Last week’s Daniel Okrent column in the New York Times about the Tonys in which he called the awards a sham had Broadway producers fuming. But on a couple of points at least, writes Simon Houpt, he had a point.
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Beaverbrook Goes To Court To Get Paintings
“The British Beaverbrook Foundation, a trust established by the late Lord Beaverbrook to continue his charitable works, has filed a lawsuit in an effort to claim millions of dollars’ worth of art housed at the Fredericton (New Brusnwick) Art Gallery. The gallery holds an exquisite collection of art by such masters as Turner, Botticelli, Gainsborough and Dali. However, his grandsons, Max and Timothy Aitken, who head up the British and Canadian Beaverbrook Foundations, say that 175 art works at the gallery are the property of the foundations and they want at least some of them back.”
Art As Fodder For Other Art
Artists are increasingly using other artists’ art as the raw materials for their own work. While artists have always drawn inspiration from other work, “the difference now is that artists — professionals and amateurs alike — are taking existing works and messing with their content and expression to create something new. If you want a name for the phenomenon, you could look at its insistence on the rights of the individual and call it democratic art, or focus on its wholesale limb-splicing and call it FrankenArt, in a nod to Mary Shelley’s science-fiction horror story.”
Who Will Raise $600 Million For WTC Buildings?
New York governor George Pataki has had difficulty finding a leading fundraiser to head the effort to raise $600 million for a memorial and cultural buildings at the World Trade Center site. “Mr. Pataki’s inability so far to find a leader for the campaign has contributed to a delay in deciding which cultural organizations will occupy the site
St. Louis Symphony Won’t Go To Voters For Support
The ailing St. Louis Symphony won’t ask voters to join the city’s zoo-museum district that distributes $50 million for St. Louis cultural institutions. “Some observers believe the St. Louis Symphony serves too wealthy an audience to need tax support. ‘That is always going to hurt the Symphony. Most voters are not Symphony-goers, and they think it’s elitist. Voters look at what they really need, and funding the Symphony would be one of the last things voters would support.”
A Quota For Canadian Films?
Should Canada enact a quota that would force movie theatres to show a certain percentage of Canadian movies? The idea, writes Dan Brown, is “based on a false assumption: that the average ticket buyer actively seeks out Canadian movies. The young performer might like to believe this is true, but this is not how the majority of movie lovers behave in the real world. Before the average person goes to the theatre on a Friday night, they don’t say to their friends, ‘Is there anything Canadian playing? I’m in the mood for something domestically made.’ Instead, they say, ‘Is there anything good playing?’ The public has moved beyond making its choices based on a film’s nationality, if that ever truly mattered.”
Global Art On Demand
An electronic kiosk promises art on demand. “At a touch-screen terminal called a Totem, you’d browse for a painting by its name, the artist’s name, or the museum in which it is housed. Works are available from institutions like the Louvre in Paris, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and the National Gallery in London. Then you’d choose how many copies you’d like to print, at what size and on which medium (choose between 25 types of paper, including canvas and photographic paper). Then go pay the cashier. The Mona Lisa on canvas costs about $30, but larger prints run up to $150.”
James Roos, 60
James Roos, who was the Miami Herald’s classical music critic for three decades, died Thursday after a 17-month battle with brain cancer, one day after his 60th birthday.
What’s So Special About Special fX?
Why is there so little imagination in movie “special effects”? “Part of the problem, I think, is that technicians get excited about techniques that stretch possibilities, for strictly technical, not to say geeky, reasons. We could never do that before, so it must be cool. Trouble is, what looks cool to the person who stretched the technique doesn’t necessarily look cool to someone who doesn’t realize that the technique has been stretched. Whenever a director comes along with a really striking new look, a striking new way to imagine the future, we see the same look replicated over the next couple of years, until someone comes up with another look.”
Contemporary Art Prices Rocket Up (“We’re Scared”)
Auction prices for contemporary art are shooting up fast. “It’s unhealthy. People don’t know what they’re buying.” Some dealers say they have not seen “indiscriminate buying like this in ages. It’s scaring people.”