There were some fairly unwatchable films shown at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, and naturally, critics will be sure to harp on their selection for what is supposed to be a showcase of great art. But the point of such festivals to show us a reflection of our world in artistic fashion, and human error is sometimes a part of that reality. “We must… remember that programmers aren’t infallible and that occasionally they make mistakes. But an even worse mistake would be to return to the kind of blanket censorship that dogged the festival in its early years, when Ontario’s cinema nannies regulated every thrust and slash.”
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Putting Revisionism In Its Place
“Sitting in the shadow of the Capitol, on some of the most prestigious real estate in Washington, the new [Museum of the American Indian] has emerged with ambitions far greater than simply… becoming a Disney-style happy magnet for native peoples. It is a monument to Postmodernism — to a way of thinking that emphasizes multiple voices and playful forms of truth over the lazy acceptance of received wisdom, authority and scientific ‘certainty.’ Its successful completion is evidence that American Indians have emerged as perhaps the only minority group in this country to win a skirmish in the culture wars.”
Waiting For Levine
When James Levine officially takes over the podium of the Boston Symphony Orchestra a month from now, the musical landscape of the city will be changed, for better or for worse. The BSO “has occupied a leading place among world orchestras for most of its existence, but it has been a while since it was consistently and unquestionably at the very top of the heap. The board, players, and public want that back, and many believe that Levine can lead the orchestra there.” Still, success in one city (New York, in this case,) doesn’t always translate into success in another, and there are still many uncertainties surrounding the new maestro.
Everyone Knows Good Books Are Huge
“The number of people who read books is getting smaller and smaller, but the size of the books they read seems to be getting bigger and bigger. Step into a Barnes & Noble or a Borders and you will see shelves sagging with supersize works, some so back-breakingly heavy they are shipped in boxes with plastic handles. Search online and you’ll discover larger-than-coffee-table tomes. The illogic of this phenomenon speaks volumes — ever-expanding volumes — about the state of reading in contemporary civilization.”
SoCal’s Arts Center, Ten Years In
The California Center for the Arts, in Escondido (near San Diego), is a beautiful 12-acre monument to culture, a $75 million dollar investment in community spirit and quality of life. Unless, of course, you take note of the millions of dollars in operating deficits, poor attendance figures, and occasional lack of direction, in which case you might consider the center a financial albatross around the city’s neck. The center is ten years old this month, and a decade of varied success and failure has done nothing to quell the debate over the project.
Better Late Than Never
The man behind the new Museum of the American Indian is visibly excited about this week’s opening. In fact, Richard West will be donning native garments and participating in a Cheyenne dance at Tuesday’s ceremonies. “From a native perspective, this is a powerfully affirming time in history. We should have been among the first threads of culture on the Mall. Instead we are the last. But, poetically, we occupy the first site next to the Capitol. There is poetry in that having belatedly gotten here, we occupy one of the two key sites on the National Mall.”
Imagining Denver’s New MCA
Architect David Adjaye’s design for Denver’s new Museum of Contemporary Art won’t be unveiled until October, but details are trickling out slowly. Plans for the museum have expanded since Adjaye was engaged to design it, with the latest projections showing an increase in both square footage and price. It was decided early on that “the building should not contain one or two large spaces that could be partitioned and adapted to all kinds of art. Instead, they’re opting for an array of distinctive galleries, each serving certain types of work better than others.”
They Can’t Be New
The classical music industry is awash in reissues these days, with the aim of marketing to the nostalgia of an aging audience that can still remember learning a Brahms symphony at the business end of a phonograph. But all the remastered CDs in the world can’t replicate the enjoyment those old records brought, writes Bernard Holland, and it’s not the snap, crackle, and pop of analog recordings that’s missing, either. “We still love the Schubert symphonies, perhaps more than ever, but the excitement, the stabs of discovery, have modulated into a broader, slowly rising plane of experience, drawing on the many recordings and concerts heard since, and with a lot more room for thought.”
Philly Players Authorize Strike
Following a week of increasingly public recriminations between musicians and management, the Philadelphia Orchestra has voted to authorize a strike if an agreement is not reached by midnight Monday. Musicians’ representatives walked out of a bargaining session on Friday, citing management’s unwillingness to budge from a proposed list of cuts to the musicians’ salaries and benefits. The orchestra has a history of acrimonious negotiations, and was last on strike for 64 days in 1996.
China’s Architectural Mood Swing
“After essentially sealing the country off from foreign architects for much of the 20th century, the Chinese government kicked off the 21st by turning itself into the biggest single patron of avant-garde architecture in the world.” But the government’s enthusiasm is proving short-lived, as major projects by big-name foreign architects have recently been savaged in the state-controlled Chinese press, halted or delayed by the same authorities who initially gave them the green light, and generally placed on a national dart board. Call it one part nationalism, and two parts fiscal insecurity…