Blog

L.A. Culture: No, It’s Not An Oxymoron

To hear most people tell it, you would think that Los Angeles is a sun-drenched wasteland of zombified Hollywood dunderheads, sipping mineral water while they sit in traffic on their way to yet another insipid premiere. As far as arts and culture go, most East Coasters would probably smirk at the mention of such things existing in L.A. But while the rest of North America looks down its nose, Los Angeles has quietly become one of the continent’s best arts towns, and other cities would do well to follow its example, says Martin Knelman.

Smart Is Boring. Let’s Kill It!

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is considering killing off Radio National, the ABC’s news and culture network, and ABC Radio director Sue Howard has been quoted as calling the intellectually-focused network “boring as batshit.” The proposed elimination of one of the company’s six radio networks comes as the ABC is being forced to cut budget, but there is likely to be stiff opposition to Howard’s desire to kill off what many view as an icon of Australian broadcasting excellence.

Art, Fame, & Unintended Consequences

Winning Australia’s $35,000 Archibald Prize is one of the fastest ways for an artist to get a stunning amount of media exposure, so it’s no wonder than so many enter. But as any Hollywood celebrity will tell you, fame ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. “Winning the annual portrait prize has many consequences for the careers and lives of artists, beyond the sudden fame. Doors open, certainly, and commissions might follow. But bruised egos, ruined friendships and a broken marriage have been among its unanticipated results.”

A Scourge Joins The Establishment

He may not fit the conventional mold for the job, but Peter Mazwell Davies is nonetheless about to be named “Master of the Queen’s Music, in a move likely to send shockwaves through royal, political and musical circles. Maxwell Davies describes himself as an old-fashioned socialist who passionately opposed the war on Iraq, and has previously been labelled ‘a scourge of the establishment’. He has criticised institutions including the Royal Opera House, loathes Tony Blair and has never made any secret of his homosexuality. But, while his music is an acquired taste, Maxwell Davies, 69, is also regarded as Britain’s greatest living composer and is thus believed to have been earmarked by Buckingham Palace for a vacant position described as the “musical equivalent of the Poet Laureate”.

Bourgeois Revival

Few artists could claim to be at their professional peak at the age of 93, but Louise Bourgeois is having a crack at it. “Bourgeois’ reputation is growing steadily, boosted by the fact that she regularly shows work alongside artists half her age. French-born, but now living in Manhattan, she represented the US in the Venice Biennale in 1993, and completed the inaugural commission for Tate Modern’s vast turbine hall in 2000.” Her work is unquestionably contemporary, which may account for some of her continued success, but more than merely seeming fresh, it comes across as intensely autobiographical, a trick which few visual artists have mastered without seeming trite.

They Couldn’t Have Fired The Costumer?

In one of the more bizarre stories to come out of the UK’s Royal Opera House in recent years, acclaimed soprano Deborah Voigt has apparently been fired from an upcoming production of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos for being too large to fit into the dress the costumer had designed for the role. There’s no denying that Voigt is a large woman, but she is also quite a well-known woman who has made Ariadne her signature role over the course of a very distinguished career. But the casting director at the Royal Opera insists that the producer’s vision for the production simply precluded Ms. Voigt’s participation, and further added that, in his opinion, many singers use their profession as “an excuse to eat too much.”

Just Like School, But Without The Pop Quizzes

The civic reading programs that seem to be springing up all across America have a suspicious ring of junior high to them, writes Patti Thorn: “Reading is personal; do we really want to follow a crowd in our march to literacy?” But there does seem to be some merit to the idea of encouraging average folks to dissect the plot of a community-read book the way we all used to hash over the latest episode of Seinfeld, and the book Denver has chosen for its citywide read is uniquely positioned to promote not only literacy, but community as well.

Jansons In Pittsburgh: The Exit Interview

Mariss Jansons’s tenure as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has been an unqualified success by artistic standards, and as the maestro prepares for his final concerts in the Steel City, he still speaks of his musicians with great affection, praising their humility and work ethic as well as their talent and skill. But if Jansons has any regrets about his time at the PSO, the blame can be laid squarely at the feet of America’s political and cultural disinterest in great art. “What I can’t understand is having this orchestra in the city and not supporting it, or making it a treasure. This I don’t understand as politics. I lived in Soviet Union, the officials didn’t like classical music, but how they supported art and sport, you can’t imagine.”

Standards & Practices: The New Broadcast Puritanism

“After years of pushing limits and pocketing profits, broadcasters find themselves in a gathering storm over indecency. And it is not likely to blow over soon. Too much is at stake. The FCC, having been blasted as inattentive, is seeking congressional support for a tenfold increase in fines for objectionable content. Last week, a U.S. House committee said the proposed increase – from $27,500 to $275,000 – wasn’t steep enough, voting to raise penalties to $500,000. Commission member Michael Copps is saying it is high time the FCC, which has never pulled a station’s license for indecency, got the attention of broadcasters by holding revocation hearings.”