It may not be the most profound gauge of public sentiment, but for what it’s worth, the top-selling postcard at the Tate Britain this past year was a semi-nude study by Lucien Freud called “Girl With White Dog.” This is notable mainly because the top-selling card had been Millais’s serene and Victorian “Ophelia” for a decade. The museum’s director hopes the Freud card’s popularity is a sign that audiences are becoming more accepting of contemporary art.
Tag: 12.19.02
Royal Ballet Names New Artistic Director
Monica Mason has been named the new artistic director of London’s Royal Ballet. “Mason, 60, who is known affectionately at Covent Garden as ‘Mon’, has been a mother and something of an inspiration to a battered company since taking the reins temporarily after the ignominious departure of Ross Stretton. The Australian former car mechanic was forced to resign two months ago amid allegations of inappropriate relationships with some of his dancers.”
Baryshnikov Dissolves Company, Will Open Arts Center
Mikhail Baryshnikov has disbanded his White Oak Project dance company and says that he will open a new performing arts center in New York in 2004. “The Baryshnikov Center for Dance, which is to have its headquarters on West 37th Street, plans to offer space to performing arts groups at subsidized rates. But he emphasized that its major program will be a laboratory in which artists will work with mentors from the worlds of dance, theater, film and lighting and costume design.”
Graham Company Names Directors
Terese Capucilli and Christine Dakin, lead dancers in the Martha Graham Company since joining it in the 1970s, have been appointed artistic co-directors of the Martha Graham Dance Company. The company has been revived again after winning a lawsuit against Graham heir Ron Protas.
WTC Plans – Going Up…
Ideas for rebuilding on the World Trade Center site were unveiled in New York Wednesday. In general, Herbert Muschamp was impressed. “In our hype-drenched era, a critic will have to risk raising cynical eyebrows with superlatives adequate to the occasion. Let them rise. Let them arch into furious knots. The architects have risen to the occasion.”
What Happens When Reality Sets In?
The designs are most impressive, says Benjamin Forgey, and the rollout was “rousing good theater.” But at some point, one of these designs is going to have to actually be built, and it doesn’t seem like anyone is thinking a great deal about such annoying details as funding, phasing of the project, and what purpose the building(s) will serve upon completion. “For the next month or so, however, attention will be focused on the plans revealed today, and deservedly so.”
It All Comes Down To Height
The new set of designs presented as possible replacements for the Twin Towers are certainly impressive, says Lisa Rochon, and they’re also awfully… um… tall. “There are towers that kiss in mid-air, while others stand up like soldiers aligned in a military grid. Some are beautiful. Most of them carry a tremendous wallop of architectural ego.”