Despite the continuing hubbub surrounding Napster’s success, the numbers continue to bear out the same fact: Napster is not hurting record sales. And Christmas CD sales look to be stronger than ever. “Even the cheapest of holiday shoppers isn’t likely to download swapped songs onto a burnt CD and then wrap it up as a gift.” – Salon
Tag: 11.27.00
SEEING RED
The Australian Chamber Orchestra, one of Australia’s top arts organizations, “looks set to end the year $900,000 in the red, due largely to a costs blow-out linked to its protracted merger negotiations with Musica Viva.” – The Australian
OF ACOUSTICS AND ARCHITECTS
Toronto’s main concert hall Roy Thompson Hall, has been criticized since it opened 20 years ago for its bad acoustics. Now there’s a plan to overhaul the acoustic design. But Arthur Erickson, the hall’s architect, strenuously objects to the changes, which he says will subvert his design. – CBC
ROYAL WINNIPEG FIRES DIRECTOR
The Royal Winnipeg Ballet has fired its executive director. Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles had been widely credited with turning the company’s financial fortunes around since he arrived in 1997. – CBC
VENICE UNDER WATER
This month Venice has recorded its third-worst flood since 1900, endangering the city’s artwork and buildings. The city wants to work on building new barriers to keep the water out but environmentalists oppose the idea. – The Art Newspaper
- WHY NO BARRIERS? There is a fear that by closing them for 100-300 hours a year—and there are some 8,600 hours in a year—it would affect the exchange of water between the sea and the lagoon, and that the lagoon would become polluted. As the Special Law for Venice says that the lagoon is inseparable from the historic city, it is not possible to act on one part rather than the whole. – The Art Newspaper
DESIGN TRIUMPH
The controversy that plagued the British Museum every step of its redesign – including the public outcry over its use of the wrong kind of stone in its new $97 million portico – seems to have finally subsided. “To visitors to the Great Court, this storm in a wine goblet will mean little if anything. In 10 years, few will know or care what all the fuss was for. What they will know, instead, is one of the most extraordinary covered squares to be found in any city, ancient or modern. – The Guardian
FEMINISM LITE
- The US’s first women’s museum opened in Dallas last month, but visitors are unlikely to walk away with a broad knowledge of women’s accomplishments, artistic or otherwise. “[The Women’s Museum] is an institution as notable for what it omits as what it contains, a watery survey of female accomplishment that for the most part glosses over the conditions – i.e., a couple of centuries of sexual inequality and its attendant ills – that make such an institution necessary in the first place.” – Salon
THE ROWDY MUSEUM NEXT DOOR
Melbourne’s new $290 million museum, which opened last month, has upset its neighbors. “They appear to be desperately reacting to their own financial difficulties by panicking into holding activities which will not only degrade the Museum of Victoria but also degrade the Carlton area and alienate the residents.” – Financial Review
NOT SO FAST
Just a few years ago the internet was being touted as likely to revolutionize the world of art sales. Its success hasn’t been nearly so pervasive, but “even the skeptics did not predict the problems that have since assailed art and antiques online sites. The weakest have closed, some are desperately in need of more cash from increasingly skeptical venture capitalists, others have seen their share prices plunge and even Sotheby’s has been forced to amalgamate its two sites.” – The Telegraph (UK)