An Australian prize for religious art begs the question – just what does “religious” art mean today? “There are plenty of examples of modern religious art, but not too many that come bounding to mind. In part, of course, this is because of the loosening of religion’s grip on the modern psyche. But, even more, it is because modern art put a lot of time, effort and rhetoric into becoming a religion of its own.” – Sydney Morning Herald
Tag: 11.17.00
THE HUMAN BODY
“Though nudes are one of the most coherent traditions in photography of the last century, a serious public discussion about the motif of the human body, which has been used extensively in all forms of communication and especially in advertising, could not take place in such a codified area.” But in the last century, medical-technical photography, which goes from X-ray images and video probes to the screening and scanning of single cells it has delivered increasingly spectacular and at the same time abstract views of the human body. – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
FOOTBRIDGE FIX
Norman Foster’s £18 million Millennium Footbridge across the Thames, which opened last spring and was immediately shut down because it swayed alarmingly when people were on it, will be fixed. The fix will cost £5 million and take six months. – The Telegraph (UK)
THE INFLATING CONTEMPORARY MARKET
A couple of years ago, when Christie’s began selling work by young contemporary artists, some in the art world complained the move would falsely inflate the value of such work. Bidding at the contemporary auction Thursday night was vigorous and exceeded the high estimate for the session. – New York Times
BUSY LIFE
Composer/conductor/educator/horn player Gunther Schuller is turning 75 and writing a memoir of his life. But he’s only at his 19th year and already he’s written 250 pages. “I spent about four pages just describing what was available on the radio in the way of classical music. I am self-taught in everything except the French horn, and the radio is one of the ways how I learned so much music. I had to do some research because I had forgotten how much there really was, and I was flabbergasted; it helps explain things about me and others like me. There was no excuse for anybody’s being culturally illiterate, as most Americans are today.” – Boston Globe
JAMES LEVINE, OPERA CONDUCTOR
James Levine is in his 30th year at the Metropolitan Opera. “The man is simply wedded to the job. He even speaks the way he conducts, in long, flawlessly constructed paragraphs. He pays attention to verbal detail, too, rather as he might with some orchestral point in rehearsal, pausing to find just the right word or phrase to express what he wants to communicate. And then there is also, unmistakably, a certain personal reserve, a distancing that is sometimes a feature of his performances, a sense of his own importance that is conveyed by a reluctance to talk in depth about anything except conducting.” – The Guardian
DEBATING CENSORSHIP
It was a dull US presidential election. But the one issue that seemed to get people stirred up was a discussion of violence in the entertainment media. Not such an easy issue to get one’s arms around, though, writes Norman Lebrecht. “For half a century the very word ‘censorship’ was so closely associated with totalitarian regimes that it can no longer be uttered except in inverted commas.” – Culturekiosque 11/17/00
ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE
David Shiner, the star of the troubled musical “Seussical,” apparently can’t sing, dance or act. In trying to fix the show before it opens for real on Broadway November 30, the producers decide to replace him with Andrea Martin. But the show’s creative team fights the move. – New York Post
BURSTING THE DOTCOM BUBBLE
The struggling Chapters, Canada’s largest bookseller, announces it will lay off 18 percent of its online workforce and that it hopes to become profitable by Christmas of 2001. – National Post (Canada)
BOOK TURF WAR
Sales of books over the internet in Korea have taken off. But “threatened by the booming e-sales performance and its increased recognition as a reliable retail source, some of the largest book stores are accusing their new rivals of destroying the existing status quo built around the mandatory fixed retail price system. Late last month, the Association of Comprehensive Bookstores (ACB), an industry group of 11 largest bookstores in Seoul, announced that they will not carry books published by companies that also have deals with online book retailers.” – Korea Herald