“Visitors to this week’s unveiling of Frank Gehry’s much-anticipated redesign of Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario will find themselves on the receiving end of a protest against the planned $190-million renovation and expansion.” The same community activists who railed against the AGO’s last expansion, in the early 1990s, are claiming that the AGO’s process has ignored community concerns, and will “likely will be in violation of a 1989 agreement and bylaw brokered by the Ontario Municipal Board that… commits the AGO to holding its expansion at what transpired in 1993.” Not surprisingly, the AGO disagrees with that interpretation.
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Success Is The Best Rebuttal
Ever since the Detroit Opera House opened eight years ago, Michigan Opera Theatre has faced serious questions about the long-term financial sustainability of the venue. But now, with MOT in the final phase of a $20 million fund drive, and a major expansion of the opera house about to get underway, founder and director David DiChiera is firmly in the driver’s seat, and no one is doubting his dream-big style anymore.
New Schedule, Same Old Oscar Stress
“This was supposed to be a kinder, gentler Oscar season. After last spring’s awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced a shortened season, moving up nominations from February to January… and shifting the awards show itself from March to February. The idea was to take a bite out of the uber-aggressive campaigning that studios big and small launch in the never-ending quest for a golden statuette or two. It may have seemed like a swell plan, but competition is as fierce as ever, especially with all the added studio intensity – pandemonium, panic, twisted nerves – about adapting to the new schedule.”
C’mon In And Set A Spell
James Cuno will doubtless take some time to decide how to put his unique stamp on the Art Institute of Chicago, but there’s one improvement he’d like to make right away: minimizing “museum fatigue” by adding more benches and chairs for patrons to take a load off while admiring the collection. It seems like an obvious idea, but many museum directors are opposed to having seating in their galleries, saying it distracts from the art. Nonsense, says Cuno. Museumgoers tend to “rush their way through and they don’t see as much as we’d like them to see. You want people to sit down and feel comfortable and sort of pace themselves.”
Plenty Of Hits, But Not Much Money
If there has been a kingmaker in the pop music industry in recent years, Antonio Reid has been it. “In nearly four years as the chief executive of Arista, Mr. Reid, known as L.A., sparked the careers of Avril Lavigne, Pink and Dido. This year alone he brought in 31 Grammy nominations, more than any other label.” But a couple of weeks ago, Reid found himself out of a job, the victim of an increasingly cost-conscious industry for which prestige is no longer enough if it doesn’t translate into profit. The bizarre truth is that, in the last two years under Reid’s watch, Arista lost $200 million.
Stranger Than Fiction
Documentaries have increasingly been gaining traction in the film world, and this year’s Sundance Festival was no exception. From a horrifying first-person look at what happens to the human body when it is fed nothing but food from McDonald’s, to an intimate look at “a roiling skirmish between Latin immigrants and the Long Island natives who’ve lived in a small town for generations,” the documentary made a serious mark in Park City. “The scope and depth of this year’s documentaries made the fiction features seem all the smaller and more navel-gazing.”
Fight the Power
A consortium of 2,000 independent record labels is lodging a complaint with the European Union in an effort to block the pending merger of super-labels Sony and BMG. According to the group, the merged company would control fully 25% of the global music market, and would be able to crush its competition, particularly small, independent labels.
Feeling Used By The Hollywood Machine
As trendy, glamorous American cities go, Seattle ranks pretty far up the list. And during the 1980s and ’90s, when Seattle’s star was rising, Hollywood couldn’t get enough of the place, filming movie after movie in its picturesque urban settings. But these days, the filmmakers’ dash for the Canadian border has left Seattle bereft of new productions, and forced to watch in disbelief as movies set in the city are filmed in Vancouver and other foreign cities. City officials are trying desperately to lure Hollywood back to town with financial incentives and other deals, but so far, nothing is working.
Giving Up In Glasgow
The Scottish Ballet has backed off its plans to convert a popular Glasgow visual arts space into its new headquarters, in the face of mounting criticism from the city’s other arts leaders. When concerns were initially voiced about the ballet’s plans to convert the Tramway building to office space, the company revised its plans in an effort to be responsive, but the criticism continued, leading to the decision to scrap the whole enterprise. The ballet has also withdrawn its application for federal funds to help with the conversion, and says it is going back to the drawing board.
A Hackney (Not Hackneyed) Restoration
“At a cost of £15m, the Hackney Empire will reopen tomorrow, a delirium of colour, from gold to brown. It’s anyone’s vision of the voluptuous beauty of an Edwardian music hall – and as phoney as a chocolate £6 note.” As the restoration proceeded, it became clear that the original color scheme of the theater was a bet, well, slap-dash, and the restorers opted for a faux period look, rather than a historically accurate repaint. “The east London theatre, which 20 years ago narrowly escaped demolition for a car park, was designed by the architect Frank Matcham, and is generally agreed to be the best surviving Victorian and Edwardian music hall.”