Despite a showdown with his museum’s biggest benefactor several months ago, Guggenheim Museum director Thomas Krens hasn’t ratcheted down his ambitious plans. “The key to his business plan is hiring big-name architects to design buildings that will become tourist destinations in themselves, like the Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright building on Fifth Avenue or its Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. And though the museum’s new leaders express caution about the budget, they share Mr. Krens’s vision.”
Month: April 2005
Who Knew? Great Libraries Draw Readers
Two bright new library buildings in the UK are proving very popular. “In a development watched with envy by library authorities across the country, visitor numbers have soared at the new libraries in Gosport, Hampshire, and Brighton, East Sussex. Book borrowing has gone up too. The pattern supports the official view that the decline in library use is the result of financial neglect rather than an inexorable flight from reading.”
Harper Collins Sees a Down Year
Publisher Harper Collins reports a 30 percent drop in profits. “The firm was hit by Sean Connery’s decision last month to scrap plans for an autobiography, and it has also been plagued by rumours of in-fighting among executives, which it strongly denies. Operating profits were down from £15.4 million to £10.7m in the year to June 2004, according to accounts published last week. Turnover was down slightly at £165.5m.”
Record Price For A Musical Instrument
A bidder paid a record $2 million for musical instrument Friday, buying the “Lady Tennant” Stradivarious. “Made when Antonio Stradivari was 55 years old, the violin earned its name from one of its former owners – the wife of Scottish industrialist Sir Charles Tennant, who was given the instrument by her husband in 1900. The earliest known owner of the violin was the French player Charles Philippe Lafont, a contemporary of Nicolo Paganini.”
Scottish Opera Loses Another Official
Christopher Barron, chief executive of Scottish Opera, has become the third major executive to leave Scottish Opera. “Barron has been joint chief executive of both Scottish Opera and Scottish Ballet since 2000. However, the two boards were split last year after the opera’s escalating debts forced a restructuring deal on the company, making Barron’s dual position untenable. His departure, which had been widely speculated for some time, follows that of chairman Duncan McGhie, who stepped down in July 2004, and music director Richard Armstrong, who announced in December that he would leave in the summer.”
Mackie Wins Beck’s
Christina Mackie has won this year’s Beck’s Futures Prize for her sulpture and media installation. Mackie beat five other artists – Donald Urquhart, Luke Fowler, Ryan Gander, Lali Chetwynd and Daria Martin.
Kani: Arts Demand Respect
South African playwright/actor John Kani says the arts need more respect. “What the Government underestimates is the role that the arts can play in building and healing a nation, and in giving young people in particular a holistic sense of what a human being can be. Australia, with a little more experience than us in this thing called ‘democracy’, hopefully treats the arts with a bit more respect.”
Are Girls Who Read Fairy Tales More Likely To End Up In Abusive Relationships?
“A study of both parents of primary school children and women who have been involved in domestic abuse claims than those who grew up reading fairy tales are likely to be more submissive as adults. Susan Darker-Smith, a graduate student who wrote the academic paper, said she found many abuse victims identified with characters in famous children’s literature and claimed the stories provide “templates” of dominated women.”
The Antiquities Game
“At first glance, the connection between those who loot antiquities and those who collect, trade, and preserve them seems the stuff of academic seminars and journals. Yet such is the allure of ancient treasures that, since the 1970s, this relationship has spawned global treaties, inflamed Third World nationalism, created a secretive Washington bureaucracy, and triggered federal prosecutions. To some, this international cooperation reflects the ability of the world’s nations to unite to protect an endangered world resource. To others, it demonstrates the hazards resulting when “feel-good” multinationalism collides not only with the sovereignty of the United States but with the basic human desire to surround oneself with objects of beauty.”
Hollywood’s German Connection
How to finance that $100 million Hollywood blockbuster movie? First you go to Germany. “The Hollywood studio starts by arranging on paper to sell the film’s copyright to a German company. Then, they immediately lease the movie back—with an option to repurchase it later. At this point, a German company appears to own the movie. The Germans then sign a “production service agreement” and a “distribution service agreement” with the studio that limits their responsibility to token—and temporary—ownership.”