Attracting audiences and donors is an even tougher proposition with the economy in dire straits, but it hasn’t been easy since 2001. “The bottom line is that worries never left, experts say, so arts decision-makers didn’t need the current financial crisis to snap them to attention. There has been an ongoing urgency to face the new music and dance — not the old-fashioned waltz but steps unimagined before Necessity called.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
No Visa For Actor, No Opener For UCLA Festival
“The visa application for Austrian actor Martin Niedermair has been rejected by the Dept. of Homeland Security, forcing UCLA Live to cancel the first production of its Intl. Theater Festival. … UCLA Live asserted that the labor union Actors’ Equity automatically rejects visiting visas to any actor performing in English, which has happened for every English-speaking production they have imported.”
Company Director Fired For Insufficient Blackness
The Leeds-based Phoenix dance company has fired its director and resident choreographer, Javier de Frutos — mainly because “under his direction Phoenix had ceased to be a sufficiently ‘black’ company. Even though De Frutos is himself Venezuelan and the rest of his company are a completely representative, urban, ethnic mix, Leeds seem to want to put back the clock to the time when Phoenix was a ‘flagship’ black company.”
Even Less Arts Journalism In NYC?
“Hope was fading last night that a white knight would materialize to bail out the struggling New York Sun, meaning today’s issue may be its last. The 61/2-year-old paper, known for a conservative, pro-Israel editorial slant and distinguished arts and culture coverage, had never posted a profit.”
With Its Eyes On Broadway, Off-Broadway Suffers
A Broadway transfer is considered validation of an Off-Broadway show — but what about plays that have no chance of drawing a mainstream crowd? “Whatever happened to the thriving scene that supported artists and seduced audiences with edgy, serious, unconventional work that didn’t need to attract thousands of customers a week or compete with ‘Mamma Mia!’ and movie stars for attention?” Linda Winer asks, sounding the alarm.
Providence’s WaterFire Examines R.I.’s Slave-Trade History
“One of Rhode Island’s most celebratory occasions will be tainted next weekend” — well, weather-related delays have since pushed it back to Oct. 4 — “by reminders of one of the ugliest chapters in its history. WaterFire, a nighttime public arts display that draws tens of thousands of people to downtown Providence on weekends in the summer and fall, will reflect on Rhode Island’s role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade….”
When A Doctor’s Descendants Inherit A Patient’s Art
“A Mexican immigrant who spent the last 30 years of his life in California mental hospitals, [Martín] Ramírez, who died in 1963, is considered by some critics to be one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He never, however, profited from his success — nor, until recently, did any members of his family.” With Ramírez works about to go on view in a New York gallery and at the American Folk Art Museum, and with other pieces in the collection of the Guggenheim, legal wrangling over ownership continues.
Luckily, He Didn’t Write On A PC
“George Bernard Shaw’s typewriter is up for grabs at AbeBooks.com — it could be yours for roughly $8,600.”
As Economy Tanks, Sales Slow At Chelsea Art Galleries
“In Chelsea, sales are more sluggish and art buyers increasingly cautious as the financial sector reels from losses. While dealers say it’s too early to tell whether the art bubble has burst, there are signs that the market is becoming more attractive for buyers and less favorable to sellers.”
MoMA’s Lowry Tops Nonprofit Compensation Survey
“Glenn Lowry, the director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, was the best-paid chief executive of a U.S. nonprofit art institution last year, with a total compensation package of $1.7 million in 2007.” The runners-up? “Peter Gelb, general manager of New York’s Metropolitan Opera, who had a $1.1 million compensation package and Michael M. Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, who made $1.06 million….”