After boycotting UNESCO for two decades, the US has once again joined the UN’s cultural body. “The US has been granted a seat on the executive council for its ambassador, a post for which President Bush has nominated Louise Oliver, a conservative Republican fund-raiser who must be confirmed by the Senate.”
Tag: 10.31.03
Washington Public Radio Station Fires Director
The embattled head of Washington public radio station WAMU has been fired. Susan Clampitt, who had directed the station since June 2000, had come under fire from current and former staff members, donors and volunteers. They questioned her financial management of the station and her managerial style, which had led to widespread staff disgruntlement.” WAMU ran through more than $4 million in cash reserves in the process in the past three years as spending jumped 110 percent from 2000 to 2002.
Saving Jazz In Canada
Du Maurier-sponsored jazz festivals have been a longtime tradition in Canada. But with the tobacco company handcuffed by federal legislation, “many jazz festival organizers across the country feared the worst for their annual events. It’s no surprise then that TD Canada Trust was welcomed as a saviour yesterday when it stepped into the breach. As part of a four-year multi-million-dollar deal, the bank will assume title sponsorship for the Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax jazz festivals. Additional support will be distributed to fests in Victoria, Edmonton, Saskatchewan, Winnipeg and Montreal.”
Dia: Beacon Is A Hit
The Hudson Valley art center, which opened last summer, has already exceeded its visitor projections. “Our original expectation was 60,000 visitors for the opening year; then we upped the number to 100,000. We’ve already hit our target, and it’s been open less than six months.”
Remembering Franco Corelli
Tenor Franco Corelli, who died this week at 82, had animal magnetism as a performer, writes Tim Smith. “If you added up the considerable assets of the Three Tenors (even when Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti were in their prime), you still couldn’t match Corelli’s vocal opulence, electrically charged phrasing and movie-star looks. His one-of-a-kind packaging thrilled an opera world ever-hungry for tenors.”
Selloff – Museum Chooses Art Of The Future
Connecticut’s Aldrich Muwseum is selling off its collection. “Aldrich officials say the sale is not about money because they expect to clear less than $50,000 after expenses. That is far less than the $200,000 for which the collection is insured and hardly material for an institution with a $1.5 million annual operating budget and a $7.5 million renovation and expansion under way. The usual taboos about selling art from a museum were hard to square with the mission of an institution devoted to art of the moment.”
Adorno At 100
Theorist Theodor Adorno is it in 2003, “especially in Frankfurt, where the critical theorist was born 100 years ago. There’s no end to the jubilee celebrations, exhibitions, symposiums, conventions and book openings. But while there is more Adorno than ever before, a lot of it comprises simply anecdotes and recollections.”
Below The Mirror, We’re All Art
Tate Modern’s new large installation has visitors gawking. “Nothing prepares you for the almost psychotropic transformation of human social behaviour that is currently taking place where the turbines of Bankside power station once roared. Olafur Eliasson’s The Weather Project only opened a couple of weeks ago, but it is already a legend. Visitors seem to think they are at some storied 60s festival – barriers are melting, frosty politeness traded at the door for cockeyed mysticism and love, love, love. Under a vast blazing sun, in clouds of dry ice, revellers lie, looking up at what must surely be the biggest mirrored ceiling in the world, and conclude that, hey, maybe we really are all made of stars. The scale is so excessive, it is hard to experience Eliasson’s artwork as art – it is more like nature itself, and we, down below, make the art.”
Cole Porter – Divided In Two
Cole Porter’s birthplace in Indiana was sold at auction this week. But the house rests on two plots of land, and two different buyers bought them. “A local resident, Brian Boyce, won one lot with an $800 (£470) bid, but a Michigan man, Keith Wegner, outbid him on the second parcel, buying it for $9,000. Mr Boyce said he might restore the historic house and convert it for a bed and breakfast business.”
“Comedy Terrorist” Convicted In Paint Throwing
Self-styled “comedy terrorist” Aaron Barschak has been convicted of throwing paint on Jake Chapman at a gallery in London earlier this year. “The 37-year-old splattered red oil paint over Chapman and one of his artworks at the Modern Art Oxford gallery. Witnesses said Barschak gatecrashed a talk by the brothers on May 30 this year and hurled the paint at Chapman shouting ‘Viva Goya’. Barschak, from Golders Green, north London, told the police that he was making his own piece of art in the same way the Chapmans had adapted another artist’s work.”