More and more jazz artists are taking the recording business into their own hands. “Artist-run independent labels are nothing new, especially in jazz. (Decades ago, bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Max Roach formed Debut Records; singer Betty Carter once founded her own BetCar imprint.) But established jazz musicians are going their own way in surprising numbers today, touching on age-old and new business issues.”
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Art Fairs – The Game Of Getting In Early
With the art market cranking at full speed, the competition to buy desirable work is fierce. And getting into art fairs early to see what’s on offer has become a game. “From big machers on museum boards with millions to spend to relative nobodies with a few grand saved up, anyone who wants a leg up on the competition tries to see the merch first. Competition is so fierce because of a long-overheated art market in which nearly every gallery exhibition sells out and waiting lists are the norm. Since the Armory Show is arguably the most important contemporary art fair in North America, there’s a lot of work that collectors might not get a crack at otherwise.”
Is Philadelphia Museum’s Thai Mask Stolen Art?
Questions are being raised about a 22-karat gold, jewel-encrusted crown believed to have been made in Thailand in the 15th century, and owned for the past 23 years by the Philadelphia Museum. “The crown, which resembles a cylindrical helmet, is featured on the museum’s Web site and in its collections handbook. Now, with the opening of an exhibition of Siamese art in San Francisco that includes the crown, questions have been raised in Thailand as to whether this regal object was removed from that country illegally nearly half a century ago.”
A Home Of Its Own: Ailey Does It Right
The Alvin Ailey Company has moved into a beautiful new home. “Conventional wisdom holds that nonballet dance troupes lack the business savvy or community support to raise the kind of money needed for their own buildings, but the new Ailey home shines as a model of how it can be done.”
Dismantling A Revered Publisher
What’s happened to Random House? “The flagship imprint of the world’s largest publishing company is suffering an identity crisis. Staff turnover and a difficult marketplace for literary books are pushing Random House away from its highbrow heritage and toward the lowbrow commercialism that marks most of its competitors. And at the same time that it’s shedding its literary distinctiveness, it has yet to enlist the sort of blockbuster author, such as John Grisham, who can be relied on to keep a commercial publisher in the black.”
Journalist To Lead Institute of Contemporary Arts
London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts has chosen journalist and broadcaster Ekow Eshun as its new artistic director. “Aged only 28 he was appointed as editor of men’s style magazine Arena. Today he writes regularly for publications including the Guardian, the Observer, the New Statesman and Wallpaper*. He is a founding director of Bug Consultancy and, as a broadcaster, is a regular contributor to Newsnight Review and Radio 4’s Front Row.”
Foster’s To Sell Corporate Art Collection
For years, the giant beverage company Foster’s has collected art. But the company has decided to sell off its collection. “Yesterday, the firm announced that Sotheby’s would auction the about 70 pictures in Melbourne on May 23. The sale is being promoted as the biggest corporate art sell-off in Australian history, with estimates of the likely proceeds ranging from $9 million to more than $13 million.”
Government Report To Recommend Downsizing Tasmanian Orchestra?
A forthcoming Australian government report on orchestras is said to recommend downsizing the Tasmanian Symphony from a full orchestra to a chamber orchestra with just 38 full-time equivalent musicians.
“It further recommends that governments provide $1.1 million in one-off funding to assist the TSO to meet redundancy costs. The shock recommendations are contained in a national review of orchestras headed by former Qantas boss James Strong. The final report is due to be handed down in Canberra in two weeks.”
Does New American Indian Museum Make Too Many Compromises?
Washington’s new Museum of the American Museum tries for so much. But does it deliver? “Although architect Douglas Cardinal’s building has powerful moments, and several of the exhibits are intriguing, the $220 million museum is mostly a disappointment, a casualty of political infighting, scholarly temporizing and curatorial confusion. But the exhibits are the bigger letdown, mainly because with 800,000 artifacts in its possession, including the fabulous Heye Collection, the museum is in a position to do something spectacular. Yet the exhibits are technology-rich and object-poor and so badly organized that it is difficult to know where you are or how one section or theme relates to another.”
The Funny Pages Move Online
Many of the best young cartoonists are moving out of newspapers and on to the web. “In many ways the migration of comic strips to the internet is a sound business decision. Reacting to the twin pressures of rising newsprint costs and dwindling readerships, newspaper publishers over the years have drastically reduced the space devoted to strips. As a result, most strips today run at about half the page size that Little Orphan Annie did 50 years ago. The diminishing importance of comic strips, combined with a reluctance to recognize new talent, has resulted in a whole generation of cartoonists who see newspapers as a fading relic. Since 2000, dozens of young cartoonists have used the web as a self-syndication scheme.”