“A. Alfred Taubman, ignoring all of his instincts, stayed silent during the price-fixing trial that would end with a prison sentence for the former owner of Sotheby’s auction house. It was a decision that the luxury-mall developer and philanthropist sees as a critical mistake as he reflects on a career in retailing that began as a discount-store salesman and eventually put him at the centre of an art-world scandal… In a memoir being published today, Taubman takes aim at the former executives” at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses.
Tag: 04.10.07
Music’s Place Is Not In The Middle Of A Commute
Justin Davidson opines that the real lesson behind Joshua Bell’s anonymous busking experience in the Washington, D.C. subway system is that music is best in places where people expect to hear music. “It’s counterproductive to bring music where people don’t expect and don’t want it to be.”
Talking Jazz
Musician and writer Ben Sidran is releasing a mammoth 24-CD collection of interviews he conducted for public radio with some of the pivotal jazz musicians of the last four decades. “Sidran’s punctilious research tempers the infectious enthusiasm of his insider status… and these conversations explore creative processes, social backgrounds and musical biographies, revealing a singular mix of the prosaic and the profound.”
Getting Out From Under All That English
In a relatively short period, English has risen to become the world’s dominant cultural language, whether you’re talking about books, movies, plays, or anything else involving language and culture. But as American influence and economic dominance wanes around the world, will other dominant cultures begin to assert themselves? Or might a return to local culture actually be a possibility?
Hayek To Become Latin Film Impresario
“Mexican-born actress Salma Hayek has formed a production company which aims to promote films with Latino themes and talent to a mass audience… She will be the chief executive of Ventanazul, which will release between two and four movies per year” in conjunction with MGM.
Avery Fisher Grants Announced
“The Borromeo String Quartet, violinist Yura Lee and double bassist DaXun Zhang have been named winners of the 2007 Avery Fisher Career Grants, worth $25,000 each… Up to five Career Grants are given each year to U.S. citizens or permanent U.S. residents.”
iPods For Everyone!
Sales of Apple’s ubiquitous iPod rocketed past the 100 million mark this week. 21 million units were sold during the 2006 Christmas season alone.
LA Beat Chicago To The Punch With Dudamel Hire
The LA Philharmonic apparently hired its new music director, Gustavo Dudamel, right out from under the nose of the Chicago Symphony, where the young Venezuelan appeared last week as a guest conductor. “[Chicago’s] backstage was jumping with well-wishers, agents, heads of other orchestras and the CSO’s own musicians as it hadn’t since Daniel Barenboim’s farewell concerts or Georg Solti’s retirement as music director. The Internet was abuzz and speculation was rife that the CSO might be able to work out some arrangement with Dudamel.”
The Trouble With The National Portrait Gallery: Its Art
“The art of the portrait is a noble, beautiful enterprise that amazingly, and to this day in the work of Lucian Freud, David Hockney or Gerhard Richter, mediates the down-to-earth, very human desire to record faces with a philosophical enquiry into the nature of the self. The portrait is at the heart of European high culture – but you won’t even glimpse the rudiments of a history of the portrait as art in the NPG. This museum is not about art. It’s about famous Brits down the ages.”
Who Decreed That Real Artists Must Be Intellectuals?
“The election of Tracey Emin to join the Royal Academy of the Arts as a Royal Academician alongside more traditionally academic artists such as David Hockney, Peter Blake, and Anthony Caro” raised a question, unspoken though it was: “Is she enough of an intellectual to join the RA?” Ana Finel Honigman matches it with another: “Why is this even an issue?”