“As fine art’s conceptual leanings are increasingly difficult to distinguish from the facile surfaces of advertising, this ironic fusion of art and commerce is perhaps an inevitable progression.
Yet, despite the irony, fine art is faced with a very real problem presented by a rapidly evolving technological world, which means, in effect, a rapidly changing commercial world. What actually distinguishes “fine” art from the advertising techniques that it parodies and appropriates?”
Blog
The London That Never Was (Or Will Be)
“The game of what-ifs in architecture is addictive. The organisers of a new Hayward Gallery touring exhibition had the brilliant idea of exploring the never-never land of building, drawing on the collections of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Victoria and Albert museum. So many of these visions are a great deal more exciting than the buildings we actually got.”
Britain’s 13,000-Year-Old Culture
“The discovery of 13,000-year-old rock paintings in Nottinghamshire last year rewrote ice-age history in Britain. Today, archaeologists from all over Europe are in Creswell to discuss how the finds form part of a continent-wide culture known as the Magdalenian.”
The Arthur Miller Phenomenon
At the age of 88, Arthur Miller is still cranking out work. He’s got two plays in production, and a very busy schedule. “I still love the form. It’s a great, great human adventure. Imagine having a human being stand up on a platform and mesmerize an audience and sometimes even illuminate something for them. You don’t need machinery. It’s a very primitive art. That’s the beauty of it.”
All In The Family – The Pulitzer
Franz Wright won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for poetry, but he’s not the first in his family to win one. His father – James Wright, who died in 1980, “won the Pulitzer for poetry in 1972; the two Wrights are believed to be the first father and son ever to win the award.”
Sci-Fi Museum – Beam Me Up
Paul Allen’s Science Fiction Museum in Seattle is getting close to opening. “Despite some forward-looking, hopeful exhibits, like “SETI Fiction and Fact,” which will explore the Paul Allen–funded effort to receive communications from actual ETs, SFM will essentially be, like any museum, retrospective. It will celebrate a past when geniuses could envision happier futures and it will chronicle sci-fi’s evolution into negativity, including the bleakness expressed in Planet of the Apes (the costume of Dr. Zaius will be on display).”
Music To Torture A Deity By
The soundtrack to Mel Gibson’s controversial film about Jesus’s last hours has been certified gold after selling 500,000 copies in February alone.
Nabokov: Plagiarist or Cryptomnesiac?
The allegation that Vladimir Nabokov may have lifted the plot of Lolita from another author’s work has Ron Rosenbaum fascinated. “It’s not so much a scandal as a literary mystery — a mystery about the mind of one of the great artists of our era. And second, the alleged scandal turns on the question of a literary-psychological term that was new to me, but that has now become one of my favorites: ‘cryptomnesia.'” The term mean just what it sounds like: it describes an author who has read another author’s work, but completely forgotten about it, to the extent that he appropriates the plot without ever realizing that he has done so.
The Ghetto Dream Maker
In times of political upheaval, many people take refuge in music, and in South Africa, an entire musical movement has grown out of the nation’s first tumultuous decade following the end of apartheid. The music is called kwaito, and its biggest star is a man known as Zola, who personifies all the anger, confusion, and hope of the impoverished black township residents who are wondering whatever happened to the promises of post-apartheid prosperity.
The God Culture: Heavenly Comeback Or Hellish Culture War?
“Nearly 40 years after Time magazine posed the question “Is God Dead?” signs of His resurrection are everywhere: Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion’ is on its way to becoming the highest-grossing independent film of all time, while the apocalyptic ‘Left Behind’ novels, based on the Book of Revelations, have sold 58 million copies, a publishing jackpot… The nation’s born-again president pronounces Jesus his ‘favorite philosopher’ and trumpets America’s mission to battle evil in the world. And faith avowals are all but requisite on the campaign trail – with hell to pay for anyone who demonstrates biblical illiteracy… Is all this ferment a result of post-Sept. 11 anxiety? Or has spirituality become just another commodity in a world where consumerism has become the ultimate value?”