“Monet was the National Galleries’ big hit. You might have thought we knew Monet well enough, but no fewer than 170,000 people visited the Monet exhibition to get a fresh insight into his work. It was the biggest attendance ever for an exhibition in Edinburgh and it must be a comment on something that we have not been doing in between that the previous record of 120,000 visitors was held by the Epstein exhibition in Waverley Market more than 40 years ago.”
Month: December 2003
Why Do You Like “Rings” So Much?
Why is Lord of the Rings so popular? An academic study is underway to find out. “Deploying 13 languages on the internet, researchers from universities in 20 countries are asking a series of questions of fans in an attempt to pin down the attractions of fantasy fiction. The questions are targeted exclusively at admirers of JRR Tolkien’s trilogy, including posers like “Where and when is Middle Earth to you?” which would baffle the uninitiated. The study is being publicised in almost every country, from China to Colombia, to search out national variations in response to the books and films.”
Ballard: Why I Turned Down The Queen’s Honor
Why did writer JG Ballard recently turn down an honor from the Queen that would have made him a Commander of the Brtitish Empire? “It goes with the whole system of hereditary privilege and rank, which should be swept away. It uses snobbery and social self-consciousness to guarantee the loyalty of large numbers of citizens who should feel their loyalty is to fellow citizens and the nation as a whole. We are a deeply class-divided society.”
Light Up London (But No Controversial Images, Please)
A holiday project to project images on buildings in London has hit a snag. “The project began with the projection of sunflowers onto the Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner on December 2 and has grown slowly, culminating with the illumination of Buckingham Palace tonight. All 10 buildings in the scheme will then be lit up each evening until New Year’s Eve. But pictures commissioned by pop star Damon Albarn – one of many celebrities taking part at the request of co-organiser Bob Geldof – proved too contentious to be projected onto London venues such as the National Theatre.”
The Power Struggle Behind The Freedom Tower
The uneasy agreement between Daniel Libeskind and David Childs that resulted in the new Freedom Tower design unveiled last Friday was “the result of a whirlwind of intense, sometimes fiery meetings over the course of the last week. During most of that time, staffers from studio Daniel Libeskind were banned from the 40 Wall Street offices of [Skidmore, Owings and Merrill,] where the two camps had been working. As a result, both sides were barely speaking to one another.” In fact, Skidmore staffers accused Libeskind employees of “a Watergate-style break-in,” with Libeskind’s camp accusing of David Childs of intentionally diverging from the agreed-upon framework for the design. All in all, it’s something of a wonder that a design was ever agreed upon.
Up All Night, Staring At A Screen
Advertisers are famously obsessed with young people, and so television, by necessity, is obsessed as well. In recent years, network brass have been at a loss to explain where all their young viewers have gone. Some say they went to cable, some say they went to the internet, and some say it shouldn’t matter, anyway. But what if the 18-to-34s haven’t deserted TV after all? What if they’ve just moved their “prime time” back a few hours? A close look at demographic ratings shows that young people are watching plenty of TV: they’re just turning on the set a lot later.
Free Music? On Its Way
You want free music? Legally? Coming right up. “You’re going to see lots of free music given out via third-party companies. It’s not going to be Apple and iTunes driving the business. It’s going to be companies like Pepsi and other third parties that are promoting digital music on bottle caps and on labels. Indeed, Apple Computer has inked a deal with Pepsi to give away 100 million iTunes downloads in a promotion that kicks off in February with a Super Bowl ad.”
Actors Equity 1, Homeland Security 0
Canadian actor Geordie Johnson should be on a San Francisco stage today, rehearsing for a new production of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. But thanks to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Johnson’s work visa was refused as the DHS tightened restrictions on foreigners entering the country. The company Johnson was to have worked with was forced to recast his part, since they could not afford to wait for an appeal. Nonetheless, Actors Equity filed an appeal anyway, and this week, it was granted, the union having successfully argued that “the entire framework of agreements under which actors, directors, musicians and even professional athletes gain cross-border employment [was] in jeopardy.”
Corporate Giving: Good For The Bottom Line?
A new study commissioned by the Boston Foundation reports that the public is more likely to patronize corporate businesses which make a point of donating to the arts and other nonprofits than those which do not. The pollster who led the study says that the upshot of the report is that “foundations have got to get out of the purely good guy giving pool and they’ve got to drive the argument that partnerships between nonprofits and corporations help a corporation’s bottom line. If you can make that case, you can start this argument again and maybe you can get more money.”
Victor Gruen, Father Of The American Shopping Mall
Victor Gruen was a German emigre who came to the United States, and created the quintessential shopping mall. “Gruen was a classic American type, the brilliant and driven immigrant who struggles to achieve wealth and influence but who yearns most of all for legitimacy. Like the immigrants who built Hollywood, Gruen combined art and commerce in new ways that captured something deep in the American psyche. His powerfully demotic designs helped pave the way for the egalitarian suburban landscape most Americans choose to live in today.”