An important exhition of some of Iraq’s most precious art will tour Europe beginning in October. “The Nimrud Gold, a cache of ancient jewellery which was rescued from a Baghdad bank vault, is to open on 23 October, at a venue in Europe to be announced next month. The show will then tour to 11 other cities in Europe, North America and the Far East, raising over $10 million for Iraq’s National Museum. The five-year tour is being organised by United Exhibits Group, a Copenhagen-based company.”
Blog
Gioia: The NEA’s New Phase
NEA chairman Dana Gioia testifies to Congress in support of an increased NEA budget. “Having spent the past two years rebuilding and renewing the agency — internally and externally — the NEA has entered a new phase of its history.”
Did Loan Kill Jersey Opera House?
Why did the Jersey Opera House close this year after only six years in operation? Some wonder if a loan negotiated when the house opened proved to be a crippling move. “There are questions over the terms on which the loan deal was granted – whether we launched the project with a total financial liability around its neck with the circumstances of the loan deal, whether it was a mistake to launch the scheme in the first place.”
UK’s New Arts And Humanities Research Council
The UK has set up a research council to study the “cultural and creative industries.” “With an annual budget of £75m the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is still a minnow among the other six research councils that dispense funding to scientists and social scientists – the Medical Research Council, for example, gives out more than £400m a year.”
Alfaro: LA Theatre Is On The Verge Of Greatness
From the outside, theatre in Los Angeles might look like it’s struggling. But Luis Alfaro believes a theatrical Golden Age is about to bloom. “What L.A. is on the brink of now, artistically, I think there’s more muscle. I think there’s an age of experimentation, like when Highways was getting going.”
A Dance Grows In Brooklyn
“The real estate market has been devastating to many Manhattan dance organizations. From January 1999 to January 2001, at least nine dance studios in Manhattan closed or moved. Others have vanished since. Dance in Brooklyn, meanwhile, has experienced steady growth. New performance spaces, both formal and informal, are flourishing. The borough teems with dancers, and rehearsal space can be found for the shockingly low price of $5 an hour.”
Bill T. Jones Takes Stock
“Gray and bespectacled, hobbling from knee surgery, Jones is still one of the most dashingly charismatic figures in the dance world. But he admits that 20 years of developing new works while trying to maintain a repertory in a competitive marketplace have been exhausting. As he settles into the next decade of artistic life, he is taking stock and looking for new avenues of expression. He is toying with the idea of augmenting the company with actors, singers, and laypeople from the community.”
Sacre Bleu! Google Non!
French president Jacques Chirac is unhappy that Google dominates his country’s internet searches. Google’s French version is used for 74% of internet searches in France. So Chirac has asked his culture minister to create a home-grown French search engine. What’s wrong with le Google? “The answer is the vulgar criteria it uses to rank results. ‘I do not believe’, wrote [the culture minister] in Le Monde, “that the only key to access our culture should be the automatic ranking by popularity, which has been behind Google’s success.”
Proving Truth In The Modern Age
What constitutes a proof in the modern age? “Two recent examples of how computers have been used to prove important mathematical results illustrate how the field is changing…”
Can You “Legislate” An End To File-sharing?
So the Day of Reckoning has come for file-sharing services. “The Supreme Court is expected to take about three months to rule on MGM v Grokster. But even if the entertainment business wins the case, while managing to coax more users into downloading legally, its problems are unlikely to go away. The rush into legal downloading is bound to cannibalise sales of CDs and DVDs, hitting profits. And perhaps the decline in global sales is indicative of a far greater problem for the music industry—that consumers simply think many of its products are not worth paying for.”