“The chasm between musical experts and everyday musicians that has grown so wide in our culture makes people feel discouraged, and for some reason this is uniquely so with music.” New books tackle the description of music from the objective and subjective ends.
Tag: 12.20.07
The History Of All That
In the 1880s, the writing of history was professionalized, “committed to supposedly ‘scientific’ standards of evidence and proof; largely university-based, and (by the 1950s), with the PhD as the near-universally required qualification for its would-be practitioners. The new professionals tended to look rather patronisingly on their non-professional forebears. In fact, they tended to regard them as hardly proper historians at all.”
Are African Musicians Pirating Their Own Music?
“It is a common thing to find some Zimbabweans selling some pirated CDs in parking lots in major centres in Botswana. But while many local musicians are complaining about the Chinese and Zimbabweans pirating their music, there are reports that Batswana artistes are also “pirating” their own music.”
Thieves Steal Picasso In Brazil
“Thieves broke into the Sao Paulo Museum of Art and made off with paintings by Pablo Picasso and Candido Portinari in a brazen heist Thursday morning that lasted just three minutes as recorded by security cameras.”
Worries About A Gardner Museum Expansion
The Gardner Museum proposes a $60 million, 60,000-square-foot expansion designed by Renzo Piano that might make drastic changes to the Gardner’s Venetian-style palazzo.
“Some community activists worry that the cramped, 105-year-old museum’s much-needed modernization will violate the wishes of Boston’s golden-age doyenne.”
China Gets Its First Contemporary Art Museum
The museum “will help shift the focus away from the art market,” says Lu Jie. “Chinese art today is overproduced and overexposed. There are many very good artists working in China who are unknown. In the last month alone, 28 new art magazines launched in China–all of them are market led; none of them contain any art criticism.”
Study Dispels The Idea Of A “Cultural Elite”
“We find little evidence for the existence of a cultural elite who would consume ‘high’ culture while shunning more ‘popular’ cultural forms.”
Britain Proposes New Laws To Save Russian Art Loan
The loan of major works of art is in jeopardy, as the Russian government fears the art might be seized over provenance concerns.”The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said it would fast-track ‘immunity from seizure’ laws to cover the paintings the Russians have threatened not to lend the show.”
All Of Art History In One Chinese Artist District
“In one sprawling area are many hundreds of individual art factories, in which teams of artists crank out hand-painted replicas of any sort of picture you can imagine. European old masters. Andy Warhol. Gustav Klimt. Classic Chinese landscapes. Manet. Audubon. Botero.”
FCC Reins In Comcast
The FCC has voted to limit the exponential growth of cable TV giant Comcast. “The new regulation will limit Comcast to 30 percent of the pay-TV market in the United States, halting the billion-dollar acquisitions that have made it the largest cable company in the nation.”