The expectation of the new entertainment consumer is that they should be able to watch what they want to watch when they want to watch it. And if the producers of these programs don’t make it easy and attractive, then consumers will find other ways to get it. How about your own cable-TV set-top box? TV shows on your computer? Bottom line: entertainment moguls better figure out a business model to satisfy customers or they’ll lose out.
Blog
Joseph Beuys – the Art Of Meaning
Joseph Beuys was the greatest German artist of the 20th Century, writes Jonathan Jones. “Beuys was very articulate – almost too articulate – about the meanings of his performances, sculptures, installations and drawings. He was a charismatic man, dressed always the same, in his felt hat and hunter’s or angler’s waistcoat. And he said his art was about the rediscovery of Eurasian origins, the translation and storage of essential energies, the spiritual properties of fat… he spoke to a dead hare, he lived in a cage with a coyote. On the face of it, he was a prophet of the New Age, and his art, on that reckoning, ought to be gobbledegook.”
Argento Of The Prairies
American composer Dominick Argento has published a memoir. “Having called Minneapolis home since he accepted a job at the University of Minnesota in 1958, he stayed mostly immune from the compositional fads of the day, and he encountered in the Twin Cities not just a host of organizations willing to commission works from him, but an audience that wanted to hear contemporary music.”
Free Marketeer – Saatchi Clears His Closets
Collector Charles Saatchi has been selling off his BritArt stable and declared painting king once again. Really? “Does Saatchi really believe the claim publicity material makes – that painting continues to be ‘the most relevant and vital way that an artist can communicate’ in an age of video, photography and so forth? In which case, it would seem odd to inaugurate his triumphant year of painting with works made so long ago as to be anything but present in tense. Or is he just taking advantage of the current economic revival to make good in the secondary art market?”
China’s First Summer Festival
China is creating its first international summer music festival this July. “The festival, similar to the famous Tanglewood and Aspen music schools of the United States, will be the first large-scale annualinternational professional music summer camp ever held in China orSoutheast Asia.”
I Beethoven, Rock Star
There’ a big slug of Beethoven showing up on programs around America this year. “An overabundance of Beethoven, or any composer, during an anniversary year is hardly noteworthy. But with no birth or death commemoration of Beethoven in the offing, why so much Beethoven now?”
Weak Dollar Sending Art Back Across The Atlantic
The American dollar’s slide against other currencies has apparently sparked a push by European art institutions to reacquire some of the countless works which had been bought up by American collectors over the decades. “The weak dollar offers European buyers some remarkable bargains. At Sotheby’s Old Masters sale in New York, a Botticelli sold for the equivalent of £246,000. Sources said Italians were particularly active buyers. Italy having produced so much good art, there are plenty of works for Italians to repatriate.”
Long On Art, Short On Space
Harvard University’s art collection is the envy of museums worldwide, comprising more than 250,000 pieces. But having that much art is one thing: finding the space to display, or even to store it all is another matter entirely. For the recently arrived chief of the university’s museum system, keeping the collection intact and secure is becoming a major challenge, especially with much of the available gallery space in desperate need of new climate-control technology and other upgrades.
Is Architecture A Red Herring In The Ground Zero Debate?
The struggle to rebuild Ground Zero has frequently been portrayed as a clash between a visionary architect and a powerful New York developer, but “Philip Nobel argues that our obsession with the architect-as-healer has led us to ignore more important, if less emotionally appealing, questions about ground zero: How should the site be used? How much focus should there be on office space, on cultural space, on a memorial? In giving aesthetic speculations more weight than material concerns in our critical and public discussions, he says, we have virtually guaranteed that the site will end up looking like every other New York real estate development.”
A Connecticut Renaissance
Greenwich, Connecticut “is the last place… that you would expect to find a major Vermeer on loan from Europe, or several roomfuls of works by Rubens – or, for that matter, hard-core Manhattanites on an art pilgrimage.” But in the last four years, Greenwich’s Bruce Museum of Art & Science has transformed itself into a major player in the East Coast art scene, under the stewardship of director Peter Sutton, who has mounted high-profile exhibits previously though to be beyond the Bruce’s reach. “At the same time, playing on Greenwich’s reputation for private wealth, he has provocatively embraced the art market, organizing exhibitions showcasing high-end private art collections – and even artworks currently for sale.”