Tony winners saw their ticket sales double at the box office Monday. “Perhaps the biggest surprise of all, though, was the television news. After two years of stagnant ratings, the Tony Awards telecast managed to draw in more viewers. According to preliminary Nielsen ratings, there were about 1.3 million additional viewers this year — 7.8 million, up from last year’s 6.6 million — an increase of around 20 percent. The awards show started the night in first place for its time slot then slipped to second, behind the N.B.A. finals.”
Tag: 06.13.06
Turkey’s Museum Security Problem
Some high profile thefts at Turkish museums have drawn attention to lax security there. “Although 78 of the country’s 93 state museums are equipped with electronic security systems, archaeologists in the field assert that those systems often malfunction or are insufficient. Thorough museum inventories, crucial to security measures, are rarely taken in Turkey’s museums. And of the objects that have been documented in display cases or in warehouse storage, experts say, many were registered by unqualified workers lacking critical reference information.”
Remembering Gyorgy Ligeti
The composer was one of the most innovative of the 20th Century. “As a man who grew up in Hungary under German and Soviet tyrannies, when home was exactly where you did not want to be, who moved to Western Europe after the Russians extinguished Hungarian independence, and who had been footloose ever since, Mr. Ligeti had no simple notion of where he belonged, and this feeling informed his work.”
Unesco: Stonehenge Off the List?
Unesco is considering removing Stonehenge from the World Heritage list. Why? The site has “poor traffic management”.
Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer
“Because one never knew quite what to expect before hearing a new Ligeti work, his music sometimes startled listeners. Yet this eclecticism allowed him to escape some paradoxical aesthetic traps that were endemic to late 20th-century composition. He insisted that his music was ‘neither tonal nor atonal’ and while he never blithely reiterated the musical language of the past, neither did he strive to be modern or avant-garde at the expense of communication with an audience.”
Indian Court Refuses To Ban “Da Vinci”
India’s supreme court has refused to ban “The Da Vinci Code.” “The two judges in the court argued that no predominantly Christian country had banned the film. Christians comprise about 2% of India’s billion people. Indian censors have cleared the film, but seven of 28 states have banned it.”
Colm Toibin Wins IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
His book “The Master” explored the tortured soul of the 19th century American novelist Henry James — received the $125,000 prize and a Waterford crystal trophy during a ceremony in Dublin City Hall. The 11-year-old prize is one of the world’s most lucrative for fiction writers.”
ArtBasel Brings Out The Buyers
Collectors have been on a buying spree as ArtBasel begins. “The quality this year is very high and so are the prices. People always say great material is hard to find, but we’re seeing it here–because right now, this week in Basel, is an excellent time to sell.”
ArtBasel’s Irrational Exuberance
“With 55,000 visitors to 300 stands, the world’s biggest modern- and contemporary-art fair is part of a $1.5 billion spring sale cycle, from New York’s May auctions to London’s this month. Early reports from dealers indicate buyers aren’t yet deterred by stock-market jitters from the U.S. to Russia.”
ArtBasel Director To Leave
The opening of this year’s ArtBasel has been marred by the resignation of the organization’s charismatic director Sam Keller. “Keller will leave ArtBasel in 2008 to take up the helm at the Beyeler Foundation, replacing current director Christoph Vitali. The foundation, established in 1982 by the collector Ernst Beyeler on the outskirts of Basel, houses a permanent collection of modern art in a building designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano.”