“Harald Szeemann, an influential Swiss museum curator whose groundbreaking exhibitions helped redefine his profession, died last Friday in the Ticino region of Switzerland. He was 71. His death was announced by the Venice Biennale and the Kunsthaus Zürich, for which he worked. Mr. Szeemann was often said to be the first independent, or freelance, curator. He invented the curator as art star, a globe-trotting, deal-making, usually male impresario of large-scale exhibitions that bore the imprint of a single vision and succeeded or failed on the strength of site-specific works executed specially for the show.”
Blog
Designs Submitted For New NYC Rail Hub
New York City’s seemingly Quixotic quest to build a major new train station in midtown Manhattan has finally become a reality, and three developers are competing for the right to design it. “The design proposals all incorporate what has playfully become known as the potato chip – a shapely glass and steel canopy that will encompass the new station’s entry lobby. That canopy, designed by David M. Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, would envelop a series of concourses that slip under the post office building, letting light flow onto the train platforms below ground.” The new station would replace New York’s dilapidated and congested Penn Station.
Is Hollywood Tired Of Itself?
“In the days leading up to the movie industry’s most glamorous night, the Oscars, the word heard frequently around Hollywood this year is not glitz, or hype, or excitement. It is fatigue. Strange, perhaps, and unexpected. The same millions of dollars as in years past have been spent on pitched Oscar campaigns, with their color, full-page newspaper advertisements and their earnest television spots. The same publicity muscle has been put into cocktail parties and question-and-answer sessions led by Oscar nominees at the guilds and the movie industry’s home for the aged. But the fatigue is palpable nonetheless.”
The Ticket Racket
“The advent of online ticket buying and automated phone services has made the ticket-selling business more cost-effective for the likes of Ticketmaster and easier for the consumer than ever before. Yet those pesky tack-on fees aren’t getting any lower. Like fees to use automated teller machines, ticket fees might be taken for granted. But what seems like petty change in the grand scope of things can really start adding up.”
Robert Koff, 86
One of the founding violinists of the Juilliard String Quartet has died. Robert Koff, who was the Juilliard’s second violinist from its inception in 1946 until 1958, was devoted to broadening the appeal of contemporary music, and made new works a staple of the Juilliard’s repertoire.
Philly’s Kimmel Center Looks Nervously Forward
Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts has managed to stay in the black in its second year of operation, but there’s still plenty to worry about. The center’s hoped-for endowment is still incomplete, and media mega-giant Clear Channel Productions is preparing to mount some serious competition to the Kimmel’s moneymaking Broadway musical series. On top of that, the Philadelphia Orchestra recently released a report saying that the center’s main concert hall needs a complete acoustical overhaul. And finally, with multiple big arts organizations in the city already in the midst of major fund drives, the Kimmel risks “donor fatigue” if it asks for too much too quickly.
Merged Utah Group Looks To Save Itself
“Pay cuts for staff, expense reductions and donation increases to $10,000 each from all 40 members of the Utah Symphony & Opera Board of Trustees are part of a three-year financial recovery plan approved Thursday by the board… At stake are ‘structural’ deficits in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 of $1.7 million and $3.3 million and a forecast structural deficit for fiscal year 2005 of at least $3.2 million.” The board also voted to release details of an independent audit which had previously been kept from all but a handful of top executives and board members. The study cites anger and disillusionment over the recent merger of the symphony and opera as a major reason for a precipitous drop in donations.
Less Than Meets The Eye
The Kimmel Center has an impressive list of board members, all with money to burn and a desire to dupport the arts. So shouldn’t the center’s finances be all too stable? Actually, it’s a lot more complicated than that: “Many of the Kimmel board members serve on other boards, which also tap them for time and money… No less than nine Kimmel board members are also members of the [Philadelphia Orchestra’s] board.” Philadelphia also is home to far fewer big corporations than some other major cities, limiting what the center can reap from that potential revenue stream.
The Not-Quite-Live Recording
“Next month sees the release of one of the most eagerly awaited classical recordings of modern times. Simon Rattle’s interpretation of Mahler’s ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ rounds off his EMI cycle of all nine Mahler symphonies, an achievement matched only by a handful of conductors. The CD will be marketed as ‘live’. What no one will mention is that two long patching sessions, under studio conditions, were needed to complete it. Patching has become standard practice with so-called “live” recordings. Consumers are promised a listening experience that replicates that of the concert hall. The reality is a collection of edited highlights from different performances and back-up sessions, with all the flaws airbrushed out.”
Yet Another Great Violin That No One Gets To Play
One of the finest Stradivarius violins ever made is the subject of a furious bidding war in the UK, as the Royal Academy of Music struggles to raise the £1 million necessary to keep it in Britain. The violin, known as the “Viotti” Strad, was recently played in public for the first time in 200 years, and is on display six days a week. “The Viotti is on a par with the ‘Messiah’, or Le Messie, Stradivarius in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which, the conditions of its bequest state, must never be played.”