Can one really be both critic and artist, and do the skills of one inform or undermine the other? Matthew Collings is both, and the one bumps into the other…
Blog
Getty’s Munitz Made Deal For $300,000 Book Deal With Former Board Chair
Former Getty president “Barry Munitz agreed to pay retired Getty board Chairman David Gardner nearly $300,000 to write a coffee-table book after Gardner left the foundation’s board in 2004. Plans for the book, which was to commemorate the Getty’s 25th anniversary, were canceled in March, a month after Munitz resigned amid turmoil at the nonprofit foundation — but not before Gardner had collected $178,000 over 19 months for little work.”
UK’s Radio Of The Future
“Radio listening in this country remains high. Nine out of every 10 people listen, mostly through radios but, increasingly, through satellite television, computers, phones. You may have stumped up £100 to buy a digital radio three years ago, but a decade from now, that radio is going to be an antique. Programmes will still be coming out of it and you will still look fondly on its familiar face but, as today’s digital dawn becomes tomorrow’s digital day, be prepared for climate change.”
Why Critics Matter
What’s with all this chatter about whether critics matter? “The notion that a critic’s job begins and ends with our power to help films become hits is a specious one nurtured by marketing executives, and I’m always astonished when critics themselves buy into it. Consider the comparable situation with, say, political pundits. Should an editorial columnist who was stauchly against the Iraq war, and had no discernible influence on either the Congress or political opinion at large, be considered ‘irrelevant’? Was the war itself ‘columnist-proof’?”
Hall To Be Named US Poet Laureate
The Librarian of Congress will name Donald Hall as the US’ 14th Poet Laureate. “Mr. Hall, a poet in the distinctive American tradition of Robert Frost, has also been a harsh critic of the religious right’s influence on government arts policy. And as a member of the advisory council of the National Endowment for the Arts during the administration of George H. W. Bush, he referred to those he thought were interfering with arts grants as bullies and art bashers.”
Baltimore SymphonyBreaks 8-Year Recording Drought
The Baltimore Symphony has gone eight years without recording a commercial CD. “Other than a limited-edition disc issued by the orchestra itself, there is no documentation of the BSO’s extraordinary collaboration with music director Yuri Temirkanov. But Marin Alsop, who succeeds Temirkanov next year, will record with the ensemble this week. If all goes well, recordings will be a regular feature of her BSO tenure.”
In Iran – Scholar Arrested For “Relations With Foreigners”
In Iran, Ramin Jahanbegloo turned “a small office in an arts and culture NGO into something of an international salon. Through force of will and a gregarious personality, he persuaded some of the world’s most famous intellectuals to travel to Tehran, where they were treated like rock stars.” Now Jahanbegloo is in jail. “He was arrested at Tehran airport on April 27, between a sojourn in India and a trip to a conference in Brussels, and locked up in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where detainees are routinely subject to torture and abuse. Formal charges have not been laid, but Iran’s minister of intelligence said Jahanbegloo was picked up because of ‘relations with foreigners’.”
The Thrill Of Near-Death Experience
“No one actually believes that any kind of art or painting is dead, but much work these days is either about art being dead or near death. This has caused a kind of feedback loop of infinite regress to form, along with a new batch of self-reflective critique art. Curators seem to love this hyper-self-consciousness—presumably because it’s about the institutions they work for. Art that critiques the art object, the artist, the institution, or the market is lauded. Much good art has arisen from this position. So have questionable gestures.”
Artist management Company Closes After A Decade
Janice L. Mayer is closing her classical music artists management agency after a decade. “Friends and associates said fatigue, a need for change, tough times in the business and a dispute with one of her singers might all have contributed to the decision.”
Teachout: Stravinsky Bio Is A Modern Classic
Terry Teachout has strong words for Stephen Wash’s new biography of Igor Stravinsky. “The Second Exile, like its predecessor, is an inspiring piece of work, at once comprehensive and beguilingly well written. After two careful readings, I feel safe in ranking it—alongside David Cairns’s Berlioz, Lewis Lockwood’s Beethoven: The Music and the Life, and Anthony Tommasini’s Virgil Thomson: Composer on the Aisle—as one of the finest biographies of a classical composer to be published in the modern age of musical scholarship.”