After ‘It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp’ won best song at the Oscars, it rocketed in popularity. “Why this song? Why now? When ‘white’ culture borrows from ‘black’ culture, it doesn’t necessarily borrow what it thinks it’s borrowing. The real meaning of the song, its reference to pimps, its role within a movie documenting the often pathetic efforts at stardom of a pimp who also makes music, isn’t particularly relevant. When a piece of cultural stuff makes the transition into the mainstream, it often does so on terms entirely different from what it originally meant.”
Month: March 2006
Washington Ballet Contract To Clarify Dancers’ Security?
“The flexibility allowed to Artistic Director Septime Webre had been a key issue. Disagreements over such issues as how and when he could dismiss dancers, how he could expand his roster with the use of students from the Washington Ballet’s school, and how many dancers he would be required to employ — which the ballet viewed as stepping into areas of artistic control — were the chief reasons the contract process took so long.”
Website Ranks Artists And Their Market Value
A new website has developed a mathematical formula to determine where in the food chain any artist lives. “Today, nearly 60,000 internationally recognised artists are listed. The number of points awarded reflects the importance of the artist in the eyes of the curators who select the artists for exhibitions. From these charts it is possible to get an idea of an artist’s standing on the international exhibition circuit. The key points from the prediction point of view are the sudden rises in the flow charts which suggest the revaluation of an artist’s career or the blossoming of a new one.”
Tech On The Menu At London Book Fair
At the London Book Fair, technology is the big theme, with Google’s John Needham speaked to a packed room about his company’s publishing projects…
Art Thieves Hit Rio Again
For the second time in ten days, art thieves have scored a major heist in Rio. “Two armed men burst into the Rio City Museum and took gold and silver relics from Brazil’s empire era said to be of ‘incalculable historic value’. The 11 stolen items include an ivory sabre and a pearl and silver foil.”
Author: Da Vinci Code Claims Exaggerated
One of the authors suing Dan Brown, claiming Brown stole details for the Da Vinci Code plot, has admitted he exaggerated his claims. “Michael Baigent had claimed 15 points central to the plot of Brown’s novel had been taken from a 1982 non-fiction book he wrote with two other authors. As the case resumed at the High Court in London, however, Mr Baigent said his language had been ‘infelicitous’.”
ENO Settles On Gardner
Edward Gardner is the English National Opera’s new music director. “The conductor Oleg Caetani was to have started as music director this month, but resigned at Christmas even before he began. The company has, since November, also lost an artistic director and a chairman. Gardner is music director of Glyndebourne Opera’s touring arm, and a former assistant at the Hallé Orchestra to Mark Elder, who himself was 32 when he became music director of ENO in the 1980s.”
The Spoetry Of Spam
Spoetry is email spam poetry. “In an unedited, authorless spoem (spam poem) ‘aardvarks sweat in gibbon rucksacks’ and ‘freight trains rejoice toothpicks, merrily’. Reminiscent of Ezra Pound, or William Burroughs’ cut-ups, spoetry transcends its mundane commercial aim and becomes, yes, art.”
Auction Houses Say Buyers Pay New UK Levy
Sotheby’s and Christie’s say auction buyers will have to pay a new UK levy on the resale of art. “The artists’ resale royalties are paid on a sliding scale, based on the hammer price, and are capped at 12,500 euros ($14,904) for any individual item sold. Works costing less than 1,000 euros are excluded.”
Lost In Translation
“Though translators often get the short shrift, they are more important than ever in this global age. Literature from foreign lands is one of the best ways to understand and experience distant cultures. Yet it represents only a tiny fraction of the books published in America. Of the 195,000 new titles printed in English in 2004 (the most recent year for which numbers are available), only 891 were works of adult literature in translation.”