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Stealing Art As Art

Last summer artwork began disappearing out of galleries and houses in Seattle. Some of it was reported stolen, some not. But it turns out the thefts were part of an art project, an “art show that never happened. The proposed show—called the Repo Show—was to include works by more than a dozen artists, all stolen from galleries and homes by an art collective called Fillistine. The idea, as they described it to us, was to steal the work, then invite the artists to come retrieve it from a local gallery at a one-night, public ‘opening’.”

Classical Music – All Good Stories Have An Ending

Is Western classical music coming to an end? Every good narrative must have an ending, and Richard Taruskin’s new six-volume Oxford History of Western Music is an epic story. So “why is the sky falling, according to Taruskin, whose motives are no doubt higher than to simply lend his work cultural resonance? To him, it is an ‘ashes to ashes’ sort of scenario, one that he describes without passing judgment. Simply put, it is electronic music, which needs no scribblers but rather “ear players” to compose, coupled with the advent of the recent phenomenon of “sound artists” which signals that this tradition is not so much headed for a dustbin, but destined to shake off the shackles of notation, free at last to simply be music.”

Beware The Composer-Critic

There is a long and noble tradition of great critics who have also been composers. But Josh Kosman writes that he still has an innate distrust of the composer-critic. “The artistic marketplace is an adversarial arena—or at least a competitive one, like any marketplace—and that makes it a setting in which it’s important for the participants to be clear and consistent about their allegiances. A critic’s exclusive allegiance, I am convinced, should be to his or her fellow audience members. A composer, by contrast, has other allegiances entirely—to his or her own creative imperatives, to the larger community of artists, even in some cases to posterity.”

Neighbors Protest Whitney Expansion Plan

Neighbors of the Whitney turn up at a public meeting to protest a recently announced expansion plan. But “a well-organized contingent of artists, architects and museum directors who support the expansion, designed by the architect Renzo Piano, countered their arguments. Among them were the painter Chuck Close, the sculptor Mark di Suvero, architects like Maya Lin, and museum directors including Philippe de Montebello of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Glenn D. Lowry of the Museum of Modern Art.”

Art Fair Agnostic

The big corporate art fairs are a triumph. Of what? Jerry Saltz says start with the money: “Welcome to the branded and marketed art world of 2005. Maybe it’s always been this way, but it’s certainly more so now. These days art fairs are perfect storms of money, marketability, and instant gratification—tent-city casinos where art is shipped in and parked for five days, while spectators gawk as comped V.I.P.s and shoppers roll the dice for all to see. And in this game, everybody plays: artists, dealers, and buyers.”

The Composers And Their Letters

“The best way to find out what the great composers of the past were like is to read their letters. Even those who left few or no other writings of significance (among them Haydn, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Verdi, and Ravel) often come through with special clarity in their correspondence with friends, colleagues, spouses, and lovers. As for those composers who doubled as part-time professional writers, their letters almost always supply strikingly fresh perspectives on their life and music—as well as no less strikingly candid opinions of the music of other composers.”

Scots National Theatre – Maybe (Just Maybe) It’ll Turn Out Alright

There’s been no shortage of worry in Scotland about how the new National Theatre would take shape. Maybe that’s because of the many years it took to get the idea off the ground. “But now that the National Theatre of Scotland is beginning to take shape, even the sharpest critics of the idea are being forced to concede that those fears may have been misplaced. For one thing, the organisation is being set up on an innovative commissioning model designed to ensure that the NTS works through Scotland’s existing companies, investing its budget in developing world-class new projects with them, and helping them to raise their game with every new production.”

Breaking Even – A Rarity Off-Broadway These Days

“Burdened by ever-higher costs and increased competition from Broadway and beyond, the successful commercial Off Broadway play is a rarity these days, producers say. Long considered a cheaper, more viable alternative to the high costs of Broadway, the average Off Broadway production now regularly runs more than $500,000 to produce, with some costing nearly $1 million. Predictably, those higher costs have been passed on to the consumer; good seats for Off Broadway shows now commonly run more than $50, with some shows asking $65 or $75.”

Time For Another Death-Of-Movies Theory?

“The cinema, like the novel, is always dying. The movies were killed by sequels; they were killed by conglomerates; they were killed by special effects. “Heaven’s Gate” was the end; “Star Wars” was the end; “Jaws” did it. It was the ratings system, profit participation, television, the blacklist, the collapse of the studio system, the Production Code. The movies should never have gone to color; they should never have gone to sound. The movies have been declared dead so many times that it is almost surprising that they were born, and, as every history of the cinema makes a point of noting, the first announcement of their demise practically coincided with the announcement of their birth.”