Michelangelo’s David is being unwrapped this month after his first bath in 130 years. “The cleaning has left David’s complexion a little pearlier than it has been in a very long time. It has also highlighted some of the colossal nude’s less obvious imperfections, nicks and discolorations. “David” is showing his age.”
Tag: 05.07.04
Movie Piracy – Inside Job
The movie industry is vigorously trying to stop digital pirates. But some say industry indisers are the biggest source of piracy. “People want to buy good-quality films, and insiders are the only ones who can really provide that. It’s usually someone inside in need of some extra money who’s willing to do this.”
Cincinnati Arts Fund Raises Its Way To No. 1
Cincinnati’s Fine Arts Fund became “the largest united arts fund-raiser in the country this year, raising $10.4 million in its annual pledge campaign. That’s 4 percent more than last year, faster growth than 59 similar regional campaigns in cities such as Milwaukee, Charlotte and Louisville that also raise money for a number of arts organizations at once.”
Mona Lisa In For Treatment
Leonardo da Vinci’s 500-year-old Mona Lisa is heading for X-ray and a microscope for the first time in a half-century to determine what’s causing it to warp.
Rappin’ The Word In Music
Are you a music or a words person? That is – are the words or the music more important in a pop song? “To be sure, the music of much rap is minimal compared to, say, a Frank Sinatra ballad or George Martin’s productions for the Beatles. In the eternal roundalay of melody, harmony and rhythm, rhythm has seized the spotlight. But that is merely a reflection of the steady evolution of 20th-century popular music, led by black music, that starts out underground and eventually conquers the mainstream.”
The Boy Girl Books (And Never The Twain Shall Meet?)
Is there a gender gap in what we read? “The publishing flurry that surrounds Mother’s Day means a spate of books with conspicuously feminine points of view. Fitness, gossip, middle-aged romance, the dating woes of bright young things and anything about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: these are standard subjects in the parade of Mother’s Day titles. They are not to be confused with the sports lore, war stories and tough-but-fair paternal advice that arrive for Father’s Day.”
Schwartz: Levine’s Just Fine
Lloyd Schwartz says that all the breathless speculation about James Levine’s health is much ado about nothing. “Levine’s BSO performances have demonstrated no apparent diminishment of energy or quality. He conducts sitting down, but he’s far from the only major conductor to do so… Several musicians from the Met orchestra, who refused to be named, claimed that the maestro gets tired toward the end of five- or six-hour Wagner operas. Well, duh! — who wouldn’t? But has it hurt any performances? … Is this front-page news? Musicians who were happy to be identified, both from the Met and from the BSO, had nothing but praise for Levine’s musicianship, conducting technique, and energy level.”
The Downside Of Freeing Sculpture
Sculpture can be whatever it wants these days – there’s no defining aesthetic or style that has to be followed. “The down side is, if sculpture can be anything, then maybe it is not anything in particular. It loses a sense of tradition, identity and purpose. And it becomes hard for people to care very passionately about it (the way many people still care about painting), much less evaluate it. If you think that artists, like children, need limits, you may not like what has become of sculpture.”