For the first time, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has named a woman as its president. Emily Kernan Rafferty, 55, has been with the Met for 28 years, “and is credited with leading the creation of the Met’s Web site, and building its membership.” She will take over in January, and will oversee the Met’s $155 million renovation.
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The Future Of Modern Art At The Met
“This summer, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the establishment of a vast new department of 19th-century, Modern, and contemporary art, embracing European paintings from 1800 to the present, international 20th-century sculpture, drawings, prints, decorative arts, and design.” The department’s chief says that his first objective has been to mount an exhaustive study of the Met’s current holdings, identify weaknesses in the collection, and develop a plan to fill in the gaps, particularly those in the 20th century collection. “The great unanswered question is the degree to which the Metropolitan will differentiate itself from New York’s other museums of Modern and contemporary art.”
Jarvi’s Replacement Still A Long Way Off
The Detroit Symphony is taking its time in the search for a new music director to replace Neeme Jarvi – in fact, the orchestra may play two or three full seasons without an official leader after Jarvi departs next summer. So why the delay? Part of the problem is the lack of great conductors in the world, but “a more subtle issue has been management’s inability, dating back at least a decade, to lasso enough A-list guest conductors and nurture relationships that might blossom into a music directorship.”
Scared Of The Daylight
Office construction is on the rise in the U.S., but new studies suggest that the workers who spend an ever-increasing percentage of their lives in those concrete monoliths are suffering from a lack of daylight. “There is a striking lack of understanding by CEOs, boards and corporate real-estate executives that designing buildings with greater access to daylight saves money and improves productivity and the bottom line.” Great architecture is all well and good, but why can’t architects design buildings for the people inside as well as the people on the street admiring the facade?
The Architect As Artist
As architects continue to take their place as the new rock stars of the art world, an interesting crossover effect seems to be taking place. From Norman Foster’s famous erotic pickle to Frank Gehry’s trend-shattering Bilbao museum to Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum, some of the best art in the world today is being done by architects, a fact which the art world has been slow to accept. “Why is architecture so much less hyped than art? The fact is that artists are more glamorous than architects. Building is a business, and even younger architects find it hard to accept that Foster, a business genius, is also an aesthetic one.”
More Trouble For Eisner
“Just when it appeared that Michael D. Eisner, the chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, could begin enjoying the company’s turnaround and his final years in charge, a shareholder lawsuit threatens to dredge up some of the most embarrassing details of his two-decade reign and complicate his planned exit. On Wednesday, the Court of Chancery in Delaware will begin hearing a lawsuit filed by Disney shareholders contending that the board breached its fiduciary responsibility when Mr. Eisner hired his friend, Michael S. Ovitz, as president in 1995 and then signed off on Mr. Ovitz’s $140 million severance package 14 months later.”
Netflix, Blockbuster Battle Over DVD Prices
A price war is developing in the DVD rental market, as relative newcomer NetFlix and traditional chain Blockbuster square off in the battle for online customers. The price cuts on both sides are delighting consumers, but investors in both companies are not happy.
The Rise Of Wynton
At some indeterminate point in the last decade, Wynton Marsalis became the official spokesman for serious jazz. It’s an unlikely position for a man who had previously split the jazz world down the middle with his lofty pronouncements about the form, and his dismissal of many modern performers and their influences. But today, “with Jazz at Lincoln Center as the most powerful nonprofit jazz institution in the world, with a responsibility to its donors for the $128 million it took to build the halls, his declarations, and his answers to criticism, have become temperate and more like coalition-building.”
It’s Not A Failed Restaurant, It’s Art! Buy Some!
Glamorously controversial UK artist Damien Hirst has an auction all his own this week at Sotheby’s in London. “This sale, which Sotheby’s expects will net between £3 million and £7 million will also be an opportunity for Nigel Q. Public to buy an authentic Hirst, even if it’s only an authentic eggcup.” The pieces up for auction are actually the detritus from Hirst’s now-defunct, clinic-themed Pharmacy Restaurant & Bar, which was conceived as part of the “Cool Brittania” movement a few years back.
Major Upheaval At Adelaide Fringe
The entire board of Australia’s Adelaide Fringe Festival has been replaced, following a legal dispute with the organization’s members. The board had called off its annual general meeting, but “29 of the Fringe’s 41 members still turned up, decided there was insufficient reason to cancel the AGM and voted to appoint a new board. The former board disputed the constitutional legitimacy of the election and sought legal advice. However, it announced its resignation yesterday through its lawyer”