“In August 2005, Ned Rifkin, undersecretary for art at the Smithsonian Institution, asked an external panel of leading US museum directors to assess the eight art museums run by the federal body. The report it compiled, which was submitted to the Smithsonian’s board of regents in January, concluded that these museum are failing on many levels.” Now, Smithsonian art museum directors respond…
Tag: 05.10.07
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Cuts Movie Critic
Soon after cutting its books editor, the newspaper gives theboot to its movie critic. “This job, movie reviewing, is going away as a career option. It’ll all be online hobbyists, ethically suspect bloggers who take money from studios to support their “unbiased” sites and freelancers paid a pittance by papers who like having a cheap, no benefits local byline. It’ll be like that in the very near future.”
First, The Bad News: No Tony Nod For Handel
The Tony Awards Administration Committee has ruled on the eligibility of 13 Broadway productions. Among the edicts is one concerning a straight play in a musical category: “The music for Coram Boy — penned by Adrian Sutton — will be eligible for nomination in the Best Original Score category. Only Sutton’s original music is eligible; the Handel selections heard in the production are ineligible.”
For Art Bargains, Europeans Buy In Dollars
“A sea change in the art market was stunningly apparent last night at Christie’s sale of Impressionist and Modern art, where most of the buyers spending millions of dollars on everything from stark Giacometti sculptures to dreamy Signac landscapes were mainly Europeans taking advantage of the weak dollar. While the prices may have seemed high to the Americans in Christie’s packed salesroom at Rockefeller Center, the successful European bidders acted as if they were getting bargains.”
Is This Bristol Old Vic’s Final Bow?
“Bad news this evening from Bristol Old Vic – the oldest continuously running theatre in the country – which is to close its doors at the end of July. About 60 jobs are to go and artistic director Simon Reade is to depart. The question is this: will the doors ever open again on one of the most beautiful theatres in the country?”
NYC To UK: Thanks For Funding Our Theatre
In Jeremy McCarter’s opinion, “now may be a good time to offer a few words of gratitude to the most underappreciated patron of New York theatre: you, the British taxpayer. … Thanks to plays such as [The Coast of Utopia and Stuff Happens] from the National, and Frost/Nixon from the Donmar Warehouse (which doesn’t get as much support as the NT, but would still be the envy of many an American producer), a direct line runs from your wallet to award podiums all over Manhattan.”
Paean To A Font So Fair (At Fifty)
“It undoubtedly counts as font fetishism, design geekery, Mac zealotry and any number of unappealing, sub-obsessive-compulsive habits, but I’m going to declare it anyway: I love Helvetica. … And this year, though surely it is shaped from the geometry of eternity, Helvetica is 50.”
To The Barricades! A Call For Artists’ Political Activism
“Artists who create work that supports or opposes an ideology can contribute to the general discourse, and the collectors who buy such work can show their support for the ideas it expresses. But active participation in politics, whether financially or through personal activism, is also needed.”
Smoking To Be A Factor In Rating Movies
“The Motion Picture Assn. of America announced today that smoking will be considered when rating movies and ‘depictions that glamorize smoking or movies that feature pervasive smoking outside of an historic or other mitigating context may receive a higher rating.’ Smoking will become a factor in decisions by the Classification and Rating Administration, along with violence, language, nudity, drug abuse and other elements.”
O’Connor Letters To Finally Be Unsealed
“In an event highly anticipated by [Flannery] O’Connor scholars and fans, her nearly 300 letters to [close friend Betty Hester] will be opened to the public Saturday at Emory University, where, at Hester’s request, they have been kept under seal for 20 years. The archive is expected to reveal much about the nature of their relationship, as well as O’Connor’s attitudes about subjects from civil rights to homosexuality.”