“A Russian-made waxwork of Adolf Hitler exhibited by a survivor of the Siege of Leningrad has caused a storm of protest in Berlin, where city politicians said the figure could attract the wrong kind of visitor.”
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Lawsuit Filed Against New Orleans Museum
A $1.9 million lawsuit against New Orleans’new museum of Southern art accuses its founder of using Louisiana taxpayer money to build a private museum on public land, sidestepping the state’s conflict-of-interest laws and illegally naming it after himself. The museum opened last August and has about 2,700 paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings and pieces of pottery. Museum officials say Ogden donated more than 1,200 of the works came his personal collection. However, the suit also says Ogden uses his relationship with the museum for his own financial gain.”
Attack Of The Alien Atonality
Why is it, all these many years after atonality was introduced into music, that it still seems to shock listeners? And what is it about tonality that makes it seem familiar and easy to like?
Innovation Sure, But What About Inventing In The Arts?
“You could argue that the massive growth in arts and cultural activity in the United States over the past 50 years has been about innovation and diffusion, rather than true invention. Building and blending creative forms invented centuries ago (theater, opera, orchestral performance, and such), creative people have found new innovations in how to bundle and present these forms to wider and more diverse audiences, while funders, nonprofits, universities, and others have built a new infrastructure to distribute them across the country.” But how do we get to be more “inventive” with the arts?
Scotland Spends More On Arts
“Arts spending in Scotland accounts for less than half of 1 per cent of all public expenditure in the country, a major University of Glasgow survey has found. But spending per head is sharply higher in Scotland than in other parts of the UK.”
NYT Editor: The Tonys Are A Sham!
Why does anyone pay attention to the Tony Awards, asks Daniel Okrent? They are, he says “an artistically meaningless, blatantly commercial, shamefully exclusionary and culturally corrosive award competition. The awards are a real estate promotion, restricted as they are to shows put on in the 31 houses owned or controlled by the Shuberts, the Nederlanders and Jujamcyn, plus another nine thrown in by accident of geography or affinity to the idea of the Big Musical. Like the theaters, the voters themselves are to a large degree controlled by the Big Three and the touring company operators.”
America – Culture To the World?
Samuel Huntington’s now infamous new book argues that America is losing its sense of itself. This is an idea full of flaws, as Huntington articulates it. “Why isn’t internationalism, as a number of writers have recently argued, a powerful resource for Americans? The United States doesn’t have an exclusive interest in opposing and containing the forces of intolerance, superstition, and fanaticism; the whole world has an interest in opposing and containing those things. On September 12, 2001, the world was with us. Because of our government’s mad conviction that it was our way of life that was under attack, not the way of life of civilized human beings everywhere, and that only we knew what was best to do about it, we squandered our chance to be with the world. The observation is now so obvious as to be banal. That does not make it less painful.”
$104 Million – One Painting, OR…
James Russell is having difficulty getting his head around paying $104 million for a painting. “Here’s how the Picasso auction sale fits in terms I understand: 2.6 “Boy With a Pipe” paintings will buy you one Disney Concert Hall. 1.2 will get you the Santiago Calatrava addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum. About 8 “Boys” will buy you the Museum of Modern Art’s addition/renovation by the renowned architect Yoshio Taniguchi that will open later this year. MoMA would probably only have to deaccession the Picasso once to complete their fundraising.”
The $104 Million Question – Art As Commodity
What makes one painting worth $104 million and another only a few thousand dollars? It’s certainly not for how looks hanging on the wall. Here’s a primer on the valuation of art and who plays the art acquisition game.
The Beaverbrook Art – Gift Or Loan?
The former premier of New Brunswick weighs in on the claim by descendents of Lord Beaverbrook that paintings in possession of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery were loans and should be returned. “I knew the man very well, and when he gave something he didn’t lend it, he gave it. Lord Beaverbrook gave the building and its contents in perpetuity to the province and its people. It’s not a loan that he made.”