Will California Governor-elect Schwarzenegger create some incentives for movie producers to film in California? “Tax breaks, labor credits and other sweeteners are considered by many to be crucial if California is to compete more aggressively with lower-cost foreign locations such as Canada, Australia, Britain and Eastern Europe, as well as states offering incentives such as Illinois, Louisiana and New Mexico.”
Blog
Peter Hall’s Theatreworld
Peter Hall is one of the theatre’s most distinguished citizens. But Hall, 72, is not a director emeritus grazing the pastures of praise, memoirs and lifetime achievement awards. Since relinquishing his role as head of the National, which he ran from its opening in 1973 to 1988, Hall has followed an independent and varied path, generating and staging works for the West End, Broadway and the world’s great opera stages.”
Art Market Downturn
The new Art Sales Index reveals a downturn in art sales in the past year. “This massive annual worldwide survey shows that the international art auction market shrank by 10 per cent from £1.63 billion to £1.45 billion in the 12-month period that ended in August. In the US auction turnover was down by 11.7 per cent, while in Britain the decrease was 18 per cent.”
Japan’s New Modern Art Palace (Atop A Bank Building)
Tokyo’s new Mori Museum could reinvent the Japanese modern art world. “The 30,000 sq ft museum covers two floors at the top of the 54-storey Mori Tower. To help lure visitors, the £8 admission charge includes access to the observation floor, which commands staggering views all the way to Mount Fuji. The challenge is to get visitors as interested in the art as the scenery. The Japanese public remains wary of contemporary art and has traditionally been interested only in the big names of Western art: Monet, Manet, Renoir, Picasso.”
Booker Winner Begins To Repay Debts
Booker winner Peter Finlay has made good on beginning to repay those he says he swindled. “The colourful author of the comic novel Vernon God Little, which won the £50,000 prize from under the nose of Monica Ali’s highly fancied Brick Lane, has paid the first £3,000 instalment of the £42,000 he has agreed to repay Robert Lenton.”
Naked Butts Draw Crowds
An exhibition of photographs of 600 human posteriors has caused a stir in Argentina. The “Carne de Identidad” (a play on the Spanish words for “identity card” – “carnet de identidad” and “flesh of identity” – “carne de identidad”) exhibition has been drawing in the crowds in Buenos Aires. Its next stop is Chile and then, if the civil unrest there dies down, Bolivia.
Opera At The Crossroads
“The future health and development of opera depends on it embracing the whole of society, and that means being a part of society and being prepared to change as rapidly as society itself. We have to find a way of recovering a fundamental sense of adventure, challenge and interaction – a modern world demands nothing less. However, the desire to keep everybody happy – from paymasters to reviewers, from the conservative and wealthy to the modish and wealthy – has created a strange climate of catch-all, in which it is sometimes difficult to understand whether we are being offered vision, excellence, audience-pleasers, or a competition for who can produce the glossiest international brochure.”
Saving Raphael For God And Country
A prominent curator attacks the British government for not stepping up to keep Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks from being sold to the Getty and moved to the US: “Can anyone seriously suggest that the country would not be much much poorer without the great works of art in this exhibition? The National Gallery is the greatest place in the world for the study of early works by Raphael, and that’s where the picture should be. For God’s sake! If it’s not Raphael then it must be the work of some even greater artist whose name is currently unknown to us. Of course it’s a Raphael.”
Governor General Lit Nominations
Margaret Atwood is nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award, adding to her Giller and Booker nominations this year. “Otherwise, there was no overlap between the Giller and the Governor General’s awards in the fiction category. Elizabeth Hay of Ottawa received a nomination for Garbo Laughs, as did Edeet Ravel of Montreal for Ten Thousand Lovers. Two expatriates are also on the list: Jean McNeil, formerly of Nova Scotia and Toronto, and now living in Britain, for Private View, and Douglas Glover, an Ontarian who resides in Wilton, N.Y., for Elle.”
Judge Raps Judgment For Eminem
“A judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by a former schoolmate of rapper Eminem – and she included a rap of her own to explain the ruling…”