“Within days – possibly by Thanksgiving – a Montgomery County Orphans’ Court judge will rule on whether the Barnes Foundation can move its multibillion-dollar art collection from Lower Merion to a site along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The ruling will culminate more than two years of legal wrangling since the Barnes board of directors, saying the foundation was nearly broke, petitioned for the right to move its gallery to a more-accessible location downtown.”
Tag: 11.16.04
Museum Tension – Collect Or Promote?
Outgoing Getty Museum director Deborah Gribbon’s statement that “museums best serve the public by collecting, exhibiting and interpreting works of art of the highest quality” has “pricked up ears in the art world. It was widely viewed as an indictment that the Getty is not serious enough about acquiring masterpieces, despite its fabulous wealth left by its namesake patron after his death in 1976. Gribbon’s resignation cuts to an ongoing struggle for museums: How should precious money be spent in an expensive enterprise: on art or on programs promoting the arts?”
Music Downloaders An Advertiser’s Dream
“The debate over the legitimacy of file-sharing networks rages on as the music industry continues its threats to close the services down for good. Meanwhile the millions of downloaders are proving both an advertiser’s dream come true and a branding nightmare.”
Movie Industry Targets Movie Pirates
Having learned from the recording industry in their fight against piracy, the American film industry has filed its first lawsuits, targeting hundreds of movie downloaders. “The future of our industry, and of the hundreds of thousands of jobs it supports, must be protected from this kind of outright theft using all available means. ‘The lawsuits were filed in federal courts across the country by Disney, Warner Bros., MGM, Universal, Fox, Paramount and Sony.”
The New South Bank (Really!)
For more than a decade, London’s much-maligned South Bank Arts Centre has been talking about reinventing itself, without much actual progress. But two years ago, with the Barbican Centre unveiling a major upgrade across the Thames, things got serious on the South Bank. “Enter, in 2002, as chairman the former banker and press baron Lord Hollick, whose close links with New Labour and reputation for hard-headedness could only be welcome… Together with the supervisory architect, Rick Mather, they have managed to save the SBC by thrashing out a modified longer-term version of the development which the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and funding bodies find acceptable.”
Welcome To Wales, Home Of The Bloated Armadillo
“Rarely has a building attracted quite so many similes. Some locals think it looks like a slug, or a bloated armadillo. Glimpsed from sea it seems very like a whale emerging from the deep… For some it is already a white elephant – the latest example of a witless public-sector mentality. The comparisons multiply because nobody knows what exactly Wales’s all too multi-purpose Millennium Centre really is. The latest, and the last, of the big millennial lottery-funded projects opens next week – the legatee of more than a decade of wrangling about what should be built in the middle of the reconstructed Cardiff Bay.”
Lucking Wins Schweppes Photo Prize
The $28,000 Schweppes photographic portraiture prize has been awarded to German photographer Jens Lucking for his stark and engaging shot of three young Japanese women. The picture, which was posed, stood out for the way in which its subjects stared defiantly into the camera, and the jury also praised Lucking’s use of classical arrangement techniques.
Balanchine In The Desert
Former New York City Ballet dancer Ib Andersen now leads the nine-member Arizona Ballet. On recreating Balanchine’s work: “I teach the steps and I teach what I think his intent was. It’s what I think he intended, which is of course not [necessarily] what he intended. And, like everyone else who stages Balanchine’s ballets, I put something of myself into it—because what else can you do?”
The End Of Copyright As We Know It?
This week the US Congress could vote on a major copyright bill that would radically redefine the legal use of creative work. “The Senate might vote on HR2391, the Intellectual Property Protection Act, a comprehensive bill that opponents charge could make many users of peer-to-peer networks, digital-music players and other products criminally liable for copyright infringement. The bill would also undo centuries of “fair use” — the principle that gives Americans the right to use small samples of the works of others without having to ask permission or pay.”
Rejecting “Reality”?
There are signs that “reality” TV is losing its appeal with American audiences. “Inspired by the success of such blue-chip franchises as Survivor and American Idol, the networks have increasingly loaded up on unscripted knockoffs as cheap prime-time alternatives. With quantity comes failure. It becomes a combination of mediocre shows or shows that are so similar to other shows, they don’t stick.”