A few years ago, then-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani pledged $24 million a year for ten years to Lincolnm Center’s rebuilding project. But new mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided to reduce the amount. “For the next fiscal year Mr. Bloomberg’s preliminary budget has reduced Lincoln Center’s $24 million allotment to $5 million. City officials acknowledge that these measures indicate an increasingly hard-line approach toward cultural organizations, the largest of which is Lincoln Center.”
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Here Come The Russians
Russian collectors are making their presence felt as they invest heavily in art. “A new elite is taking up the mantle of pre-Revolutionary collectors, the czars and industrialists whose collections became museums, including the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and the Tretyakov in Moscow. The Russian government has lifted taxes and duties to spur the return of works smuggled abroad by nobles or sold by the Bolsheviks after the Revolution of 1917. The authorities also want to encourage Russia’s new multimillionaires to bring home the acquisitions they have been making, and keeping, outside the country.”
Ruddy Wins Archibald Portrait Prize
Sydney artist Craig Ruddy has won the $35,000 Archibald Prize with his portrait of Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil. “Ruddy, who said he had wanted to paint Gulpilil for several years, is hoping the prize doesn’t affect his work.”
Hadid Revealed
Who is architect Zaha Hadid, asked Herbert Muschamp. “Born in Baghdad and long a resident of London, Hadid is 53. She has been my personal Alfred Hitchcock movie for roughly 20 years. At times, the suspense has been unbearable. Would Hadid become a builder? Or was she destined to remain celebrated as the designer of some of the greatest architecture never built? Hadid would get a big project, and she would lose it. She would get another big project, and she would lose it. She would be offered a show at a major museum, but would make such legendarily exotic demands that eventually the show would be canceled.”
Robinson Appointed Head Of Palm Beach Symphony
Ray Robinson, 71, has been appointed music director and manager of the Palm Beach Symphony. He “headed Palm Beach Atlantic University’s choral program for 14 years before semi-retiring last season. He also was a freelance music critic for the Palm Beach Daily News. Before that, he was dean of the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, president of Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J., and a visiting fellow at Wolfson College at Cambridge University in England. He’s a violist and conductor, an expert on composers Felix Mendelssohn and Krzysztof Penderecki, and the author of 11 books on music.”
Let’s Overhaul The Whitney Biennial
Tyler Green writes that the Whitney Biennial is a fundamentally flawed enterprise. “The irony of the Whitney Biennial is that it brings a muddled exhibit of contemporary art to the city that needs it least. The Whitney’s formula is especially tired: The Biennial most often takes already familiar art and simply institutionalizes it. No one deserves to be confronted with 108 artists in a single show; the exceptional artists suffer for being mixed in with the soon-to-be-forgotten middle, and in the end it all begins to blur. So here is how the Whitney Biennial can become the most important show of contemporary art not just in New York, but in America: Trim the Whitney Biennial down to eight to 12 truly fantastic artists.”
Giant Saddam Head In Scotland
An enormous head from a statue of Saddam Husein has landed in the Scottish city of Aberdeen. “Since the head is thought to be the only one of its kind in Britain, museum officials are calling its arrival a coup for the city. But many citizens are outraged, accusing the museum of war looting. Weighing almost 136 kilograms, the head is from a statue believed to have come from the city of Basra, a British stronghold during the war.”
Tobias: Problems With Petronio
Everyone likes Stephen Petronio, right? Tobi Tobias has reservations: “What’s not to like? Well, I have two complaints, both of them serious. One: Petronio substitutes fashion (not just clothes, but lifestyle, to use a relevant trash word) for meaning and feeling. Two: The dancing he devises—while executed with stunning fluidity, speed, and strength—is extremely limited in vocabulary, rhythmic interest, and structure.”
At The Movies – Oldsters Rule!
The movies had a good year last year. But the surprise in the statistics was that “the 50-59 demographic enjoyed the biggest increase in movie-going for any age group last year, with a 20 percent hike in attendance.” And what does it mean? You can expect to see more movies appealing to older people…
Where Is The Inner Life Of Dance?
“Martha Graham, Michel Fokine and other pioneers of early 20th-century dance rethought some of dance’s fundamental concepts in their rebellion against what they said was ballet’s empty virtuosity. They created philosophies and techniques of their own, giving an emotional impetus to everything physical. That dance gestures should not be assigned willy-nilly, but should have meaning, was one universal concept. Dance should be an outer manifestation of an inner life, these artists believed. This way of thinking seems to have fallen out of fashion, and has made dance that much the poorer.”