“The first Europeans went [to Africa] to exploit the continent and were soon followed by artists excited by the ‘primitive’. But, as a new exhibition shows, the images they produced bear the stamp of colonialism with a paint brush… Our view of Africa has been an inheritance of 19th-century colonialism, dominated by biological determinism, by repressed and perverse sexuality, and by paintings and sculptures that ignored the realities of the place and time in favour of a romanticised and polemical vision.”
Month: July 2006
Ideas, Ownership, And Endless, Endless Lawsuits
Issues of intellectual property in the film business are always tricky, particularly when one writer accuses another of stealing an idea or a movie plot, an accusation that can be difficult to prove legally. But claims of idea theft are way up in Hollywood these days, and a lot of the blame (or credit) for the uptick can be laid at the feet of a single lawyer, who has “spent the last two years capitalizing on having won a federal appeals court decision that makes it easier for writers who pitch an idea or circulate a script to make a claim of theft stick.”
Genesis Of The Anguished Artist
“When exactly did artists decide that they were different from ordinary mortals, that in all likelihood they were superior to the rest of us? Or, viewed differently, when were they granted such a privileged status? When did Western societies start venerating them as sensitive, misunderstood geniuses?” A new book suggests that the answer lies somewhere in the tumultuous 19th century…
Proving Once Again That You Can’t Cut Your Way To Solvency
The West Virginia Symphony has been in debt since the moment it moved into its new home at Charleston’s Clay Center three years ago, and the orchestra is hoping a major endowment drive will plug the seemingly permanent hole in its finances. The WVS’s accumulated debt stands at nearly $800,000, with $640,000 more on various credit lines. Worse, the orchestra’s subscriber base is less than half what it was a decade ago, and cuts to the musicians’ roster and the season schedule have done nothing to alleviate the problem.
Heinrich Hollreiser, 93
“German conductor Heinrich Hollreiser died on July 24, according to a statement on the Vienna State Opera’s website. He was 93. Hollreiser was principal conductor (first Kapellmeister) of the Vienna State Opera from 1952-1961… He also led operas at Covent Garden, Bayreuth, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and the Metropolitan Opera during his career and guest-conducted the Vienna Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra.”
Even If You Return It, It’s Still Stealing
The former president of the Buffalo local of the American Federation of Musicians has pled guilty to embezzling $74,000 from the musicians he purported to represent. Mark Jones “charged items on the local union’s credit card, then charged the same items to the parent union and pocketed the money… Jones repaid $21,000 of the amount he had taken before the investigation began, and has since repaid nearly all the rest, according to the United States Attorney’s office.”
Rochester Phil Rakes In The Cash
Upstate New York’s Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra has set an in-house fundraising record for the second year in a row, taking in nearly $2.2 million for the 2006 fiscal year. “At a time when many orchestras in the country are posting deficits, the RPO, flush from its fundraising success, made another kind of record this week, a recording of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F.”
Ugly Estate Battle Settled in Edmonton
The Edmonton Symphony has resolved a long-running dispute with the Winspear Centre for Music over the estate of a deceased philanthropist. “[Stuart] Davis, who died in July 2005, was a great supporter of both the Winspear Centre and the ESO, which plays at the venue. Symphony officials had been under the impression that Davis, a retired professor who found success on the stock market, had left a substantial bequest to the company in his will.” When the truth turned out to be far more complicated, lawyers got involved and the dispute spilled into the press. Under the settlement, the ESO will get several hundred thousand dollars, and the Centre will get nearly CAN$2 million.
NYT Classics: Pithy In 20 Words Or Less
The best writing in the New York Times? Jack Shafer maintains it’s the capsule movie reviews in the TV listings. “The capsules spend 20 words—and usually fewer—to pass informed judgment on movies. Even if you never intend to watch any of the films, the capsules make for good morning reading.”
Study: Arts Ed Helps Students Learn
A study released by the Guggenheim Museum suggests that arts education helps students learn in other subjects. “The study found that students in the program performed better in six categories of literacy and critical thinking skills — including thorough description, hypothesizing and reasoning — than did students who were not in the program.”