“The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Young Archer is a marble Renaissance youth with an amazing backstory: Thirteen years ago, it was declared by NYU’s Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt to be an early work of Michelangelo himself. Rival scholars howled, and art historians continue to pick over its anatomy and history for clues.”
Tag: 10.25.09
Ex Cliburn Director To Help Rebuild Tchaikovsky Competition
The Tchaikovsky Piano Competition used to be the most prestigious in the world. Not now. “There is a general recognition that they [Gergiev and other Russian officials] were trying to do a perestroika, a reconstruction of the whole [competition] and to try to bring it back to its glory days.”
How Pilobolus Audiences Are Different
“The din at a Pilobolus performance is like that of no other dance crowd. If you were blindfolded, you’d have every reason to assume that you were attending a small-scale circus, … and the biggest affront wouldn’t be boos but the reverential silence of a ballet recital.”
Downloadable Theatre’s Biggest Surprise: It’s Good
“When I visited Digital Theatre’s Soho office, I was glumly expecting the usual deadness of the filmed stage performance. What I got was something quite new. Thanks to the editing and the multiple points of view, you feel inside the piece in a way that compensates for the loss of that flesh-and-blood thing.”
Critics Tell How They Drew Their Kids To Arts, Or Failed To
“The other day, my four-year-old daughter told me with a grin: ‘I’m chopping the fish.’ She had a toy knife and a plastic bowl. Inside the bowl was a jigsaw piece with the word ‘fish’ on it. Kids, eh – teach them to read and they think they’re René Magritte.”
With The Boom’s End, An Architectural Era Closes As Well
Nicolai Ouroussoff: “Yet as the dust settles on the last of these projects, what begins to emerge is a more complex image of America’s cultural values at the birth of a new century. The formal dazzle masks a deeper struggle by cities and architects to create accessible public space in an age of shrinking government revenue and privatization.”
Tamara Rojo On The Collision Of Arts And Politics
“The Arts Council is forever subject to criticism, but I’ve seen what happens in countries where major companies have to fend for themselves or cuddle up to politicians. I am often asked why there is no major classical ballet company in Spain. … The causes are political rather than cultural or historical.”
Hollywood Studios Shed Management
“During the good years, right into 2008, Hollywood did what any fat and happy industry would do: It piled up managers, larding the ranks with two and even three people in jobs that had previously been done by one.” Now come the management cuts. “The cuts have been part of Hollywood’s general effort to reduce production as revenue, particularly from DVD sales, falls.”
The World’s Shrinking Languages
“The world has perhaps 5000 living languages – though estimates vary – so by the end of this century there will be only half this number. In North America alone, there were between 600 and 700 languages when Columbus landed in 1492. This number had fallen to 213 by 1962, of which only 89 languages had speakers ranging from children to the elderly.”
Why Book-Price Wars Aren’t Happening In Canada
“Andrew Pelletier, vice president of corporate affairs for Wal-Mart Canada, told the Star Friday morning that the company takes “a Canadian approach” to retailing based on “what is good for the Canadian market” that often differs from how Wal-Mart operates in the United States.”