Author: sbergman

Canada Council’s Unpopular Funding Game

“You’re invited to join in a round of high-stakes poker, but find yourself in a different game entirely – say, three-card monte – with the outcome determined by the dealer. That’s a crude analogy for what many arts organizations, theatre companies, galleries and publishers say they experienced with a special multimillion-dollar funding program run by the Canada Council for the Arts.”

The Met’s Grand New (Old) Spaces

The newly reopened Greek and Roman galleries at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art are playing to rave reviews both in and out of the city. “In the reinstallation, the museum also sought to present the collection in an arrangement that would evoke the way the pieces would have been used in everyday life, rather than displaying numerous examples of the same type of object.” Of course, displaying antiquities so prominently inevitably rekindles the debate over provenance and rightful place…

Islamic Comic Has Global Backing

“Since October, youngsters throughout the Middle East have been discovering the legend of the Noor Stones in a new monthly comic book called ‘The 99.’ The series is inspired by Islamic culture and history – the title refers to the 99 names and traits attributed to God in the Koran – and aims to spread a universal message of teamwork along with plenty of action, adventure, and ‘kapow!’… What started as a cliché ‘sketch on the back of a napkin’ soon evolved into meetings with former executives of Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and Rolling Stone magazine. By the summer of 2004, the project was backed with $6.8 million from 54 investors in eight countries.”

Reacting To Calatrava

“As architect Santiago Calatrava’s plan for the Chicago Spire heads to likely approval at the City Council’s zoning committee Thursday, readers are sharing their thoughts, questions and criticisms about the twisting, 150-story condominium tower, which would be the nation’s tallest building. Several readers pejoratively liken the supertall tower to a part of the male anatomy. Others, usually more positive about the design, favor the metaphor of a drill bit or a screw. Still others are asking fresh questions about the proposed skyscraper.”

If We’re Numb, Why Does It Hurt So Much?

That the Virginia Tech shootings happened in the same week that the ultra-violent new double feature Grindhouse debuted in movie theaters across the country is an unhappy coincidence, but it does point up our society’s increasingly inexplicable relationship with violence. “Violence, both actual and in the media, [may] just be in our nature, doomed to come out in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways… But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t think about the context in which [the Virginia Tech shooter] lived, with its endlessly streaming mayhem and ready supply of guns. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about the content and style of violent movies, television and video games.”

The Complicated Mr. Kirstein

Lincoln Kirstein was a formidable figure in the development of American dance, and this week, a “wide-ranging centennial celebration” for the much admired but little understood educator gets underway in New York. “He was formidable yet oddly shy, a manipulator whose scheming was almost always discernible and almost always in the service of his beloved dance. He is probably best known for having founded, with George Balanchine, the City Ballet and its school. But he was a Renaissance man of the arts, though that title sat uneasily on his massive, ungainly shoulders.”

Hip-Hop Under The Microscope

Controversies tend to spiral in directions that few would have anticipated, so it probably shouldn’t be a big surprise that the dust-up over racist comments by radio shock jock Don Imus turned quickly into a referendum on the use of similar words in hip-hop music. “Like MySpace users and politicians and reality-television stars and, yes, talk-radio hosts, rappers are trying to negotiate a culture in which the boundaries of public and private space keep changing, along with the multiplying standards that govern them.”

The Dudamel Ripple Effect

The LA Phil’s surprise announcement of Venezuelan wunderkind Gustavo Dudamel as its next music director caused critics across the country to heap praise on the orchestra’s courageous show of support for a young up-and-comer, and admiration for the quick and efficient way the hiring came about. Peter Dobrin says that it’s far too early to say whether the Phil has made a brilliant hire or a colossal error, but other MD-less orchestras are feeling the pressure to make a similar bold move.