The arts are booming in Singapore, according to a new report. “Performance arts activities jumped from 1,500 in 1989 to 3,800 in 1999. For visual arts, the number of exhibitions went up from 212 to 406 in the same period.” – Singapore News 08/27/00
Author: Douglas McLennan
HIGH TACKINESS
“In recent times, it has become an unwritten rule of the Olympics that each opening ceremony should go faster, higher and further than the one before. Lighting the cauldron has become not so much a simple emblem as an increasingly emotional focal point for the games. After the heart-stopping moment in Barcelona when an archer lit the cauldron with a flaming arrow, Atlanta pulled off another coup in 1996, when Muhammad Ali, willed on by the world, lit it with visibly shaking hands. Now the pressure is on Sydney to top them both.” – The Sunday Times (UK)
WHEN SHOCK BECOMES SHLOCK
Shock, disgust, and horror are common themes at the heart of numerous contemporary artists’ work. Relying on the grotesque to shake viewers from the complacency of modern life’s distractions and luxuries may be an honorable goal, but is it succeeding? “Disgust is a drug whose effects quickly abate with overdosing. If art aspires to disgust and nothing more, then disgust will rapidly become the pallid salon style of the day – and that is exactly what has happened. Disgusting is now simply what art is; it has lost its shock value.” – The Sunday Times (UK)
THE ART OF NOT KNOWING
An interview with American art legend Robert Rauschenberg who, at age 74, is still creating, improvising, and expounding freely on “the way a serendipitist works.” “For me, art shouldn’t be a fixed idea that I have before I start making it. I want it to include all the fragility and doubt that I go through the day with. Sometimes I’ll take a walk just to forget whatever good idea I had that day because I like to go into the studio not having any ideas. I want the insecurity of not knowing.” – New York Times
NEW OPERA BLEND
Ishmael Reid has written what he calls a “gospera,” a new term to describe a new theatrical form, a combination of gospel and opera. Ensconced at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, it has been attracting enthusiastic audiences for a month now. ‘This was commissioned by the San Francisco Opera Company in 1992,’ Reed says. ‘The Opera wanted to present it as an opera, but I felt, considering the source, it would fit the story to add gospel voices’.” – New York Daily News
ATWOOD ON PARADE
Margaret Atwood is 60 and has just released a new book. The publicity machine is buzzing at a higher pitch than ever before. “Being as famous as Atwood must be like carrying a bundle around on your back. People recognize you on the street. Even if they don’t speak to you, they give you knowing looks, or else they avert their gaze as though you have a bizarre virus that is transmitted by eye contact. People want stuff from you – autographs, donations, appearances, opinions, money, patronage.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)
WRITING BEHIND BARS
“For almost as long as there have been prisons, prisoners have turned author for diversion, creative expression, solace, penance, vindication, vengeance and release (physically and metaphysically). But their works have rarely been examined as a genre, and for what they reveal about the literary impulse behind bars.” – New York Times
SHOCK OF THE NEW
What is it about being shocked that artists and viewers find so…invigorating? “Notoriously, ever since the dawn of Impressionism, modern art has delivered the shock of the new. Whether you find it a bracing blast of novelty or a dastardly attack on everything sacred is partly a matter of temperament – and taste.” – The Telegraph (UK)
WHO GETS THE MONEY
In August the Australian government agreed to $70 million in additional funding to Australian arts groups. But agreement about how the money will be spent has been held up in a spat over $47,000 between the arts minister for Victoria and the federal government. – The Age (Melbourne)
NEW ARTS TELEVISION INITIATIVE
BBC chief announces major new initiative to revamp the public broadcaster. “BBC3 would target younger viewers with home-grown comedy, drama and music and BBC4 would be an “unashamedly intellectual mixture of Radio 3 and Radio 4 on television”. He said that the 800,000 visitors to the Monet exhibition at the Royal Academy last summer and the huge popularity of Tate Modern proved that there was a potential audience for a channel for ‘arts, ideas and in-depth discussion’.” – The Telegraph (UK)