The first Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art is about to open. “The main venue of the biennial is at the Lenin Museum, off Red Square, and it is titled “Dialectics of hope”, an ironic play on the theme of the utopia never found by Communism and now lost to the pressures of capitalism, and the expectations of improvement as Russia re-enters the Western orbit.”
Blog
French Art Sales Fall Behind
Art-selling in France continues to be tough going. “The art market in France shrank slightly in 2004 as Drouot, the umbrella organisation for Parisian auction houses, reported turnover of €365 million ($480 million). In addition, the gap is gradually widening between the two leading international auction houses, Christie’s and Sotheby’s and their larger French competitors, whose sales are stagnating or declining.”
Shakespeare For Boys (Why?)
What’s the appeal of all-male Shakespeare? Is it about authenticity, seeing the parts played by men because that’s who Shakespeare wrote them for?
No Matter Grammar (If You Want To Write Well)
It’s long been a given that one of the keys to writing well is to drill good grammar. But a large new study refutes that idea. It was “the largest systematic review yet of research on this topic; and the conclusion the authors came to was that there was no evidence at all that the teaching of grammar had any beneficial effect on the quality of writing done by pupils.”
Of Universes And The End Of All Things (Maybe)
“Although thermodynamics and cosmology point to the eventual death of all lifeforms in the universe, there is still one loophole. It is a law of evolution that, when the environment changes radically, life must adapt, flee or die. The first alternative seems impossible. The last is undesirable. This leaves us with one choice: leave the universe.”
Road To Musical Success
What makes a good musical? There’s no set formula, as a look at musicals set to debut soon shows. “Every idea is improbable until it succeeds. People thought ‘Pygmalion,’ you couldn’t possibly turn that into a musical. ‘Cats’ when it opened in London was considered a big joke.”
Milan’s Maestro Muti
“No conductor today is master of all he surveys as much as Riccardo Muti in Milan. Music director of La Scala for nearly 20 years and still going strong, Muti acts as a symbol for his country’s culture at home and abroad. Where Italian music is concerned, he is proud and protective. He rigorously schools his singers in the traditions he imbibed as a student – traditions which, through his revered teacher Antonino Votto, go back to Toscanini and Verdi himself, traditions that are in danger of being lost as national cultures succumb to the international melting pot of modern life.”
Booker Jury Objects To Jury Chairman
Members of the Book Prize jury are objecting to the appointment of John Sutherland as chairman of the jury. “He is an appalling choice, because of what happened last time round. ‘Last time round’, when Professor Sutherland was a judge in 1999, he wrote a piece for the Guardian in which he described the judging process. His analysis was thunderously denied by two fellow judges, who accused him of a ‘breach of trust’.”
Crisis Of Confidence – Why Peter Lewis Left The Guggenheim
What caused the final split between the Guggenheim’s Tom Krens and Peter Lewis that led to Lewis leaving the museum board? “In the months before his departure, Lewis had taken to asking: ‘If franchising all these international museums is such a good idea, then why isn’t Moma doing it? Why isn’t the Whitney doing it?’ The spin coming from the Guggenheim is that the outcome of the confrontation represents the triumph of culture, in the shape of Krens, a 6ft 5in former artist with a fondness for Harley-Davidsons, over commerce in the person of Lewis, chairman of a Cleveland insurance company. But the truth is that Lewis was becoming increasingly alarmed, not just about the financial position of a museum into which he had poured so much of his own money, but also its reputation.”
Orchestra Better, Audience Gone
London’s Philharmonia Orchestra is playing better than it ever has. But “it is ironic that as the quality and enthusiasm of orchestral musicians has increased, so the interest in orchestral music within the general culture has declined so markedly. ‘We’re in a period now where the broad population of this country is totally unfamiliar with orchestral music and reluctant to enjoy anything that requires some investment of time and thought. Our world is shrinking by the day because of the overwhelming impact of popular culture’.”