“A powerful argument can be made that the most exciting art in the world is being made by Chinese artists – most younger than 40 – who work in their homeland or have immigrated elsewhere… China has emerged from the intellectual repression of the Cultural Revolution to become an economic tiger ready to assert its place in the world. And that sometimes tumultuous transformation has sparked an incredible explosion of creativity.”
Tag: 10.17.03
Fighting For The Soul Of R&B
At some point in the 1980s, the pop music genre known as R&B went crushingly, horrifyingly commercial, and became less traditional “soul” music than overproduced pap designed to be as inoffensive as possible to as wide a range of consumers as could be snookered into buying it. Then, in the mid-’90s, a new breed of talented young singers – the “neo-soul” movement, they were dubbed – began to revitalize the genre with original albums that picked up where artists like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye had left off back in the ’70s. But the movement has stalled out, the neo-soul musicians are flying well under the pop culture radar, and slick commercial R&B is again dominating the charts. Still, there may yet be hope for serious soul musicians.
Looking To The Future In Baltimore
A new $20 million art education center on the campus of the Maryland Institute College of Art is big, futuristic, and chock full of the kind of cutting-edge sub-disciplines that didn’t even exist a decade ago. The just-completed Brown Center “will house newly created departments in fields such as digital imagery, video, animation, interactive media and graphic design… With the Brown Center, administrators aim to position MICA as a leading art school for art and digital technology studies.”
Trouble In Paradise
The Honolulu Symphony Orchestra has become the latest American orchestra to make drastic cuts to its infrastructure in order to avoid fiscal insolvency. The musicians of the HSO this week accepted a stunning 20% salary cut, reduced pension benefits, and a 4-week reduction in their season. Prior to the new agreement, HSO musicians earned $30,345 for a 34-week season. The cuts are all the more ominous because the HSO’s musicians were in the middle of a 5-year contract when the orchestra’s management informed them that they would not be able to honor its terms.
Amazing What You Can Find In A Basement
“A collection of 18th century paintings featuring Canadian landscapes has been discovered in a basement at Oxford University. It will go to auction next month. The paintings – possibly the earliest renderings of Quebec in existence – were the work of British army officer Major-General Benjamin Fisher.” The watercolors were painted in the late 18th century, when Fisher was instructed to survey the Canadian shore, and send documentary evidence of its contours back to Great Britain. The paintings are of more historical than artistic significance, but they are expected to fetch as much as CAN$100,000 at auction.
A Snapshot Of Scotland’s Artists
There’s the romantic notion of what an artist’s life is like. Then there’s the economic reality. A new study of Scotland’s artists shows that “40% of artists under 35 made work that generated no income. Only 17% of the artists earned more than £10,000 a year from artistic practice alone, and many supplemented their income. The figures also contain a fascinating snapshot of contemporary Scottish artists as economic players. In the past two years, they pumped £4.6m into the economy through their expenditure on art materials, transport, and premises, of which £443,000 was spent on assistants.”
Frankfurt Pulls Out Of Deal For Forsythe Project
“The nitty-gritty details of a contract for a ballet ensemble directed by William Forsythe and funded by the cities of Frankfurt and Dresden and their respective state governments had all been worked out months ago. But when representatives of the contractual parties met in Dresden on Tuesday to sign the deal, two chairs remained empty. On the same day, Frankfurt’s city council passed a decision that Frankfurt would pull out of the cooperation, to which it would have contributed EUR200,000 ($232,600) per year.”
Where The Children Are Thriving
Children’s theatre is thriving at a time when other performing arts are struggling. “This is a corner of the theatrical world that, as Rodney Dangerfield would say, has gotten no respect, but may now be seeing a renaissance. Although economic times are tough for all regional theaters today is ‘a remarkable time’ for children’s theater. There’s been ‘nothing less than a sea change in the field. It’s a significant historical moment.”
The Wallpaper That Killed Napoleon?
A little scrap of wallpaper that might have helped kill Napoleon has been sold at auction. “Tests eight years ago, on a lock said to have been cut from Napoleon’s hair after his death revealed eight times normal levels of arsenic. One culprit could have been the red-and-gold wallpaper of his bedroom, at Longwood House on St Helena, where he was exiled for six years until his death in 1821.”
An Artist’s Grassy Knoll
An artist has covered a church in London in grass. From the inside. “The walls of the church – indeed, every vertical surface, including doors and the railings around the organ loft – are covered in grass. It is a pelt-like, sensual second skin, and the first thing you want to do is reach out and touch it. The blades are superfine and delicate, damp and slightly resistant to the touch. This is nothing like a groomed, respectable, well-kept British lawn, nor a disciplined, close-shaved grass court or golf course. It is something altogether wilder and stranger.”