Hughes said commercial pieces with large price tags mean “art as spectacle loses its meaning” and identified the British artist’s work as a cause of that loss. Hughes says it is “a little miracle” Hirst’s 35ft statue Virgin Mother, could be worth £5 million and yet be made by someone “with so little facility.”
Tag: 09.07.08
Study: Winning Teams Help Boost Your Income?
Researchers “say that having a winning NFL football team increases the incomes of the people who live and work in its hometown by as much as $120 a year. And while the study doesn’t identify exactly what causes the boost, the authors point to psychological literature suggesting that winning fans are at once harder workers and bigger spenders. In short, buoyed by the team’s success, we work longer hours, take bigger risks, and shop more avidly, all of which helps the local economy.”
Broadway As Hollywood Farm Team
“Broadway, it seems, has eclipsed Playboy as the place to make Hollywood pay attention. There was a time when female movie stars who felt they were being ignored by the industry took off their clothes for Hugh Hefner’s magazine. Now they brush up their Shakespeare — or Schnitzler or Miller — and hit Gotham.”
The Art Of Housing (Or Not)
It’s hard enough for architects to get their hands on a decent housing commission in the UK. But making something worthwhile of whatever opportunity they can secure is, if anything, tougher still.
16-Year-Old Utah Dancer Wins Major Ballet Prize
The Varna International Ballet Competition in Bulgaria has only given out four Special Distinction Grand Prix awards in its 44-year history. Whitney Jensen is the only female and the only dancer from the United States to be awarded that honor.
Indie Film Dead. Again?
“On Oscar night, the idea that indie was the new mainstream was confirmed, once again, as conventional wisdom. But by the time the Cannes Film Festival rolled around three months later, a new and diametrically opposite conventional wisdom was emerging. Indie film is dead! Again! Still! For real this time!”
A New Golden Age Of Video Games?
“Propelled by growing mainstream acceptance and by the maturing of both the audience (the average age of today’s gamer is in the early 30s) and that audience’s tastes, games are enjoying a moment of creative possibility not seen since the early 1980s.”
What Are You Actually Getting With New Operas?
“New operas are based on world events, current movies, popular books. Their music is written by funky living composers. And yet, earnest, thoughtful and filled with worthy music though they be, they seldom find the same resonance as art films, or literary fiction. In fact, people who go to see an opera based on a book they liked often come away disappointed.”
Why A Brit Should Buy Rodgers & Hammerstein
“Why not have someone British step up to the purchasing plate? Why, if Andrew Lloyd Webber were interested, the deal would have a perfect synergy. Among the shows represented by the R&H Organisation just happens to be a little entry called Cats.”
London Drinking Hole Home To Generations Of Artists Under Threat
“Opened 60 years ago by the feted, unpredictable Muriel Belcher, the Colony Room was where Bacon made his second home; and soon Belcher had made it a gin-soaked refuge for most of London’s artists, poets, drunks.” Now “the smoking ban, ruinous rents, trouble with licences and hard finance, mean Michael is considering selling: so while Bacon lives exuberantly again, in the Tate retrospective, his home is troubled.”