“Leonardo da Vinci may have fathered a son, a finding that blurs the image of Leonardo as a gay icon, according to a scholar investigating the master’s family life.” – Discovery
Tag: 08.18.00
RETURN TO SENDER
“Britain may have lost its former colonial territories, but its national museums still hold vast cultural treasures; the surviving legacy of hundreds of years of empire. These museums are now becoming increasingly out of step with museums around the world which have been handing back material over which there have been claims. Indeed the Australian Museum has been a leader in the field for more than 20 years, having returned significant items to Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.” – Sydney Morning Herald
AFGHAN MUSEUM REOPENS
Though many of its treasures have been looted, the National Museum of Afghanistan has reopened after a decade of being closed during the civil war. – BBC
OUT, DAMN BUGS
The National Gallery of Australia has bugs – of the kind that cause Legionnaire’s disease and are potentially very dangerous. The museum has apparently known about the problem for five years, according to documents. – Sydney Morning Herald
TOKYO ART CENTER
“Mori Building is starting a ¥270bn ($2.5bn) development in the Roppongi area of Tokyo, which aims to transform the district, best known as a sleazy centre for international night life, into a cultural metropolis by 2003. And the crowning piece of this project, which will cover 27 acres and feature hotels, offices, homes and shops, will be the Mori Art Center – on the top five floors of a 54-storey skyscraper. It promises to be one of the most lavish and ambitious art spaces that Tokyo has ever seen.” – Financial Times
DIGITAL DISPOSITION
New sleek movie versions of Shakespeare leave out something important: words. “This begins to give some idea of what is lost when Shakespeare’s words take a back seat to the ambitions of directors and critics who are more concerned with their own agendas than with Shakespeare’s poetic art.” – The Atlantic
BBC TO CREATE ARTS CHANNEL
“BBC Knowledge, one of the broadcaster’s digital channels, will announce an autumn schedule dominated by televised theatre performances, arthouse films, music and literature. The move is seen, and feared, by critics as the beginning of the ghettoisation of arts programmes.” – The Independent (UK)
DIGITAL DISPOSITION
New sleek movie versions of Shakespeare leave out something important: words. “This begins to give some idea of what is lost when Shakespeare’s words take a back seat to the ambitions of directors and critics who are more concerned with their own agendas than with Shakespeare’s poetic art.” – The Atlantic
CULTURE WARS, ROUND II
“Around the country, think tanks, foundations, academics and researchers are drawing up a wide range of empirical evidence designed to defend and define the civic role of culture in America. And by culture they don’t just mean art in a museum or music in an orchestra hall. Culture, they say, includes everything from fine art to movies and pop music, parks, historic monuments and architecture – the essential fabric of our lives. And, they say, government needs to pay fresh attention. Witness the birth of the cultural policy movement.” – Los Angeles Times 08/18/00
LIEBERMAN VS THE ARTS
“None of us wants to resort to regulation. But if the entertainment industry continues to move in this direction, and continues to market death and degradation to our children, and continues to pay no heed to the real bloodshed staining our communities, then the government will act.” The government will act: To many people, even those who agree that the contemporary entertainment world is objectionably coarse and crude, those words are almost as menacing as the tip of a bayonet in the small of the back. – Chicago Tribune