For the first time in four years, the city of San Jose is increasing its arts funding – to a total of $2 million. “Up from $1.8 million last year, the figure represents the first jump since 2002-03, when the city awarded $3.2 million. The fund had peaked at $3.9 million in 2001-02.”
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Ready. Aim. Art!
How should a museum mark the occasion when it’s about to shut its doors for renovation? The Art Gallery of Ontario thinks it knows: “Leading with an elite squad of eight paintball marks-people, the Argentinean-born artist [Fabian Marcaccio] is coating part of the east and west walls of the AGO’s George Weston Hall tonight for 30 minutes starting at 9:15 p.m. with an impressionistic palette of blues, whites and magentas. The instant painting ends at 9:45 p.m. But it will still be drying and fading when the space closes permanently to make way for architect Frank Gehry’s massive reconstruction of the entire gallery.” The public is invited, and the whole gooey spectacle will be accompanied by an original score for trumpets and percussion.
Cleveland Museum To Make The City Its Gallery
The Cleveland Museum of Art’s decision to close many of its galleries over the next three years as it readies for a major expansion is a risky one, but the museum is hoping to stay visible in the city through a program of neighborhood events. “While the museum plans to hold off-site programs, concerts and performances through the fall and winter, it has no specific information yet on where those events will take place.” The $258 million expansion will require the entire museum to be closed for almost two years.
Cannes Off To A Strange Start
The traditional opening press conference at the Cannes Film Festival was not the usual affair this year. The jury president’s English was sketchy enough to leave everyone wondering what he was talking about, and author Toni Morrison responded to questions about what she was doing on a film jury by declaring her judgment “infallible.” All in all, no one seemed quite sure what was going on, but there did seem to be a general agreement that “democracy is very different from film.” Whatever that means.
Insert Your Own Wildly Offensive Headline Here
The Michigan Court of Appeals has upheld the indecent exposure conviction of a public access TV host whose show featured a segment in which his exposed penis appeared to tell jokes to the camera. The host claimed that the segment constituted free expression, but the court disagreed, saying that there is a noticable difference between nudity in serious films and a crass public access show. The host intends to appeal to the State Supreme Court.
Innovating Film Channel
“Suppose you run a cable channel dedicated to showing art house films. You wake up one day and realize that the independent film industry isn’t making that many truly independent films anymore. You notice your audience is as fervent about video as it is about film. You sense viewers are no longer satisfied with your selecting the film lineup; they want to do it themselves. If you’re the Independent Film Channel, you’ve clearly got some identity issues. Over the last year, IFC has faced up to the challenge with an overhaul centered on increased original programming, along with aggressive media and educational campaigns catering to its small but avid and digitally hip audience.”
Big City, Little Movies
In so many ways,New York dominates the American cultural landscape, but usually, to make it big there, you’ve got to be pretty big yourself. But a new generation of filmmakers are making a name for themselves in the Big Apple by going small. “Culturally vibrant, if economically still fragile, New York has quietly been emerging as the world’s primary clearinghouse for a fast-expanding pool of very-low-budget movies. A ragtag posse of former college film series promoters, ex-gofers at major studios and chronically underfinanced filmmakers – their way paved by the low costs and relative ease of digital technology – has coalesced here into a commercial brokerage and cinematic salon devoted largely to the ‘little’ film.”
Yahoo! Let’s Compete With Ourselves!
Internet giant Yahoo! acquired online download service MusicMatch last year for $160 million in what was considered something of a coup for the company, which had been battered by the rise of Google. So why has Yahoo! suddenly launched its own online music service in direct competition with MusicMatch?
The “Turner Prize” Of Music?
A new contemporary music award in the UK aims at being the “Turner Prize” of music. But what seems to be competing is an odd collection of sounds rather than music. “I can’t help wondering where the music is in all these projects. And without music per se, it’s hard to see how the New Music Awards can claim to reward work which has “new British music at its heart”. Of course, a list consisting almost entirely of installations and “sound sculptures” neatly evades the ticklish question of what actually constitutes the “heart” of British music.”
In Praise Of Mackerras
Conductor Charles Mackerras has been racking up awards. There’s a reason, writes Rupert Christiansen: “He is the most purposeful of conductors: a Mackerras performance invariably has energy, pace, bounce, clarity, shape. With his unique gift for getting music moving, he puts singers as well as orchestras on their toes – there’s no slacking under his baton, no empty sentimentality or self-indulgence.”