“The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has done more to promote the arts than any in a generation, but that enthusiasm did not extend to a graduate-student art show that opened this week in a city-owned building near the Brooklyn Bridge. After visiting the exhibition, which featured a penis sculpture, a caged rat and a sexually charged video, the Brooklyn parks commissioner ordered it closed on Thursday and changed the locks to the building.”
Blog
Sondheim The Accessible (Really!)
“There is, accidentally, a sort of mini-Sondheim festival taking place around Britain at the moment… The revivals reveal the range of Sondheim’s concerns: from the motivations of the men and women who assassinate American presidents to the opening up of Japan; from the psychological power of fairy-tales to the travails of art. It is this kind of list that leads to Sondheim being branded ‘difficult’, but he isn’t really. He smuggles intellectual concerns into musicals, but they remain first and foremost musicals, full of light, life and colour, with songs that may not be traditionally catchy but have a remarkable way of winding themselves into your mind and heart.”
Rothko, With Rage
Tate Modern has a new gallery devoted entirely to the work of Mark Rothko, and if there is a single element running through the room’s contents, it is raw, blistering anger. “The set of colossal canvases housed in Tate Modern’s Rothko Room originated, as every art-aware schoolboy knows, in a commission for the Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building on New York’s Park Avenue,” and the story behind the commission explains what exactly it was that made Rothko so angry.
What Was That About Glass Houses?
Last year, glassblower Robert Kaindl found himself on the business end of a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement against well-known glass artist Dale Chihuly. Rather than settle the suit, Kaindl is countersuing, and his complaint takes some potentially devastating shots at Chihuly’s business practices, claiming that the artist is “not involved in conceiving, creating, designing or even signing a ‘substantial number’ of artworks that bear his name. Kaindl also maintains in his claim that Chihuly sometimes buys glasswork from other artists, removes their names and then puts his own trademarked name on it.”
Merger Mania Comes To The Arts
“Taking a page from the current flurry of big deals from telecom to banking, arts groups are merging and forming alliances at an unprecedented pace. In recent months, at least a dozen groups around the country have teamed up… One factor behind the deals: The growing role of corporate executives on cultural organizations’ boards. Groups have been recruiting veterans from the private sector to bring business acumen to their back offices. Another driver: a small cadre of consultants carving out a niche advising arts mergers. And increasingly, big foundations, with less money to spend, are giving money to groups only when a partnership is involved, to make sure their dollars are spent efficiently.”
And Try Not To Breathe On It, Either
“The biggest exhibition in half a century about the father of British art, Hans Holbein, will not include one of his most famous works because it is too fragile to travel the two miles from the National Gallery to Tate Britain. The Ambassadors, dated 1533, is… painted on wooden panels, which have thinned over the years during conservation.”
Litton’s Legacy
This month, Andrew Litton will conduct his final concerts as music director of the Dallas Symphony. His 12-year tenure with the orchestra has been rocky at times, and in recent years he has clashed openly with local critics and the DSO’s president, but he is also credited with keeping the orchestra in the recording business at a time when most other American ensembles couldn’t buy a record deal. The DSO has also had a lot of turnover in the last decade, and “Litton has hired a third of the DSO’s current roster of musicians. That may be his greatest achievement.”
Curtain Falls On The Guthrie
This weekend marks the final performances at Minneapolis’s famous Guthrie Theater, as the company prepares to move to a gigantic new complex on the city’s riverfront. The old theater, which was built in 1962 and quickly became the centerpiece of the Twin Cities’ cultural scene, will be demolished as soon as this summer, making Sunday’s final performance as much a wake as a celebration.
Did Chicago Theatre Miss The Boat On Ruhl?
“When people make lists of prominent, Chicago-spawned writers, the name Sarah Ruhl doesn’t typically appear. Even though it should… At the age of just 32, Ruhl already has become a leading American playwright — nationally known and widely admired for her ability to mix a warm, empathetic kind of realism with flights of post-modern fancy. She has rabid fans — especially among women — who happen to have some of the most powerful jobs in the American theater.” But success doesn’t come easy in Chicago, and Ruhl didn’t have much luck getting work in her hometown, to the extent that she eventually moved away. And became a star.
NJ Symphony Short On Money, Still Can’t Find A Boss
“The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra is not yet halfway toward its 18-month goal of raising $1 million from new donors by June 30 to meet a dollar-for-dollar challenge grant from the Prudential Foundation. As of this week, the orchestra had collected $423,751 from 587 new individual and corporate donors.” No one knows whether Prudential would be willing to extend the deadline. “In more gloomy news, the orchestra, which has been searching for [former executive director Simon] Woods’ replacement for almost a year, has not interviewed a single candidate for CEO since December.”