Author: Douglas McLennan

GIDDY ABOUT TECHNOLOGY

Musicians weren’t the real stars of this years’ South By Southwest music conference. It was “the techies and entrepreneurs who spoke on packed panels, sponsored lavish parties and displayed their wares at a trade show overflowing with free goods. Promoting Internet radio stations, entertainment guides, online stores and multi-service sites, these networking demons were the week’s real rock stars, riding a wave of hype and vision.” – New York Times

VISUAL CONSUMPTION

The Whitney Biennial Exhibition, which opens tomorrow, is reminiscent of the Paris Salons of the 19th century – a smattering of collected art crammed under one roof.  With an added abundance of film, video, and Internet art, there’s no way any of the projects will get the attention they deserve, but the “Salons, both old and new, are about visual consumption — a breezy shopping trip for mind and eye in the art world’s megamall.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

IN HOT WATER, AGAIN

Back in 1983, London’s Marlborough Gallery was “at the center of one of the art world’s most spectacular scandals–the plundering of the estate of Mark Rothko,” for which the gallery’s founder was convicted of evidence tampering. Now Marlborough has been accused of cheating the late painter Francis Bacon of his financial due and systematically defrauding him and his heir of tens of millions of dollars. – New York Times

STILL SOARING

Legendary French composer/conductor Pierre Boulez, still vital and idealistic at 75, is throwing his musical and fundraising weight behind the London Symphony Orchestra’s ongoing residency in New York. “The American connection is an important and logical one, since the LSO was the first British orchestra to tour the United States–that 1912 visit nearly didn’t happen, as the band had originally been booked to sail on the Titanic–and has maintained a link through close collaboration with Bernstein, Copland, Previn and, more recently, Michael Tilson Thomas.” – London Times

E-LIVRE

  • The e-book is getting a lot of attention (and praise) at this week’s Salon du livre in Paris. The prestigious exhibition – the creme de la creme of European publishing events – attracts over 220,000 visitors and 750 exhibitors. – Wired

WELCOME BACK, RABBIT!

A decade after his creator proclaimed him dead, John Updike’s beloved character Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom will return – sort of – in a new work this fall. “Rabbit Remembered,” a novella to be published as part of the upcoming collection “Licks of Love,” begins where “Rabbit at Rest” left off, exploring the world of friends and lovers “Rabbit” left behind. “I thought somebody might be curious what happened to the people who knew him,” said Updike. – CNN

SHOWING AT A (COMPUTER) SCREEN NEAR YOU

Cyber movie theaters (showing “everything from Hong Kong action flicks to artsy films”) and a growing number of comic Webzines are “making it possible for Koreans to see movies and read comics with just a click.” One 24-hour site plans to show online film festivals, and Korea’s filmmakers are starting to release “for-cyber-theater-only” movies. No one, from here to Seoul, is sure whether the computer monitor will ever truly replace the big screen, but “there’s no denying that the internet is turning the industry upside down.” – Korea Herald 03/21/00

PLAYS THE POPE WON’T SEE

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has come out with its annual report on anti-Catholicism; the arts section lists 18 plays that contain “anti-Catholic motifs,” including one work by Nobel prize-winning author Dario Fo. The league objected to Fo’s play, which depicts “Pope John Paul II as endorsing birth control and drug legalization after ‘being confronted with thousands of third world orphans.’ Fo’s pope also suffers from paranoia, and is under the care of a witch doctor.” – Backstage