Where would our musical cultural have been without Pierre Boulez? “Important works by a vast number of other composers — Elliott Carter, Gyorgy Ligeti, Harrison Birtwistle — would never have been commissioned or recorded. And there would have been no one to keep contemporary music in the public eye, especially in the public eye represented by the television camera.” – New York Times
Tag: 10.15.00
NUNN-SENSE
- Critics are lining up against London’s National Theatre director Trevor Nunn. But “Nunn’s fiercest critics might want to think twice before hysterically demanding that he be ousted.” After all, who would replace him? It’s not an idle question. – The Observer (UK)
ARTS SECRETARY UNDER ATTACK
“After nearly three-and-a-half relatively smooth years as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, everything seems to be going wrong for Chris Smith at the same time. The future of the National Lottery is in doubt. Tomorrow the BBC is launching its new 10pm BBC News, against his wishes. The Millennium Dome is an ongoing disaster. There has been widespread criticism of the performances of subsidised institutions such as the National Theatre and the Royal Opera House.” – The Independent (UK) 10/15/00
THE NEW CRITICS
“After more than a century of professional literary criticism, when the erudite few lorded over discussions of artistic merit, the rules have changed. Thanks to the Internet, anybody can now join ongoing – and very public – evaluations of books, recordings, films and many other materials, with a potential audience of millions of readers. – Washington Post 10/15/00
ART OF BUILDING
“During the past decade, new American performing arts facilities have been popping up like mushrooms after a rain, but architecturally they’ve been a pusillanimous lot. When not actively nostalgic, as in Fort Worth’s Bass Performance Hall, they’ve tended to favor a kind of buttoned-down corporate look, as in Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, or shopping-mall lite, as in Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center and West Palm Beach’s Kravis Center.” – Dallas Morning News 10/15/00
BIG TROUBLE WHILE BIG SPENDING
Ireland’s Arts Council has been wracked with turmoil this year – board resignations, demoralized staff, and everywhere criticism even as the council was laying plans to spend £100 million over the next three years. – The Sunday Times (UK) 10/15/00
THE WAR IS OVER?
Eight years ago Pat Buchanan was calling a “cultural war” in the United States. But this presidential campaign “the blistering cultural issues of the early ’90s – federal funding of the arts, naughty pictures, tart-tongued, disrobed performers – are on today’s back burners. The anti-arts, far-right-wing Buchanan voice lost. They thought it would be easy, the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts based on arguments of pornography and blasphemy. And they lost.” – Philadelphia Inquirer 10/15/00
HOW WE SEE ART
Over the next few months scientists will be tracking the eye movements of thousands of visitors to an exhibition at the National Gallery in London. “It will be the biggest investigation ever carried out into how humans absorb images and how artists’ use of colour and texture affects the way a painting ‘works’.” – The Independent (UK)
LIVING AROUND ART
Design is hot right now – it has a grip on the popular imagination in a way it hasn’t since the 1960s. What does it mean for the way we think about the things around us? “As expressions of The New, these products have inherited the myth of progress, modernity’s defining legend. This is not the first time design has embodied that myth… – New York Times
“CULTURAL ASSETS RELOCATED DUE TO WAR”
Germany has long suspected that many of the artworks taken by the Soviets from Germany at the end of World War II and listed as ‘lost’ were in fact living in Russian museums. “After 55 Years, German officials get to take a brief look at looted art from Berlin’s Museum of East Asian Art. Important works categorized as “irreplaceable” and once believed to be lost forever were among the treasures.” – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung