, they are not yet the masters of their legacy: they hold the keys but not the essential resources. Within the tangle of international politics and conflicting philosophies of architectural restoration, Angkor Wat, with its beautiful honeycomb towers is, in reality, a latter-day Tower of Babel.”
Varnedoe – Life (And Cancer) After MoMA
Kirk Varnedoe epitomized the “stereotype of the contemporary art world in all its unapproachable elan” while he was chief curator of the Museum of Modern Art. But Varendoe left one of the most prominent curatorships in the art world last year. Now he’s preparing for lectures, and being treated for inoperable cancer. “I always thought I’d make it through the Mellon Lectures. I always thought I’d be able to do that. But I just don’t make any predictions about six months from now.”
Culture Capital – Arts Mean Business
There are six British finalists for the 2008 European Capital of Culture designation. But the honor seems to have less to do with actual culture than an economic shot in the arm. Why? Glasgow, 1990. “Cannily, the run-down Clydeside city used investment in culture as a major tool to revive its flagging economy. It proved, up to a point, that culture could be translated into tourism, business ventures and jobs as well as museums and concert halls.”
Saatchi’s Big New Show
At the age of 60, Charles Saatchi is embarking on his most ambitious project yet. “Halfway between Tates Britain and Modern, he is opening a new gallery. At 40,000 sq ft, it is larger than any venue he has managed before. In it he will showcase his major trophies – Damien Hirst’s shark, Tracey Emin’s bed, Jake and Dinos Chapman’s vision of hell – and lots more. If he gets only a tenth of the 12 million people who walk along that stretch of river each year he will have increased his audience by 100 per cent. And, with an £8 a head entrance fee, the new gallery, which he has leased from a Japanese property company, could pay handsome dividends.”
Moshe Safdie And The “Anti-Bilbao”
Since the Bilbao Guggenheim opened, no museum can afford to be blase about getting bigger. “Today, no museum Web site worth its salt is without a section on its imminent, or just completed, ‘expansion,’ ‘renovation,’ ‘renaissance’ or ‘transformation.’ The rhetoric is eerie in its uniformity: The new building will display the museum collection in a ‘fundamentally new way.’ It will provide the public with a ‘richer and deeper experience.’ It will be an ‘exciting new public space.’ And, of course, the café and bookstore will be expanded.” Architect Moshe Safdie has come along with a kind of “anti-Bilbao” approach to museum-building.
Have Band, Will Hire
Want to hire the Rolling Stones for your party? It’ll cost you $13 million. The Eagles will play for $7.8 million. Indeed, many famous bands will sign on for a private performance if the money’s right. “Michael Jackson started the trend 10 years ago when he played for the Sultan of Brunei, who has also hired Diana Ross and Whitney Houston for family gatherings, and Bob Dylan has been known to do a gig or two.”
Why Approval For Polanski The Child Molester?
Beth Gillin wonders why Hollywood was applauding Roman Polanski last week when he won an Oscar. “Wait a minute. Did they just give the Academy Award to a child molester? And why are the beautiful people giving him a standing ovation? For many watching the Oscars Sunday, it was an icky moment, marked by obscenely excessive applause. Polanski could not be there to pick up his gold statuette for directing The Pianist, because if he sets foot in this country, he’ll be handcuffed and hauled off to prison for up to 50 years.”
Saving Afghan Books
“New York University has just begun an ambitious project to digitize all the books printed in Afghanistan from 1871 to 1930, the earliest period of publishing there, and to catalog them and make them available electronically. The effort to preserve and widely disseminate the rare Afghan books is a counterpoint to decades of destruction of the country’s art, books and monuments. In the early 1990’s alone, tens of thousands of books in both the Kabul Public Library and the Kabul University Library were destroyed under Taliban rule.”