Big advances and extravagant payouts for celebrity authors are common practice in the publishing world these days, but some of the highest-profile deals struck this year have ended with publishers taking a financial bath. “After shelling out for deals worth up to £1m to buy into the celebrity memoir market, many have seen little more than a trickle of sales.”
Tag: 11.05.06
End Of An Era At The DeCordova
The director of Boston’s DeCordova Museum is leaving his post after 22 years, and while rumors persist that he was pushed, Paul Master-Karnik insists that he made the decision to depart on his own. “During his 22 years at the DeCordova, he led a transformation of the once- sleepy institution. The DeCordova’s current $5.2 million annual operating budget is more than five times larger than when Master-Karnik arrived. The museum’s endowment has more than doubled, to $10 million. In 1998, the DeCordova finished an $8 million campaign that included the construction of a new, 20,000-square-foot exhibition wing.”
Sort Of A Darwinian Theory Of Architecture
A conservative think-tank in the UK is proposing a controversial plan to revitalize the country’s cities: invite the public to submit lists of hated buildings that deserve the opposite of historic preservation. In other words, decide which old structures are really worth keeping, and knock the others down.
African Eugenics Debate Rears Its Head In London
“The London School of Economics is embroiled in a row over academic freedom after one of its lecturers published a paper alleging that African states were poor and suffered chronic ill-health because their populations were less intelligent than people in richer countries. Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist, is now accused of reviving the politics of eugenics by publishing the research which concludes that low IQ levels, rather than poverty and disease, are the reason why life expectancy is low and infant mortality high.”
French Critics Accused Of Corruption
“Next week will see the announcement of the winner of [France’s] most prestigious literary prize, the Goncourt, closely followed by around 3,000 others throughout November. But last week saw a revolution in France’s traditionally somewhat stuffy literary world in the form of a barrage of vicious open attacks on the critics and judges themselves. The 60-odd life members of the juries of the major prizes find themselves accused of back-scratching, favouritism, self-seeking commercialism and downright corruption.”
The Case For Public Arts Funding
What should the future role of public funding be in the UK arts scene as more of the world transitions to an American-style system of private philanthropy? “Should the state help pay for the arts? Of course it should; it always has. State support for the arts is a great European tradition. The great patrons of the performing arts and the visual arts have always been rulers or monarchs. Now they are governments… Whether you are talking about 18th-century Vienna or the UK today, the wealth that was and is handed out to the arts is the people’s wealth. And it is absolutely right that it should be spent on the arts.”
Looking Deeper Into The Old Masters
New technology is allowing art experts to examine long-held beliefs about centuries-old works as never before. “Probing the surface with X-rays or infrared light or dating the work by dendrochronology — counting the rings in the wooden panel on which the image was painted — can reveal much about how a work was actually made… Such analysis can also uncover many twists and turns in the long trip from the artist’s studio to the museum wall.”
Bringing Real Dancing Back To Radio City
New York’s Radio City Christmas Spectacular has a new choreographer this year: Linda Haberman, the first woman to hold the job in the history of the long-running holiday show. “Her plan — a noble one to those who revere the dying art of precision dance — is to save the Rockettes from mediocrity… Ms. Haberman is creating choreography for them that is both deceivingly difficult and wholly glamorous. Yes, the eye-high kicks are still around, but she is actually giving the Rockettes something sophisticated to dance. And it’s clear that they worship at her finely arched feet.”
Can Les Miz Maestro Still Pack The House?
Cameron Mackintosh’s name may not generate the immediate reverence of a Stephen Sondheim or a Neil Simon, but over the course of a long career, Mackintosh has generated hit after hit, whether on Broadway, in London’s West End, or anywhere else around the world. “Mackintosh remade the modern theatrical spectacle and transformed Broadway and the American road (not to mention old cinemas from Vienna to Tokyo) with his big four: Cats, Les Misérables, Miss Saigon and The Phantom of the Opera… But the high points came 15 years ago.” Does Mackintosh have any magic left?
Never Mind The Art, How’s Your Auction Etiquette?
Auction season is an exciting time in the art world, but it can also be a confusing and expensive place for the inexperienced. “Within the already rarefied subculture of the art world, auction houses are a preserve all their own, with distinct practices, jargon and rites… How collectors comport themselves is nearly as important as what they’re willing to spend.”