Rome spent two years sprucing up – scrubbed, repaired, or repainted monuments, villas, churches, and fountains, cleaning its buildings and monuments for an expected influx of tourists for the millennial year. All look more glorious than they have in several generations. Cleansed of soot and painstakingly restored to their 17th-century visage, the city’s baroque architectural masterpieces are at their best. But so far the expected rush of new visitors hasn’t appeared. – Boston Globe (Washington Post)
Author: Douglas McLennan
THE ENVY OF ITS PEERS
“London isn’t the only European city to have unveiled something big, dazzling and avant-garde this summer.” Munich’s Bavarian state gallery now has an astonishing collection of late-20th-century art, recently donated by a wealthy German couple. “In Munich, art-lovers are rubbing their eyes in disbelief. No fewer than 550 astonishing pieces have just been donated. A year ago Munich had virtually no notable avant-garde art. Now it has a collection that is the envy of Berlin, Paris and – yes, let’s be honest – even Tate Modern itself.” – The Times (UK)
AN ABORIGINAL ART BOOM —
— has been sweeping the Australian art market in recent years. On Monday, Sotheby’s in Melbourne set a new world auction record for an Aboriginal artist when a painting by Johnny Warangkula sold for nearly $½ million. “The rise of interest in Aboriginal art has been astonishing. In 1990, a mere $169,000 worth of Aboriginal art was sold at auction. By 1996, sales amounted to $1.36 million; within two years turnover exceeded $5 million.” – Sydney Morning Herald
BUT IT’S STILL BUST FOR SOME: Meanwhile, the 68-year-old artist – who was among those who pioneered the popular “dot painting” style nearly 30 years ago – was shocked to hear of the sale (as was his family, when they learned they had no legal claim to the proceeds). Warangkula sold the painting to an Alice Springs artist in 1972 for $150. Now the Aboriginal art group Desart is pressuring Sotheby’s and other art dealers to pass on some of the proceeds of these sales to Aboriginal artists. – Sydney Morning Herald
BRITISH CONDUCTOR ANDREA QUINN
– – former director of London’s Royal Ballet, will take over as music director of New York City Ballet in August 2001. – New York Times
READY FOR TAKE-OFF
- New York’s Roundabout Theatre Company raised the curtain this week on the $25-million restoration of its Broadway home – the controversially renamed American Airlines Theatre. “As for the protests that accompanied the theatre’s renaming after a corporate donor, [RTC Artistic Director Todd] Haimes said he was comfortable with his decision, and was amply prepared for the outcry. ‘Within five years all the theatres will be renamed for corporations, and no one will notice.’” – Theatre.com
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Twenty-five years ago Robert Altman’s “Nashville” was going to change the world of movies. “Here was an artist putting the machinery of popular culture to work for the sake of art, yet entering into the spirit of popular culture and partaking of its energy too. That was the dream: the power of popular art combined with the complexity of fine art, high and low not at war, and not blurred indistinguishably into each other, but embracing.” What happened? “Jaws” captured the audiences, and the rest is history. – Salon 06/27/00
TALES FROM THE ART CRYPT
Richard Feigen is one of the foremost dealers in Old Master paintings – and a famously difficult personality. His new book illuminates some of the more shadowy corners of the art world. “There is, for example, a scathing account of the shenanigans several years ago at the Barnes Foundation, the fabled museum outside Philadelphia, when trustees attempted to sell off holdings in violation of its founder’s will – an attempt Feigen all but single-handedly scotched. Or there’s his comparing the exhibitions policy at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, with its ‘random mixture of box-office frivolity with serious art,’ to ‘a nice girl of good family who just once in a while goes out and turns tricks for some pocket change.’ ” – Boston Globe
EPIC, PART II
By the time he died in 1992, author Alex Haley had amassed boxes of research for another novel in the tradition of his “Roots” epic. His estate went searching for a writer to take over the project, and came up with a novelist who writes in the supernatural suspense genre and is a former Miami Herald feature writer. – Chicago Tribune
WHO’S REALLY READING?
“Now sprouting at every portal, community forum and chat room near you, online book discussions have been lauded as the ”stickiest” thing since grape Bubble Yum.” But, are they really any more popular than the old coffee-klatch variety? Are they really getting people to read more? And, most importantly to publishers, is all the marketing of online book clubs doing anything to boost sales? – Inside.com
EPIC, PART II
By the time he died in 1992, author Alex Haley had amassed boxes of research for another novel in the tradition of his “Roots” epic. His estate went searching for a writer to take over the project, and came up with a novelist who writes in the supernatural suspense genre and is a former Miami Herald feature writer. – Chicago Tribune