Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts is in a high-stakes dance with the Italian government over art the Italians claim has been looted. “The Italian investigators sit on one side of the table, their cards held close to the vest. Just what have they got? Can their hand prove what so many have said for years: that the MFA bought art looted from Italian archeological sites?”
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Tate – If Not A Museum, Then…
The Tate is not oficially registered as a museum. “The gallery is currently in the anomalous position of not being among the 1,800 museums accredited to the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). It is the only nationally-funded museum without this status. The reason for Tate being outside the MLA scheme is simple: it refuses to accept its guidelines on deaccessioning, which are part of a much broader set of standards.”
Band Sells Shares To Its Fans
When Leeds band Four Day Hombre went looking for a record deal, they were unable to get the creative and financial control they were looking for. So they turned to their fans and recruited 30 investors to fund their debut album, which is out on Monday. The investment could be about to pay off, with the band being described as “somewhere on the radar between Coldplay and Radiohead.”
Glyndebourne Goes Hip Hop
Glyndebourne is staging a hip hop version of Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutti. “In putting on School 4 Lovers, organisers at the venue in Sussex, South England hope to attract more young people to Mozart’s work – and opera in general – in the 250th anniversary year of his birth.”
Lawyers Wrap: Brown’s Da Vinci Code Ideas Not Original
The lawyers defending Dan Brown from plagiarism charges wrapped up their case: “The ideas are of too general a nature to be capable of copyright protection. Many of the ideas complained of were not original to The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. They were merely copied from others. The claimants were doing themselves exactly what they complain of in Mr Brown.”
British Museum Breaks Ticket Sales Record
The British Museum has broken a record for advance sales for a show, selling almost 11,000 tickets. “Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master, overtook the previous record holder, 2005’s Persia exhibition, which had 3,670 advance sales. The Michelangelo show opens on Thursday and features 90 drawings.”
Putting Teeth Behind A Definition Of Indecency
So the FCC has fined CBS $3.6 million for “obscene” scenes in “Without a Trace.” “For reasons that baffle the rest of the world (in this case, they don’t hate us, they pity us), the United States is far more prudish about sex than violence on television. But as long as sexually explicit material is officially taboo, then the episode did seem to meet the test: the scene of teenagers holding an orgy in a suburban house was quite blue. The camera lingered on writhing bodies and sweaty threesomes just a little longer than was strictly necessary to make the point that sexually transmitted diseases are a growing problem in high school.”
Picasso’s Daughter: They’re Fake
Maya Widmaier-Picasso, the artist’s daughter, who autheticates his work, says that drawings sold on Costco are not by him. “Those two works, photographs of which were shown to her by The New York Times, were offered by the dealer with certificates in French saying that Ms. Widmaier-Picasso had authenticated them. Pointing to anomalies in the certificates — grammatical errors, wording that departed from her style, handwriting that did not match hers and the placement of words on the page — the artist’s daughter said both documents were forgeries.”
David Robertson Wins Ditson Prize
David Robertson has been awarded Columbia University’s 2006 Ditson Conductor’s Award for his championing of American music. The St. Louis Symphony music director gets $5,000 for the honor.
Did Tom Cruise Threaten Over South Park Show?
Did Tom Cruise threaten to not do any publicity for the latest Mission Impossible movie if Comedy Central (owned by the same company as the movie is produced by) didn’t pull an episode of South Park that made fun of Scientology? Cruise’s reps deny the claim. Cruise “had nothing to do with any programming” they say. “At no time did Tom Cruise say he would not do publicity” for “M:I III.” “OK, but one problem: No one at Viacom has publicly offered a satisfactory explanation of why the repeat, scheduled for Wednesday night, was pulled.”