The Denver Art Museum wants to add to its building. But the challenge is how to make the $62 million addition fit in between its neighbors – the aggressively-profiled Gio Ponti main building and the Michael Graves-designed addition to the public library. Three finalists for the job present their ideas this week. – Denver Post
Author: Douglas McLennan
NEW PROFILE FOR THE MENIL
People travel from all over to Houston to see the famed Menil Collection. But the museum has always thrived on being low-profile. Now a new director and a new attitude. “Cab drivers don’t even know where we are. What’s wrong with publicizing the place? Maybe we’ll get twice as many people in the galleries, which may mean 30 instead of 15.” – Dallas Morning News
REMEMBERING RUSKIN
What was it that made John Ruskin the greatest art and social critic of the Victorian age? A new book is great at exploring his life; less successful at capturing his rhetorical lightning. – Boston Globe
NEW PLANS FOR BERLIN
The rebuilding of Berlin is apace. But the new structures are directed to fit into tradition, not reach for grand contemporary gestures. “But this is not the city that the Prussian monarchs built with the help of Karl Friedrich Schinkel; it is the product of developers led by Sony and Mercedes stumbling to fill the vacuum left by 50 years of uncertainty.” – The Observer (UK)
MAKING OVER THE MAKEOVER
London’s Royal Opera House has finished its first season after a £200 million makeover. Was it worth it? Well, “the ROH is, first of all, seen as the home of the toffs and fat cats, whose lush, velvet pleasures are paid for by the sweat of the working man. Second, it is technically incompetent, with shows routinely being cancelled. And third, it is a gilded cage full of bitching queens and grandes dames, all of whom regularly flounce out of meetings and lock themselves, sobbing, in the loo.” – The Sunday Times (UK)
FAILURE TO TRANSMIT
Recent performances by the New York Philharmonic of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” left audiences cheering. Yet despite a lot of trying, concert organizers were unable to get a recording or public television broadcast out of the deal. Why? “The recording not happening can be chalked up to the general crisis in the industry.” – New York Times
PAY-PER LISTEN
This week EMI begins selling music over the internet. As battles over copyright rage, the giant recording company decides to try offering its recordings in downloadable format. – BBC
CANADIAN BARITONE Louis Quilico —
— dies at age 75 after complications from surgery. – CBC
AN ODE TO DIVERSITY
The word “diversity” is repeated as a mantra by mainstream arts groups looking to expand their audiences. A new report in Chicago has some words of advice for arts groups trying diversify. – Chicago Tribune
SQUATTERS’ RIGHTS?
In the 1960s a group of artists took over an abandoned ruined hill town in Italy and over the next 40 years made it into something of an artists colony/tourist attraction. Now the Italian wants to evict the artists and restore the town to a ruin. – The Independent (UK)