“You guessed it: contributions to nonprofits have gone south with the economy. Among those organizations suffering the most are the ones catering to the arts.”
Tag: 10.14.08
Bach’s Note-Perfect Soundtrack To The Economic Mess
The ideal musical accompaniment to the worldwide financial debacle? “Bach’s short, rarely performed Cantata 168, a setting of passages on the parable of the unjust steward from Corinthians and the Gospel of Luke. It won’t bring you much solace – at least not until the closing chorus of consolation – but you will be able to feel and share the anger and the wrath, directed at bankers and accountants.”
For Lit-Prize Geeks, A Booker Quiz
“Is there a higher honour in English letters? Yes, and you win it by getting all these questions right.”
Hanging In The Balance (Sheet): Corporate Art Collections
“Another bankrupt corporation, another corporate art collection on the block. Actually, no one quite knows what Lehman Brothers, the financial services firm that filed for bankruptcy protection on Sept. 15, will do with its 3,500-piece art collection, but with works by such bankable artists as Jasper Johns and Andreas Gurky, it is likely to be on sale at a major auction house near you.”
Hirst Tops ArtReview Power List; MoMA’s Halbreich Is No. 3
“Damien Hirst is the most powerful figure in the world of contemporary art, according to magazine ArtReview. Hirst, who topped the list in 2005, retakes the top spot after a recent sale of his work which made £111m. … Kathy Halbreich, an associate director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, becomes the first woman to make the top 10 in her own right.”
Booker Odds Favor Sebastian Barry
“Irish writer Sebastian Barry is the bookmakers’ favourite to win the Man Booker Prize for The Secret Scripture. The author is ahead of shortlisted rivals Steve Toltz, Linda Grant and Amitav Ghosh.”
An Ideal Time For The Pay-What-You-Can Performance
“The stock market is in turmoil. Unemployment is climbing. Banks are closing. Retail sales are slowing. TV analysts are sounding like so many Chicken Littles. What we have here is … a marketing opportunity.”
How Much Can Culture Do To Save A City?
“Culture was supposed to be Naples’s salvation, as so often is the hope in former industrial centers. The steelworks that drove much of the local economy had mostly closed by the end of the 1970s. The earthquake in 1980 compounded the misery. Then things looked up, for a while.” But the change wasn’t permanent. “The big question is how much culture ever does to turn around a struggling city. “
At Princeton, A Gehry Library That’s Light On Books
“Saw-toothed glass dances in a conga line above leaping arcs of metal roof at the Peter B. Lewis Science Library at Princeton University. The signature hand of Frank Gehry is unmistakable. But where are the books? … The New Jersey university, with Gehry Partners LLC, has embarked on a difficult task: to reinvent the library for an age when information largely takes on electronic rather than print form.”
Booker Shortlist Has That Familiar Feeling
“As literary horse races go, the Man Booker Prize for Fiction is notoriously hard to handicap. … Yet the biggest question hanging over this year’s contest is more basic: Does anyone really care who wins?” Hephzibah Anderson writes. “The judges seem perversely bent on finding the best Booker-style novel rather than the best novel of the year.”