The town of Carmel, California could be considered an art mecca in miniature – four out of every ten businesses in Carmel are art galleries, with 61 having opened in the last four years. But last month, the Carmel city council decided that you can have too much of a good thing, and passed a moratorium on new galleries. “The ordinance puts an immediate halt to issuing business licenses for new art galleries that don’t meet certain standards, such as being a working artist’s studio or a gallery that features the work of just one artist.”
Tag: 09.27.04
Merce at 85
“For more than 50 years the American choreographer Merce Cunningham has clung to the opposite of the notion that inspires all civilisation: holding that decisions made by chance may be just as fine as those driven by logic and feeling… Randomness, one feels, ought to result in ugliness – isn’t that what civilisation implies? Yet what Cunningham edits from this time-consuming procedure is extraordinarily graceful, even classical-looking.” At the age of 85, Cunningham is now physically infirm, and yet his mind appears to be as busy as ever, and he continues to be one of the dance world’s great inspirations to young up-and-comers.
SoCal’s Little Big-Time Theater
The list of cities that can count themselves as “springboards to Broadway” is brutally short: Chicago, Boston, maybe Atlanta. And yet, a string of small playhouses in Southern California has somehow become a favorite of the New York crowd over the years, and claimed its place as one of the top regional theaters in America. 40 years after its birth in a hardware store, South Coast Repertory has given birth to “Pulitzer Prize winners like Margaret Edson’s ‘Wit,’ Nilo Cruz’s ‘Anna in the Tropics,’ and [South Coast co-founder Donald] Margulies’s “Dinner With Friends.”
Separate Art From Its Owner’s Reputation? Not Likely.
The controversial Flick collection currently on view in Germany has, temporarily, at least, “put Berlin on the map with cities like London and New York. But it has also come at a steep cost. There is no promise of a gift to Germany from Mr. Flick, who can take back the art when his loan expires in seven years, and is free to sell work while the exhibition naturally inflates the value of his collection.” According to Michael Kimmelman, the Germans have made a major mistake in assuming that the art could ever be viewed by the world without being sullied the taint of its ownership.
Looking For The Underappreciated, Finding The Overrated
The Place Prize awards were meant to do for modern dance what the Turner Prize does for modern art – namely, get an entire nation talking about it, for better or for worse. With a top prize of £100,000, “the idea of this biennial jamboree is to find, by means of an open entry, outsider judges and audience votes, neglected talent that the over-prescriptive Arts Council system misses. So how did the inaugural final manage to be so inferior to the best (or even the average) being produced in British modern dance nowadays?”
London’s Most Unassuming Impresario Bows Out
Neil Bartlett is leaving his post as artistic director of London’s Lyric Hammersmith theater after 11 years, having “put his own name to no fewer than 10 translations of plays by Racine, Marivaux, Genet and Labiche, while a new version of Don Juan will be his third Molière… He has also devised, designed and even appeared in his own shows. The one string missing from his bow is that he doesn’t seem to sell the ice creams.” Still, Bartlett has never been much of a self-promoter, and his tenure at the Lyric, while undeniably successful, was surprisingly low-profile.
If You’ve Gotta Say The Seven Words, Say ‘Em En Español
This year, the Federal Communications Commission has devoted an astonishing amount of energy to targeting and punishing radio stations which violate the commission’s “decency” standards. So why is it that Spanish language stations are free to say whatever they wish, regardless of how vulgar it may be? It’s simple: the FCC “employs only two Spanish-speaking investigators to deal with 705 Spanish radio and TV outlets in the United States.”
Montreal Symphony Taps Ex-Premier
Former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard has been elected the new chairman of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, succeeding Jacques Laurent. Bouchard inherits an organization in turmoil and on the verge of a musicians’ strike. The MSO has been in flux since the abrupt and angry resignation of music director Charles Dutoit nearly two years ago, although the recent appointment of Kent Nagano to succeed him had led to speculation that the orchestra was beginning to regroup.
All About The Benjamins
The ongoing conflict between the musicians and management of the Montreal Symphony is intensifying, even as both sides continue contract talks. The dispute couldn’t be more basic: the musicians believe that they are grossly underpaid compared with comaprable North American orchestras, and the management insists that it simply cannot afford significant raises now or in the near future.
Art That First Does No Harm
St Bartholomew’s hospital in London has been around since medieval times, and as you might imagine, it can be a dreary place to convalesce. But a major renovation of the hospital’s cancer wing has transformed the place into an art-filled oasis for patients, made up of “calm, elegant spaces, flooded with daylight… The art is everywhere, included in the design from the start and taking up 3% of the £15.5m project cost.”