A trio of artistic pranksters has been tweaking the Seattle Art Museum with unauthorized audio tours and sculptures mocking the museum’s “don’t touch” signs. Their activities have met with mixed reactions from SAM officials.
Author: sbergman
Gallery Sues To Get Warhol Back
“An Andy Warhol painting stolen from a Manhattan art gallery a decade ago has resurfaced at Christie’s auction house, and on Tuesday the gallery sued to have it returned. The painting, one of Warhol’s Dollar Sign portraits that was created in 1981, is worth at least $100,000.”
Writers To Be Briefed On Possible Contract
“Members of the striking Writers Guild of America will gather Saturday in Los Angeles and New York to be briefed on a possible contract with Hollywood studios… Guild leaders remained cautious about a settlement while a proposed contract was being drafted based on last week’s breakthrough talks with studio executives.”
Toronto Symphony Launches Record Label
The Toronto Symphony has announced the launch of “a record label dedicated to releasing the orchestra’s [live] performances,” both on CD and in downloadable form. “Sales of TSO Live CDs are expected to be concentrated in the Toronto area.”
Classical Clubs Springing Up In Helsinki
A prominent Finnish violinist is leading an unusual movement, helping to establish classical venues that resemble pop music clubs and attract an audience that normally wouldn’t be found in a traditional concert hall. The clubs hearken back to Finland’s early days as an independent nation, when classical performances were common at bars and restaurants.
Composer Jorge Liderman, 50
“A 50-year-old man who was struck and killed by a train in [the San Francisco Bay Area] on Sunday morning has been identified as Jorge Liderman, a prominent local composer and a professor in the music department at UC Berkeley. Liderman was struck by a Richmond-bound train at 9:42 a.m. in what appeared to be a suicide”
Symphony Supporters Plead For End To Acrimony
“Problems that have plagued the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra for months got a full airing at the symphony society’s annual general meeting Monday night.” Among the orchestra’s challenges: a conductor who is suing several of his musicians.
Jansons On Top
“Mariss Jansons may be the best conductor in the world. This is hyperbole, certainly, in an age that includes such real and putative lions as Lorin Maazel, Simon Rattle, James Levine, Yuri Temirkanov, Gustavo Dudamel and others, but it is hyperbole with a foundation in demonstrable fact.”
We Reject Your Criticism And Substitute Our Own
Minneapolis’s Guthrie Theater has been getting a lot of negative reviews from the city’s largest daily lately. So in a clear shot across the paper’s bow, the theater took out a full-page ad in last Sunday’s editions, and used the space to reprint a nearly complete review of their latest production – from a rival paper’s critic.
Fury At UK Culture Cuts
“Relations between the Arts Council and artists are now at rock-bottom. Even during the dark funding days of the late 80s and 90s, artists felt that they and the funders were on the same side. That is no longer the case.”