After inspecting how the Louvre has cleaned a prominent painting by Italian master Veronese, a French conservation expert despairs: “Clothes that were originally red were now green. The whole spatial and wonderful chromatic harmony is distorted. When you look at the painting . . . black, red and blue colors seem to be floating among other colors like pieces of a broken puzzle. The light is now a cold, artificial, modern one.” – The Times (UK)
Month: March 2000
CAN’T TELL THE PLAYERS WITHOUT A SCORECARD
Who’s who and what’s what in the auction-house scandals. – New York Observer
JERUSALEM’S ISRAEL MUSEUM —
— gets architects’ approval for controversial expansion designed by American James Freed. – Haaretz (Israel)
NOW THAT BRITAIN HAS COME CLEAN…
by publishing a list of art in British museums that might have been stolen by the Nazis, what are American museums waiting for? “How is it possible that in Britain alone there are 350 works that may have been stolen and U.S. museums can’t find any?” asked Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress. – Seattle Post-Intelligencer (AP)
- An example to the world. – Chicago Tribune
CANADIAN INQUIRY —
— into the business practices of giant bookseller Chapters hears charges of “bullying tactics” used against independent booksellers. – CBC
THE MARCO POLO OF BOOKS
In a pickup truck or car she wanders southern Africa, the lands south of the Zambezi River – Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Angola, Lesotho, Swaziland and, of course, South Africa. She buys books at each stop with cash or through barter, books that are indigenous to the land she’s in, and then sells them to customers throughout the world. Her clientele includes collectors and governments and universities. “I have standing orders from a number of American universities,” she said. “Yale says it will buy everything it can get that is published in Mozambique and Namibia.” – New York Times
MEETING OF MINDS:
David Talbot’s Salon Magazine gave a first-class coming-out party last week to celebrate their arrival in the capital. The dynamic: out-of-towner meets the locals and each sizes up the other. “It was, as the organizers had intended, as if an issue of Salon had jumped off the web and the bylines had leapt to life. More heat than light, but provoking an intensity of concentration among the audience unusual in a capital more accustomed to droning speakers and one-sided think-tank snooze-fests familiar to the C-Span viewing public.” – The Idler
- “David Talbot loves to tout Salon as cutting-edge, risk-taking, and irreverent,” writes Baltimore’s City Paper, “but the panel discussion he hosted that evening was nothing more than four self-promoting pundits (Arianna Huffington, David Horowitz, Joe Conason, and Stanley Crouch) trotting out what sounded like outtakes from Crossfire.” – Baltimore City Paper
TURKISH BAN
The Turkish government confiscated all available copies of Jonathan Ames’ novel The Extra Man last week, and will try both his translator, Fatih Ozguven, and his publisher in Istanbul, Iletisim, on charges that the book is “corrupt and harmful to the morality of Turkish readers,” according to a fax Ames’ international rights agent Rosalie Siegel received from Istanbul. The book had been out a few months, and had been submitted to government censors for approval before publishing, as is required in Turkey. – New York Press
A “REFUGE FOR EGOMANIACS”
Berlin’s only public access television station is under fire by critics. Founded in 1985 and modeled on U.S. public-access TV – which aims to further the freedom of speech of small, special-interest groups – the Offener Kanal provides a TV- and radio-broadcast platform for any legal German resident over the age of 18. Opponents say the channel is out of date and a refuge for egomaniacs and the mentally disturbed. They argue the special-interest groups don’t reflect society as a whole. – Die Welt (Germany) 03/02/00
A GIRL’S GOTTA MAKE A LIVING
While everyone was focusing on the AOL/Time-Warner merger last month, AOL and PBS made a deal to co-brand and co-produce. Is this good for public TV? “This deal is just one more brick in the wall which basically says that we no longer have public broadcasting in the U.S.” – San Francisco Bay Guardian 03/02/00