“Today the role of professor has veered to a ludicrously opposite extreme from the untrammelled freedom of the postwar years. Under huge pressure to be labelled a highly starred international researcher in the next research assessment exercise, a professor is expected to produce top-quality books and papers, while buried under a ferocious bureaucracy of business plans, mission statements, forecasts, audits of every kind, endless meetings, paperwork, quality inspections, performance assessments and interim reviews. It is no way to treat talented and creative people, on whom the next generation of scholars, and indeed our society, depends.”
Tag: 08.03.04
US Rethinks Venice Biennale Representation
American representation at next summer’s Venice Biennale is in jeopardy. “The committee that recommends an artist to represent the United States at the Biennale has been disbanded by its overseer, the National Endowment for the Arts, which is rethinking its involvement with federal advisory committees. And the State Department, which is responsible for American representation at this and many other international exhibitions, is not only looking for someone to run it but also to help pay for it.”
Radio Shy – Brendel Quits Live Broadcasts (Almost)
Pianist Alfred Brendel is allowing his Proms concert this summer to be broadcast. “This will be the last time that a Brendel performance will be heard in a simultaneous relay. ‘I stopped live broadcasting two years ago but it was not trumpeted out. Microphones make me nervous. I have had microphones on stage at the Festival Hall for many years during my recitals, but the concerts were recorded, not broadcast live. There are quite a few of my colleagues who never do these things, even younger ones, so it’s a matter of feeling that I have now reached a certain age and I can do without the radio’.”
Turner Revealed
A copy of a JMW Turner painting that has never before been on public view has been put on display. “The watercolour, showing the Gothic Cross over the lake at Stourhead, Wilts, has been in the Tate archives since it was bequeathed in 1856. A copy of the work, which was painted in 1798 when the artist was 23, is being exhibited at the National Trust-owned Stourhead house and garden this month.”
Reopening A Bosnian Monument
In July, Bosnia’s famout Mostar bridge reopened after a decade of work. “It had been destroyed by Bosnian Croats in 1993, during the Bosnian War, to expunge a symbol of cosmopolitan Islam dating from 16th-century Ottoman times. Its destruction caused an uproar, and rightly so. Simultaneously, Bosnian Serbs were busy obliterating some 70% of the local Muslims’ historic monuments. The Serbs then moved on to similar deeds in Kosovo. The bridge’s reopening had been a belated triumph. Under the aegis of Unesco, countries such as Turkey, Italy and Croatia contributed to the project for a decade along with town residents…”