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Company Sues Newspaper Over Donation To Arts Center

“Cox Enterprises Inc., which owns nearly half of The Daytona Beach News-Journal, has sued the newspaper’s board of directors, accusing them of wasting $13 million for naming rights to a community arts center in Daytona Beach. The lawsuit seeks to stop the transaction and return the money to the newspaper, or have Cox’s ownership share bought out. Cox also wants unspecified damages and prior approval for any similar deals in the future.”

Andy Goldsworthy In Nature

“Officially, Andy Goldsworthy is a leading member of the Earth Art movement, which was founded in the long-haired 60’s and is invariably billed in textbooks as an attempt to free the art object from the marketplace. Almost disappointingly free of self-importance, he describes his most formative experience as the time he spent as a farm laborer in Leeds, England, where he came to think of stacked bales of hay as ‘minimalist sculptures.’ Curiously enough, these days, Goldsworthy is more valued in America than he is in his native England, perhaps because the London art world tends to disparage the notion of landscape as too gentlemanly and old-fashioned, too English.

Scottish Opera Gets Emergency Grant (But Company Cuts Are Made)

The ailing Scottish Opera is to be given £5 million of public money to bail it out of a financial crisis on condition that its chorus members go part-time and administrative posts are cut. The opera’s youth work could also be handed to a national youth arts company under plans to restructure the beleaguered organisation. Proposals to cut the 53-strong orchestra have been rejected, but the permanent contracts for the 35 chorus singers could be terminated, while administrative posts will also be scaled back.”

Denver To Get New Contemporary Art Center

Denver is getting a new contemporary art center. “The 15,000-square-foot art center is expected to open in late 2005 or early 2006 as part of Belmar, a $750 million retail, office and residential development. This facility, modeled after leading contemporary spaces such as P.S. 1 in New York City, will serve as a kind of artistic research center with world-class exhibitions, scholarly publications and regular symposiums. The Lab finally gives the Denver art scene what it has desperately needed – a flexible, high-level alternative art space to complement the Denver Art Museum and Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver.”

Australian Inquiry Into Orchestras’ Health

The Australian government is opening an inquiry into the health of the country’s six major symphony orchestras. “Three of the six symphony orchestras were flagged in a recent Australian National Audit Office report as having had difficulty continuing as going concerns in 2002, and two, the Adelaide and Queensland symphonies, will post deficits for 2003.”

Uffizi To Be Greatly Expanded

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has decided that the Uffizi should be expanded to rival the size of the Louvre or British Museum. “A proposal to enlarge the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, under discussion since the end of World War II, has been fast-tracked by the Italian government. Mr Berlusconi has announced that Euros 60million ($72 million) project to double the size of the available display space from 6,000 to 13,000 square-metres is to be completed by 2006.”

The Modern Book Star Tour

“As more and more celebrities–Sting, Madonna, Hillary Clinton and her mate–latch onto their inner author (and the attendant hefty advance), then take to the road to publicize their efforts, book signings are requiring far more preparation than the purchase of a large box of Sharpies. There are rules, there are regulations, there are wristbands…”