Robert Smithson’s legendary “Spiral Jetty” is once again visible just off the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake. As the world’s most prominent example of the Earth Art movement, the piece is attracting visitors from around the world. “It is, however, strangely changed. Three decades of immersion have coated the dark rock with sparkling salt crystals, so the Jetty and its surroundings now resemble a landscape from the frozen north. The rich, rusty waters coloured by moulting shrimp and algae have now turned pale pink. All of this poses a neat conservation dilemma for the Dia Centre for the Arts, to which the Spiral Jetty was donated in 1999.”
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German Publishers Abandon New Spellings
Some of Germany’s biggest news publishers are abandoning state sanctions that “reformed” the spelling of German several years ago. The publishers say that the spelling reforms were a “public disaster”, saying their introduction had confused Germans so much that “parents write differently from their children, children write differently from the authors whose works they read at school and authors write differently from the newspapers and magazines in which they are printed.”
Appraisal: Barnes Assets Only $50 Million
“An appraisal has placed the value of the Barnes Foundation’s ‘non-gallery assets’ of artwork and real estate below the $50 million that may be needed to keep the struggling institution viable” in its current home.” A Judge had ordered the appraisal as he considers the Barnes’ desire to break its founder’s trust and move into downtown Philadelphia.
Hollywood’s Power Book Duo
“You’re an impoverished author with a third novel coming out. The broadsheets aren’t reviewing it, your literary agent isn’t taking your calls and you’re paying for your own book launch… Well you could try FedEx-ing it to Brad and Jen. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are major players in the literary world.” And of course, the close connections to the type of folks who can quickly turn even a mediocre novel into a $100 million blockbuster film don’t hurt, either.
A New Art Magazine?
Magazine publisher Conde Nast, known for its consumer magazines, wants to get into the art magazine business. The company has “developed a prototype of a luxe and glossy fine arts magazine that he hopes to begin publishing in 2006.” The magazine is designed “to bring visual art, or at least a magazine about it, to the masses. The magazine has no name yet, no business plan and no publication schedule. It does, however, have an editor.”
What Dreams May Come
“Dreams have captivated thinkers since ancient times, but their mystery is now closer than ever to resolution, thanks to new technology that allows scientists to watch the sleeping brain at work. Although there are still many more questions than answers, researchers are now able to see how different parts of the brain work at night, and they’re figuring out how that division of labor influences our dreams. In one sense, it’s the closest we’ve come to recording the soul.”
India Bans Documentary
India has banned a documentary that looks at religious rioting betweeen Hindus and Muslims. “The film follows 2002 clashes in the western state of Gujarat, which left more than 1,000 people dead. A censor board said the documentary was ‘highly provocative and may trigger off unrest and communal violence’.”
A Free Speech Maven Censors Her Biographer
Nadine Gordimer, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist who became an internationally celebrated activist while fighting South Africa’s apartheid government, is facing accusations of censorship and hypocrisy after pulling the plug on a seven-year collaboration with the man who was to be her biographer.
An Idea Of Variety
Justin Davidson comes away from ArtsJournal’s online conversation between music critics on ideas and music impressed with the diversity of the landscape. “Over a discussion that meandered through Brahms and Wagner, early medieval polyphony, Sonic Youth, Bjork, Mozart and the evils of 12-tone Modernism, a picture has emerged of a musical world in which each composer – each piece, even – must create its own context from scratch. There are no rules, no lingua franca, no constraints within which an artist might find freedom. The scaffolding of prevailing ideas has fallen away.”
PBT Names Ballet Master
“Steven Annegarn, a former principal dancer with Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, has been named ballet master for the company. He replaces Roberto Munoz, who was promoted to director of the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater School this spring.”