Is there nothing left to discover? “Advances in technology, transport and communications have made the world a smaller place. The opportunities for adventure that lured great explorers to uncharted corners of the globe are all but exhausted; travel writing and photography have made even the remotest cultures into familiar, coffee-table images.” Britain’s museums climb aboard the spirit of adventure. – New Statesman
Author: Douglas McLennan
WHAT NEXT?
Elliott Carter has written his first opera at the age of 90. Rate this NGC: Not for General Consumption. – Philadelphia Inquirer
- “What Next” is a nonlinear, non-narrative grab bag of ideas couched in a conceit of six characters reeling from some never-specified catastrophe they have just survived together, like a Samuel Beckett play backward: ‘Recovering from Godot.’ ” – New York Times 03/07/00
A VIEW TO THE FUTURE
It won’t be long before music lovers embrace pay-as-you-go service, much like cellular telephones, making music accessible everywhere. Artists on independent labels will get as much attention as superstars signed with what are now the Big Four record companies. MTV pioneer Thomas Dolby Robertson says we are entering a new era in music that will have as much impact on this generation as The Beatles did in the ’60s, and will replace the sea change brought on by MTV. – National Post (Canada)
PLAY THE HITS MA’AM
Opera audiences might be growing, but the number of operas they want to see is getting smaller. “Of the literally hundreds of operas in circulation, beginning in the 1500s and ranging up to the present day, no more than 25 or so can today be called reliable box-office hits.” – Hartford Courant
CULTURAL BADGE OF HONOR OR MARK OF IMPERIALIST SHAME?
A century after German archaeologists hauled back Pergamon’s treasures, “it’s time for Berlin to consider returning some of the antediluvian relics to the land from which they were lost.” – Die Welt
AN INEVITABLE STATE OF AFFAIRS
“The crisis into which the auction world is now plunged was bound to break out sooner or later. The occasion was the U.S. antitrust investigation of Sotheby’s and Christie’s for possible collusion in setting commissions for buyers and sellers. But the fundamental reason is the need for revenue, caused by the rising costs of competition as art-market supplies inexorably diminish.” – Artnewsroom.com
- Sotheby’s profits down. – The Art Newspaper
- Future in doubt. – The Art Newspaper
ROUNDING THE FAR TURN…
Reform of the French auction market is near, and the auction houses are jockeying. Among them, Christie’s, opening a lavish new Paris headquarters this week. – The Telegraph (UK)
DOUBLE, TRIPLE THE COST
Budget for the new Scottish parliament has taken wing. Now there has to be blame. “But the problem with the Parliament building in Edinburgh is far from being a lack of ideas about its content. In fact, a lot of the extra costs have arisen because absolutely everybody had an idea of what the Parliament should be.” – The Observer (UK)
BUT IT’S BASIC DESIGN
The new wave of plans approved for Sydney “are mediocre at best, and often simply ugly. Instead of ‘living’ they are creating a rather ‘dead’ city, endorsing undesirable development, particularly on small blocks. Rising like smoke stacks through the city fabric, they diminish the order and clarity of Sydney streets as enunciated in city council urban policy. Some show an ignorance of the most elementary textbook design principles, such as continuation of facades, cornices, roofscapes, consistency of fenestration, and pattern use of compatible materials. – Sydney Morning Herald
WRITERS WITHOUT BORDERS
Prominent writers from around the world to gather in Korea for conference on world literature. “Writers can no longer hide behind language, culture and national borders in a world that is increasingly interdependent, pluralistic and diversified.” – Korea Herald