A small Renoir painting valued at about 200,000 euros has been stolen from the auction house Tajan in Paris. “The theft of the artwork, entitled Tête de fillette (Head of a little girl), happened while it was displayed in a room of the auction house and not by breaking and entering the premises as police first reported.”
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The Drama Of Authentication
A new play running in Boston focuses on what outsiders might consider an unlikely profession when it comes to the creation of dramatic sparks: art authentication. Of course, the play isn’t exactly an accurate depiction of the authetication business, any more than architects’ lives resemble that of Indiana Jones, but the production does call attention to a little-known, but vitally important, corner of the art world, and sheds some light on the rivalries and internal politics that can affect it.
Budapest’s Concert Hall: A New Model?
Budapest has a brilliant new concert hall, and it was built in a novel way, writes Norman Lebrecht. “What the Hungarians have done is tear up the rulebook and build a hall on the never-never. A patch of industrialised riverbank beside the faux-bourgeois national theatre (opened in 2002) was turned over to a local developer who, with cash from Hungarian expats in Canada, knocked up the new Palace of Arts – 1,700-seat concert hall, art gallery, small theatre – for a mere 31.3 billion Forints. That, by my reckoning, is about £87 million, or rather less than it is costing to restore London’s main concert hall to a semblance of its original inadequacy.”
Grokster Groupies Gather At The Court
The Supreme Court proceedings to determine the future of file-swapping technology are attracting a bit of a crowd. In fact, an unexpected array of file-sharing advocates and music fans have gathered at the court to hear the landmark case unfold, many passing out wearable reminders of an earlier copright case involving the entertainment industry: the 1984 Supreme Court ruling which declared video casette recorders to be legal, paving the way for the booming (and highly profitable) home video and DVD market.
This Blurb Brought To You By Spishak
Product placement took a giant leap forward this week with McDonald’s announcement that it would pay rap stars royalties in exchange for lyrical mentions of the Big Mac burger. But such guerrilla marketing tactics have been worming their way into unexpected corners of national culture for years, and the practice is likely to get bigger as traditional advertising becomes steadily less cost effective. “Last year, British ‘chick lit’ writer Carole Matthews [signed] a deal with Ford to mention its cars prominently in several of her works.” And now, Britain’s TV watchdog organization has offered a significant policy shift which could open the door for products to be inserted into the storylines of UK television programs.
BBC Dismisses Springer Opera Complaints
“The BBC board of governors has rejected thousands of complaints made over the showing of Jerry Springer – The Opera. The corporation received around 55,000 complaints prior to the screening of the hit West End show, in January, and 8,000 after it had been broadcast. But the governors’ Programme Complaints committee voted by a 4-1 majority not to uphold the complaints. They said the programme’s artistic significance outweighed any offence which might have been caused.”
Temple U Tops Big Names In Opera Competition
Where can you find the top student opera theater program in the U.S.? Juilliard? Curtis? Not according to the annual competition sponsored by the National Opera Association. For the second year in a row, Philadelphia-based Temple University has taken top honors, a major boost for a program that sometimes struggles for national recognition.
Nagano Announces Montreal New Music Prize
As he prepares to take the reins of the Montreal Symphony in 2006, conductor Kent Nagano is giving indications of the direction he plans to take the orchestra, with the announcement of an annual composers’ competition which will distribute cash prizes to three winning works of new music. “The arrival of the mystery maestro, along with his pianist wife, Mari Kodama, who lives in Paris, is likely to have a tonic effect on the MSO, which has been mired this season in protracted contract negotiations.”
Public Art: Owning The Image As Well As The Art
The City of Chicago is preventing artists from taking photos of the Anish Kapoor “Bean” sculpture in the middle of the park, saying that as public art, it owns rights to images of the work as well as the work itself. “According to attorney Henry Kleeman, who negotiated with park artists on the city’s behalf, Chicago bought a ‘perpetual paid-up license to reproduce the artwork for commercial purposes.’ So only the city or its concessionaires may legally sell pictures of the Bean.”
Cleveland Museum Scraps Big Show Over Insurance Costs
“The Cleveland Museum of Art has postponed indefinitely a major international exhibition scheduled for 2006 because other museums sharing the show couldn’t afford terrorism insurance for artworks valued at more than $1 billion. The decision highlights an open secret in the art world: With art prices skyrocketing and insurance premiums rising to meet them, it’s becoming harder for art museums to sustain the flow of blockbusters that have been a fixture of American cultural life for decades.”