A tour of Iraq’s greatest art treasure – the Nimrud gold – will begin an international tour next February in Washington DC. “There are likely to be around ten venues, after Washington, and these will probably include museums in Berlin, London and Paris. The tour of ‘The Gold of Nimrud’ should raise around $10m for Iraq’s National Museum.”
Tag: 04.06.06
Camus Is Most Life-Changing
What are the noevls that most change men’s lives? “The most frequently named book was Albert Camus’s The Outsider, followed by JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. The project, called Men’s Milestone Fiction, commissioned by the Orange prize for fiction and the Guardian, followed on from similar research into women’s favourite novels undertaken by the same team last year.”
Art Market Continues To Boom With Record Turner Sale
A Venice landscape painted by JMW Turner sold in New York this week for $35.9 million, bringing 80% more than its expected sale price and shattering the record for British paintings sold at auction. “The sale shows that the worldwide boom in the art market is lifting prices in almost all sectors of art… The Turner sale reflects the continued strength of the US market, which has led London and Paris in pushing up prices.”
Politics Threatens To Dismantle An Unusual Partnership
This year, an unlikely (and tenuous) alliance arose in Minnesota between the state’s large population of hunters and fisherman, and those who value the state’s longstanding commitment to the arts. The reason for the partnership was to promote a sales tax hike at the state legislature, with proceeds dedicated to the arts and the conservation of the great outdoors. But as the vote count tightens (the legislature is not terribly enamored of new taxes at the moment,) many on the conservationist side are suggesting that the presence of the “arts and culture crowd” is hurting the bill’s chance of passage.
Ohio Ballet Cancels Season, Lashes Out At Newspaper
The cash-strapped Ohio Ballet has canceled what remained of its 2005-06 season and is asking its subscribers not to ask for refunds for the two sets of performances that will not take place. The company’s artistic director, who has lent the ballet $40,000 this season in an effort to stabilize a dire fiscal situation, is also complaining about what he calls biased coverage in Cleveland’s only daily newspaper.
Domingo Double-Booked?
The Bavarian State Opera has announced its 2006-07 season. Ordinarily, that’s not the kind of item that would make headlines in America, but a few sharp-eyed journalists have noticed that the company has booked Placido Domingo to sing the lead in Parsifal next spring, on the same dates that the Washington National Opera has engaged him to sing the lead in Die Walküre. No one has yet explained how the mistake occurred, or which company will actually have Domingo on its stage when all is said and done.
As Kids Stream In, Galleries Look To Child-Proofing
“Up until a few years ago, the presence of children in art galleries and performance spaces wouldn’t have been an issue — because there weren’t any. They weren’t prohibited per se, but they were simply seldom seen. The message was that art was for adults. But today’s parents bring their children everywhere, and as more art lovers, collectors and artists themselves have kids, it has become perfectly normal to see little ones at openings.” The influx of kids has gallery officials in a quandary – they’re torn between delight that small fry are being exposed to culture, and abject terror that they’ll break, smear, or deface something.
The Damnably Popular Scourge Of The Jazz World
What is it about “smooth jazz” that so infuriates fans and practitioners of more traditional jazz forms? Is it the easy-listening thing? The lack of challenging harmonies and groundbreaking solos? Or could it be that jazzers resent the idea that someone else has figured out a way to make jazz palatable, even popular, with a wider public that has no use for Joshua Redman or Wynton Marsalis?
Because Dan Brown Really Needed More Money
Not that anyone was biting their nails waiting for this news, but The DaVinci Code is a hit as a paperback, too. Dan Brown’s insanely popular and occasionally controversial novel has sold half a million copies in its first week in paperback, and the initial print run has been increased from 5 million to 6 million.
Groundbreaking Ballet Teacher Dies At 92
Doris W. Jones, who found the doors shut to her when she tried to learn ballet as an aspiring black dancer but who went on to open them for succeeding generations, running ballet schools for black youngsters and training a roster of notable dancers and choreographers, died on March 21 in Washington. She was 92.