Evan Maurer’s impending departure from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Twin Cities’ most visible mainstream museum finds itself at a crossroads. Maurer’s reaction to a city famous for its embrace of modern art was a “populism-with-panache approach to shows and collecting” for the formerly staid and decidedly unsexy MIA. “He led the nation in collecting American Indian artifacts as art, helped set up an important French-American museum collaboration, oversaw two expansions of the Minneapolis museum’s building and was, at his peak, a money-raising powerhouse.”
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Cooperation Ain’t The Way
Cleveland arts groups have been ratcheting up efforts to improve the city’s cultural scene, but many have discovered that joining forces can be the most effective way to compete in a world with seemingly endless entertainment options. “So why aren’t the creators of two significant new Cleveland arts festivals working together?” The Cleveland Play House is planning a theater and arts festival for May 2006, but the creators of a Labor Day arts-and-technology festival will beat them to the punch by nine months. So why not let two become one? Well, for one thing, the Play House’s artistic director thinks that Labor Day weekend is “box office poison.”
MTT at… 60? Really?
The San Francisco Symphony’s charismatic and ever-youthful music director, Michael Tilson Thomas, turned 60 this weekend, incredible as it may seem, and used the occasion to mount a huge onstage party at Davies Symphony Hall. “Like a kid facing a coffee table stacked with big, glittery presents, Thomas raced through the evening’s program, eagerly unwrapping each musical offering… Even among conductors, a famously long-lived and resilient breed, Thomas has always had a preternaturally youthful and even boyish streak. Now, at 60, he seems to be combining that tireless energy and enthusiasm with the ever- deepening mastery that comes with age.”
Israel, Palestine, And My Mother-in-Law
One of the surprise publishing successes of the year in Europe is a book comprising a stock of desperate, poignant, and occasionally bitter e-mails sent by a Palestinian architect to her friends and relatives, relating her experiences of life in the West Bank during the Palestinian intifada and subsequent Israeli crackdown. The star of the book is the author’s mother-in-law, who seems simultaneously to embody the stressese of in-laws the world over, and to symbolize the indomitable will of a people under siege.
Are You Ready For Some… um… Orchestral Music?
A staid, refined art form like classical music just can’t compete in a dumbed-down NFL/MTV world, right? Actually, maybe it can. “In an upset of Joe Namath proportions, orchestral music has been thriving in the realm of the football fan, rabid and otherwise. For 40 years, the highly regarded highlights of NFL games airing on such TV programs as ‘Game of the Week,’ ‘This Is the NFL’ and channels such as ESPN Classic and the NFL Network have been accompanied by an orchestra. Based in Mount Laurel, N.J., NFL Films currently has an unheard of two composers on staff — Tom Hedden and David Robidoux.”
O’Riley’s Radiohead: More Than A Tribute
By this time, it shouldn’t come as news to anyone who follows the classical music business that pianist Chris O’Riley has developed a fairly major side career as a keyboard interpreter of the works of the alt-rock band Radiohead. But to anyone who isn’t already a fan of the band, it can be difficult to put into words exactly what it is that O’Riley does with the preexisting material. “The songs are recognizable as Radiohead’s, but their materials are deconstructed, tweaked, expanded into new time frames, new structures, new expressive possibilities.”
Who Says Parks Close For The Winter?
Chicago’s Millenium Park made a big splash when it debuted in the heart of the Second City last summer. But winter has brought a whole new character to Chicago’s downtown gathering place, and “on Sunday afternoon, park organizers will add to the park’s dazzling array of attractions by kicking off a series of free concerts on the stage of the Frank Gehry-designed Pritzker Pavilion.”
Handicapping The Oscars: What’s The Point?
Handicapping Hollywood’s various awards shows used to be a simple matter of watching a lot of movies, and assessing which was the best. These days, you need a calculator, an official odds cheatsheet, and a serious knowledge of the industry’s increasingly absurd social order to even begin to make a prediction. “But don’t we risk losing some of the fun and surprise of awards night, by trying so hard to figure out something that is essentially unfathomable? Didn’t most critics get into arts writing because they didn’t want to grow up and become accountants?”
Whitney Biennial Curators Named
The Whitney Biennial will be curated for the first time by two Europeans in 2006, with British-born Whitney curator Chrissie Iles teamed with Frenchman Philippe Vergne, senior curator at the Minneapolis-based Walker Art Center. “Both curators say it is too early to give any specific details about the direction the biennial will take or what themes, if any, will be addressed. Nor do they know if works will be shown in Central Park, as in the last two biennials.”
EU Bank Looks Forward With New Headquarters
“The European Central Bank, seeking a home worthy of its growing stature in the financial world, on Thursday awarded the design of its new headquarters here to a Viennese firm, Coop Himmelb(l)au, which proposed a bold pair of twisted towers linked by a soaring atrium… Design professionals were pleasantly surprised by the choice, saying that the bank’s headquarters would be a landmark on Frankfurt’s skyline – perhaps even a powerful symbol of Europe’s economic integration – provided it was not watered down too much during the building process.”