Author: Douglas McLennan

TOKYO ART CENTER

“Mori Building is starting a ¥270bn ($2.5bn) development in the Roppongi area of Tokyo, which aims to transform the district, best known as a sleazy centre for international night life, into a cultural metropolis by 2003. And the crowning piece of this project, which will cover 27 acres and feature hotels, offices, homes and shops, will be the Mori Art Center – on the top five floors of a 54-storey skyscraper. It promises to be one of the most lavish and ambitious art spaces that Tokyo has ever seen.” – Financial Times

DIGITAL DISPOSITION

New sleek movie versions of Shakespeare leave out something important: words.  “This begins to give some idea of what is lost when Shakespeare’s words take a back seat to the ambitions of directors and critics who are more concerned with their own agendas than with Shakespeare’s poetic art.” – The Atlantic

DIGITAL DISPOSITION

New sleek movie versions of Shakespeare leave out something important: words.  “This begins to give some idea of what is lost when Shakespeare’s words take a back seat to the ambitions of directors and critics who are more concerned with their own agendas than with Shakespeare’s poetic art.” – The Atlantic

CULTURE WARS, ROUND II

“Around the country, think tanks, foundations, academics and researchers are drawing up a wide range of empirical evidence designed to defend and define the civic role of culture in America. And by culture they don’t just mean art in a museum or music in an orchestra hall. Culture, they say, includes everything from fine art to movies and pop music, parks, historic monuments and architecture – the essential fabric of our lives. And, they say, government needs to pay fresh attention. Witness the birth of the cultural policy movement.” – Los Angeles Times 08/18/00

LIEBERMAN VS THE ARTS

“None of us wants to resort to regulation. But if the entertainment industry continues to move in this direction, and continues to market death and degradation to our children, and continues to pay no heed to the real bloodshed staining our communities, then the government will act.” The government will act: To many people, even those who agree that the contemporary entertainment world is objectionably coarse and crude, those words are almost as menacing as the tip of a bayonet in the small of the back. – Chicago Tribune

RETURN TO SENDER

“Britain may have lost its former colonial territories, but its national museums still hold vast cultural treasures; the surviving legacy of hundreds of years of empire. These museums are now becoming increasingly out of step with museums around the world which have been handing back material over which there have been claims. Indeed the Australian Museum has been a leader in the field for more than 20 years, having returned significant items to Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.” – Sydney Morning Herald

ROLLER-PARIS

  • “Twice a week, thousands (as many as 28,000) of in-line skate aficionados take over central Paris, turning the traffic-clogged streets of the French capital into a derby of flailing limbs and technicolour Lycra. Held every Friday night and Sunday afternoon, the inline skating “parades” are a magnet for locals and tourists seeking exercise, fun and even a whiff of danger. Each week, police approve a new 30-kilometre route and keep traffic at bay during the allotted three hours. – National Post (Canada)

HAVE MONEY WILL TRAVEL

The Phillips Collection will “lend 26 major paintings and sculptures from its collection for a six-month show at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Arts, the hotel’s state-of-the-art gallery built by former owner and famed art collector Steve Wynn. Billed as “Masterworks From the Phillips Collection at Bellagio,” the show will include major works by Monet, Degas, Bonnard, van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso and El Greco.” Why do it? The museum hopes to collect $1 million from the deal. – Washington Post