“A bar of soap allegedly made of fat removed from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has gone on show in Zurich.” Artist Gianni Motti claims he obtained the material from a clinic where Berlusconi had liposuction in 2004; the clinic, alas, denies the whole thing.
Tag: 10.08.10
Making Contemporary Art in Beirut
“For the last 20 years, however, in spite of an almost total lack of state support, without public art galleries or non-profit exhibition spaces, … a vital alternative infrastructure for the making and exhibiting of contemporary art has developed within Beirut.”
Winners In This Year’s $250,000 ArtPrize Competition
Chris LaPorte, whose 28-foot-wide pencil drawing titled “Cavalry, American Officers, 1921” depicts a group of several uniformed officers in stunning detail, has won the ArtPrize 2010’s $250,000 top prize.
Imagining the First Performance of Don Giovanni
“The premiere of one of the greatest operas of all time was given by a part-time orchestra, which had barely had time to learn the music, and a cast of singers barely out of their teens who decorated their arias and improvised at will, while the majority of the audience happily ignored the entire event.”
A Choreographer’s Homecoming (or Not): Carolyn Carlson’s Return to America
“She is a celebrity in Europe, and her work has had a major impact on the dance scene there. Yet strangely, upcoming performances [in NYC and New Jersey] mark the first time in more than 20 years that her dances have been seen in the United States. It’s tempting to call these engagements a homecoming … But what gives a place the right to be called home?”
Without the UK Film Council, Whither British Film?
“[The] UKFC was far from perfect. It has been accused of cronyism, arrogance and waste. It has been attacked for throwing public money at the arthouse on the one hand and for backing mainstream work that would surely find funding elsewhere on the other. … But as we evolve from an analogue to a digital landscape, the game is bound to change.”
Performance Art, Bought and Sold Like Paintings
“[How] is it possible to speak of buying and selling, or collecting, an art form that has no object, only a process and an experience?” It is possible: Marina Abramovic. Ana Mendieta and Tino Sehgal are just three well-known performance artists whose works are fetching prices of five and even six figures.
Yuppie Parents Are Abandoning Children’s Picture Books
The popular evergreens by the likes of Sendak and Seuss still sell well, but newer picture books are languishing on the shelves. Why? Anxious parents are pushing their kids to read earlier and earlier. Says one bookseller, “They’re 4 years old, and their parents are getting them Stuart Little.“
What to Do With the Old Newseum? Make Into an Arts Center, Natch!
“When the Newseum decamped from Rosslyn [in northern Virginia] eight years ago [for downtown D.C.], it left behind a modern building with a broadcast studio, a beckoning silver dome and a mind-boggling 54,000 square feet of space. … Called Artisphere, it is [now ]Arlington’s trailblazing new cultural center – a home not just to visual art, but to esoteric discussions, edgy theater, performance art, ballroom dance and music ranging from classical to punk.”
Bodleian Library Solves Its Storage Problem
“This week, “the Bod” unveiled a £26 million storage facility to house 8.4 million books and maps (always a crucial element in the collection). It will be built in Swindon, which is a long way from the fan-vaulted Gothic ceilings and Palladian reading room of the Oxford library, but much more convenient than dumping them in a salt mine in Cheshire, the current fate of thousands of volumes.”