“A major exhibition of letters and paintings by the artist Vincent van Gogh will go on show at the Royal Academy of Art early next year. … Curator Ann Dumas hopes they will show a more balanced view of the artist, who is often regarded as an eccentric genius.”
Tag: 07.09.09
Nicholas Serota: Few Pols Could Be Decent Culture Sec’y
“The Tate’s Sir Nicholas Serota has spoken out against what he believes to be a lack of passion for the arts in Westminster, saying he could not think of even a handful of politicians who could perform the job of Culture Secretary effectively. But he added that the latest Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Ben Bradshaw, was an exception.”
Con Man Drabinsky Still Has Loyalty Of Some Big Names
At Livent founder turned convict Garth Drabinsky’s sentencing hearing this week, “his lawyers produced letters of support from E.L. Doctorow, Christopher Plummer and Hal Prince, among others. … It’s appalling but not surprising that all these artistic types are still under Drabinsky’s spell. Although he cheated investors out of millions, the flashy ‘impresario of the old school’ sure knew how to treat talent.”
Tiny Nonprofit Goes Big-Budget (How Avant-Garde Is That?)
Issue Project Room’s new Brooklyn space “will become a home for all kinds of experimental music, theater, dance, literary readings and film. ‘A Carnegie Hall for the avant-garde,’ Suzanne Fiol, the group’s founder and creative director, said. … Whether the idea of a big, official institution like Carnegie Hall is antithetical to the spirit of the avant-garde is an open question.”
Even In A Bad Economy, The Arts Are Not A Frill
“I know times are tough and charities have a lot of demands. But I would argue that the arts are essential — and they are under threat. … Why should we care? Because experiencing and creating art is a crucial part of developing young people who can understand the world’s complexity and tackle its problems with a full range of tools.”
OCMA’s Secret Sale Raises Eyebrows For Good Reason
“A questionable deal is a lot like art. No one can define it, but people know it when they see it. What everybody knows is that at least a couple of the paintings recently sold by the Orange County Museum of Art were stellar examples of California Impressionism. Yet no one except the museum’s director and a few others know why they were sold so secretly, for such an apparently low price, or to whom.”
Computer Learns Sign Language By Watching TV
“It’s not only humans that can learn from watching television. Software developed in the UK has worked out the basics of sign language by absorbing TV shows that are both subtitled and signed.”
For Mortier’s Farewell To Paris, A New Opera By A Painter
For his final project as head of the Paris Opera, and to mark the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Opéra-Bastille, Gérard Mortier commissioned a work from Anselm Kiefer, “who has made his art out of the destruction he saw as a child in southern Germany, when he played happily in the wreckage of his family’s bombed house.” Kiefer created Am Anfang (“In the Beginning”) with 36-year-old composer Jörg Widmann.
Getty Center Evacuated Due To Brush Fire
“Hundreds of visitors to the J. Paul Getty Museum and dozens more at Mount St. Mary’s College were forced to evacuate Wednesday afternoon when a brush fire swept through the hillsides and canyon walls in the Sepulveda Pass, fire officials said.”
Minnesota Opera Balances Books (Again!)
“Strong ticket sales and fund-raising support allowed the Minneapolis-based organization to balance the books for the seventh year in a row, on a budget of about $10 million. The opera, which presents its work at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul, played to 92.5 percent capacity, up from 87 percent in 2008 and 81.3 percent the previous year.”