“Will the board stick with a New Yorker, or will it look around the country? (Oskar Eustis at Trinity Rep in Providence has the dynamic personality of a Joseph Papp, a commitment to new work and even a strong Kushner connection to boot.) Will the board look to England? (Not likely given the urban-driven identity of the Public.) It’s been fairly quiet in the world of artistic-director job searches.”
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The Top 30 Romantic Films Of All Time
What are the most romantic movies of all time? The Telegraph compiles a list…
Pakistani City Sees Its First Ballet
Lahore, Pakistan saw its first Western classical ballet ever this weekend, as members of the Bolshoi Ballet performed. “The skilled grace of the ballerinas and the expansive power of two highly honoured singers were of a quality rarely seen at Al-Hamra.”
Berlin’s Window On Film
The Berlinale Film Festival is a workhorse festival. “Attracting an audience this year of more than 60,000, the Berlinale conjures up neither the glitz nor the summer sun of the more celebrated Cannes and Venice festivals. But, as it has increasingly done since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the festival is spiced with independent films and disheveled directors from countries such as Argentina, South Africa, Cuba and Slovenia.”
Do Arts Taxes Help The Local Economy?
“Does spending tax dollars on the arts give the local economy any more of a boost? Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) residents will vote in March on Issue 31, a property-tax levy that would raise nearly $21 million annually to help local industries, including the arts. If it passes, what can the voters expect in exchange for their higher property tax?”
How To Save The NEA? Privatize!
Tony Brown writes that it’s all well and good for George Bush to propose budget increases for the National Endowment for the Arts. But if he really wanted to do something, he should privatize the agency and give it a real endowment that could sustain its funding for years to come.
Of Religion And Art – Scandals For The Centuries
“In Western culture the question of how to picture divinity has a history longer than Christianity’s. Plato chewed on it while his Greek contemporaries had no qualms about personifying deities in statuary and vase painting. Eventually Christianity, Judaism and Islam all codified their own prohibitions against imaging divinity, though all tolerated breaches of the rules at various times for various reasons. Over the centuries disputants in the matter filled libraries with esoteric arguments for and against likenesses of deity.”
Protesting A Scottish Hollywood
An ambitious plan to build a Scottish Hollywood has been hit by opposition. “A Glasgow businessman has submitted a scheme for a £250m national film studio in rural Perthshire that would attract big-budget films and big-name actors. But the 300 residents of Aberuthven are far from star-struck. They fear the studio with its plans for a timeshare and new housing will quadruple the size of the community and ruin their tranquil way of life.”
Spanish Theatre Censored In Australia
A Spanish theatre company was forced to censor part of its show in Australia. “The play opened to boos from the audience at its Australian premiere in Melbourne last week when it was announced that scenes had been censored to gain an R-rating from the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). The scenes, depicting explicit sex acts, were pixelated or obscured by bright lights.”
Stockholm Museum Reopens After Building Ailments Force Closure
It was devastating when, just three years after its new building had opened in 1998, Stockholm’s National Museum of Modern Art had to close because of water and ventilation prolems. “Now, after two years of refurbishment and improvements, the Swedish National Museum of Modern Art is reopening on 14 February, with its building, designed by Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, hopefully cured of all its ailments.”