To say that Istvan Kantor was not a popular selection as the winner of this year’s Governor-General’s Award in visual and media arts would be an understatement. “Even from within the art-world ranks, the reaction to the announcement was mixed, with many opining that Kantor had more of a genius for self-promotion than art-making.” Some call Kantor a neo-Dadaist genius – others sniff that he’s merely neo-annoying and full of himself. Trying to keep an open mind is critic Sarah Milroy, who, after viewing the artist’s latest film, is wondering “what would happen if Kantor stopped screaming and started thinking instead.”
Tag: 05.19.04
Architecture: Not Just For Buildings Anymore
In this era of superstar architects and buildings that are decidedly form-over-function, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that household objects are now popping up with names like Gehry attached to them. “The new objects of desire are consumables designed by architects to help everybody bond around design… The possibilities for invention with new materials are staggering. It takes a lot of extra sweat to get from having an idea about new manipulations with glass to putting the ‘float’ tea lantern on the shelf.”
Battle Over Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein’s first national television appearance, on the program “Omnibus,” saw him emerge as America’s foremost bridger of the gap between high art and popular culture. But strangely, the “Omnibus” shows aired only once, and the tapes have never been released to the public. “The reason is the entire “Omnibus” series, which ran almost continuously from 1952 to 1961, is stored on kinescopes in Wesleyan University’s cinema archives and is the victim of a legal stalemate between Wesleyan and the families of Bernstein and “Omnibus” creator Robert Saudek.”
Thielemann Quits Deutsche Oper
“Christian Thielemann is quitting as music director of Berlin’s Deutsche Oper in a dispute with the city government over scarce funding, the opera said Tuesday. His departure follows years of bickering over the future of Berlin’s three opera houses as the capital tries to balance its cultural ambitions with $57 billion of municipal debt. Thielemann has complained that the rival Staatsoper, headed by Daniel Barenboim, was getting a better deal and demanded equal treatment.”
Turner List Lesson: Shock Is Yesterday’s News
The Turner Prize jury surprises the art world with its choices for this year’s shortlist. “Though the panel did not make it quite explicit yesterday, the lesson of its shortlist was clear: the not-so-Young British Artists, the shock-horror stars of the 1990s, have had their day. This is a shortlist of serious established artists who have been beavering away for decades and are now flirting with middle age.”
The War Behind The Words
The fierce battle between Daniel Barenboim and Christian Thielemann to become the one true leader of the Berlin opera scene was a tragic but inevitable conflict made necessary when the city decided that it could no longer afford to fully subsidize three full-time opera houses, says Martin Kettle. But Barenboim/Thielemann is more than a faceoff between two great artists scrapping over a common pool of money: it is a clash of ideologies, both musical and political. It is liberal versus conservative, innovator versus traditionalist, and Berlin is caught in the middle.
A Badger Takes On City Hall
A 47-year-old, radically queer homeless man named Badger is probably not many people’s first vision of what an artist looks like. But to the residents of New Orleans, Gainesville, Asheville, Minneapolis, and other cities which Badger has temporarily called home who have been lucky enough to come across his work – large-scale installation pieces, usually constructed of found objects, and usually functional enough to double as a temporary shelter for anyone in need – there is very little question that the man is devoted to his work. The authorities, however, tend to take a dim view of art which they see as encouraging vagrancy, and this spring, Badger has been facing down the parks board of Minneapolis in a desperate fight to preserve what he creates.
Art, History, & Politics: Cy Thao & The Minnesota Hmong
Minnesota state legislator Cy Thao is a prominent figure in the Twin Cities’ large population of Hmong, a nomadic people of Chinese origin who fled to the U.S. from Laos following the Vietnam War. As a lawmaker, Thao is one of only two Hmong officeholders in America (the other is also from St. Paul,) and is steadily gaining influence at the Capitol. But Thao is also an accomplished artist who is determined to break the thousand-year cycle of lost Hmong history through his work. This week, a series of 50 of Thao’s oil paintings goes on display at a Minneapolis museum.
Artists Of The Computer Underground
“The idea that every hacker is an artist and every artist is a hacker isn’t groundbreaking — recent gallery and museum shows have focused on the link between art and coding — but a new book by programmer Paul Graham gives the concept a fresh twist by advising hackers to improve their skills by borrowing creative techniques from other artists… Graham slams the artistic conceit that all art is good and taste is purely subjective, pointing out that if you aren’t willing to say that some creations aren’t beautiful then you’ll never develop the aesthetic muscles necessary to define and develop good work.”
Man With The (NYT Culture) Plan
As the New York Times’ new culture editor, Jon Landman will oversee a plan to revampt the paper’s cultural coverage. “Executive editor Bill Keller, in a staff memo, conceded that Mr. Landman — best known as the Metro editor who tried to warn higher-ups about Jayson Blair—’does not bring to the job a thick portfolio of cultural expertise.’ So how’d he become the new culture boss? ‘Bill asked me to do it,’ Mr. Landman said. ‘Sometimes life is simple’.”