“A consortium of Philadelphia print curators and artists will launch a city-wide international festival of printmaking in 2010. Fashioned as the Documenta of the print world, the quadrennial Philagrafika will take place at museums, arts organisations, galleries and alternative spaces throughout the city.”
Tag: 07.27.06
Prado Won’t Get Giddy Over Expansion
“It would be an error to concentrate on organising events to the detriment of the permanent collection just because we have new spaces. There are several museums that are exhausted because they have invested all their energies in realising a programme of temporary exhibitions. We will only organise exhibitions if they are necessary.”
More Money For The Big Guys, Less Music For Us
When Kazaa agreed this week to pay $115 million in damages to the recording industry and relaunch itself as a legal music download service, it perpetuated a business model that many observers see as shortsighted and seriously flawed. “Aside from the fact that there’s no clear mechanism for getting this money to the artists who are supposedly losing their livelihoods due to all of this downloading, what’s really shocking is how little it all adds up to in comparison with how much the record labels might have made by agreeing to Napster’s proposed plan, which would also have solved all of the device compatibility issues that still plague us today.”
Boston Museum Sending Loot Back To Italy
“The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has agreed to return to the Italian government artifacts long suspected of being looted, according to a tentative agreement announced today. In exchange, Italy will loan the MFA objects from the country’s vast holdings of antiquities, and work with the museum to make sure the MFA does not acquire stolen works in the future.”
Gandhi Says No (Again) To Biopic
Indian politician Sonia Gandhi and her ruling Indian National Congress Party have threatened legal action against the producers of a new biographical film focused on Ms. Gandhi. “Alarmed, the producer [has] halted the project. It was the second time in less than a decade that Gandhi and her political advisers had taken legal action to prevent the making of a film about her life.”
Did Andrew Lloyd Webber Just Accuse Others Of Redundancy?
Andrew Lloyd Webber is allowing the audience of a UK reality TV show to choose the leading lady for his new revival of The Sound of Music, causing many in the theatre industry to throw up their hands in exasperation. But Lloyd Webber says he has good reason to trust the people over the experts, “[delivering] a withering assessment of stage schools, which he says are churning out performers of such uniformity that he can almost tell which school they come from.”
Is Kazaa’s Capitulation Too Little, Too Late?
“The death of Kazaa as an illegal service is notable – the $100m damages payout represents half of the entire value of the European legal download market in 2005… Kazaa is not the people’s favourite it was several years ago, and, furthermore, the introduction of various filters to protect illegal downloading on the site could well see a mass migration making the site a has-been anyway. Those that have migrated to the likes of iTunes are the law abiding easy sell. Filesharers are tougher nuts to crack.”
Nothing But New
The Venice Film Festival is taking a risk this year, presenting nothing but world premieres among the films vying for the fest’s top prize. “Twenty one films will compete for the Golden Lion, which was won last year by Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain… Competing films include Bobby, written by actor Emilio Estevez, about the final days leading up to Senator Robert Kennedy’s assassination, and Alfonso Cuaron’s sci-fi thriller Children of Men. Brian De Palma’s The Black Dahlia, also in competition, will open the 63rd festival.”
New Partnership Promises More Song And Dance For Philly
Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is teaming up with the New York-based Shubert Organization in a new venture to bring touring Broadway shows to two venerable Philly venues. “Presentations would take place at the Academy of Music or the Forrest Theatre, allowing both organizations ‘the chance to perpetuate and enhance the presentation of legitimate theatrical attractions in Philadelphia.'”
Kazaa Pays Up, Goes Legit
A couple of years ago, Kazaa was the poster child for illegal file-trading services, and found itself on the receiving end of a blistering legal assault by the recording industry, which is determined to stamp out music piracy online. Now, Kazaa has agreed to pay out millions of dollars in penalties, and is hoping to follow in the footsteps of Napster, reinventing itself as a legal music downloading service.