It may seem a bit premature for a country in which large chunks of the population are still without power, private homes, and schools, but a group of U.S. arts leaders have been dispatched to Iraq to survey the damage caused to the country’s cultural scene. Iraq’s global cultural significance cannot be overstated – this is the cradle of civilization, after all – but at a time when the future could not be more uncertain, many arts leaders are concerned that even the country’s most venerable institutions will have a hard time making the transition to a post-Saddam Hussein reality.
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Spoleto’s Surprise Surplus
“Spoleto Festival USA’s board of directors has learned that the 27th season of the arts festival ended up $10,007 in the black. The unaudited results for the fiscal year ending Aug. 31 showed that the festival’s $6.3 million budget got a strong boost from a record $2.5 million in ticket sales, according to a statement released by the festival Friday following a board meeting in New York. Not only was this year’s festival the highest-grossing ticket sales season in its history, but about half of its performances also were sold out.”
Now That We’ve Scared The Pants Off You…
The recording industry, pleased with the drop in file sharing activity since it began suing file-swappers this past summer, has announced that it will now begin warning offenders that they are about to be sued, and offering them an opportunity to settle out of court if they respond within ten days. The move is seen as an effort to quiet consumer advocates who decried the industry’s heavy-handed tactics after it was revealed that the targets of the lawsuit campaign included a 12-year-old girl and a 71-year-old grandfather.
Well, That’s One Way To Get Exhibited
A well-known British graffiti artist snuck one of his own works into the Tate Britain museum this week, and glued it to the wall, along with a typical title card describing the work. “The picture consisted of a rural scene with an image of police tape stencilled on to it,” and the card explained that the artist “argues that ruining the work in this way reflects how our nation has been vandalised by an obsession with crime and paedophilia.” No one at the Tate noticed the unscheduled addition to its collection until the painting came unglued and crashed to the floor several hours later.
Catalan Author Dies at Airport
“Manuel Vazquez Montalban, one of Spain’s most celebrated writers, has died aged 64. Mr Montalban died of a heart attack as he changed flights at Bangkok international airport on Friday, Spanish diplomats said… The Catalan author and left-wing political commentator was famed for writing 50 books – translated into 24 languages – as well as creating the fictional detective character, Pepe Carvalho.”
D.C. Arts Center Facing Eviction
A seemingly endless battle between the city government of Washington, D.C. and a small arts center housed in a former junior high school came to a head this week, as the District served the Millenium Arts Center with an eviction notice. Accusations are flying back and forth – the MAC doesn’t pay its rent; the city doesn’t keep its word; etc. – but both sides seem almost eager to force a public confrontation over a dispute which has been simmering quietly for several years.
Show Me A Man…
Philip Marchand thinks that the world of Canadian literature could do with a good, healthy shot of testosterone. “I don’t know if there is any wider significance to this year’s rash of novels populated by feminized or ineffectual men. There has always been this tendency in Canadian literature, particularly French Canadian literature, but it has never seemed so blatant as now.” Regardless of the cause, Marchand finds himself pining for the strong male characters of Mordecai Richler, or at least the suave calm of Robertson Davies’ men. Is Canada in the grip of a newly metrosexual literary tradition?
Detroit’s New Digs: Spending Money To Make Money
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra could very well have chosen to spend the last few years hiding under a pile of the Motor City’s ever-present downtown rubble, and hoping that the financial roof wouldn’t fall in. After all, orchestras are in terible shape just about everywhere, and Detroit is hardly a model for the type of forward-looking urban development that orchestras must embrace to make strides in an increasingly diverse entertainment universe. Instead, the DSO took a big, beautiful chance, and invested millions in a newly revitalized concert hall in one of the city’s most blighted neighborhoods. No one yet knows if the plan will succeed, but thank God someone is still trying, says William Littler.
Why Must Music Be Transcendant?
Classical music, and opera in particular, is often held up as a beacon of transcendant, other-worldly beauty, in a culture obsessed with speed and reduced to communicating through sound bites. But that perception doesn’t often square with reality, says Anne Midgette, and the fact that listeners aren’t being transported to a higher realm on an average night at the Met doesn’t mean that the music has failed, simply that our expectations are misplaced. “Opera deals in human emotions, not divine and ethereal ones. When singing is sublime, it’s partly because it amplifies those emotions with a kind of inner purity.”
Keeping The Nasher Collection Local
One of the world’s finest collections of sculpture is located in Dallas, Texas. This is a fine thing for Dallasites, but such remote outposts of great art have a way of rankling the artistic glitterati in New York, London, and other ‘glamour cities,’ and for years, various museums and collectors have schemed and plotted various courses of action by which they might acquire the Nasher Collection. “But to the relief of home fans, Mr. Nasher, having thoroughly enjoyed the wooing, rejected the suitors… [This week,] the $70 million Nasher Sculpture Center, a smashing combination of indoor museum and outdoor environment built and owned by the Nasher Foundation, opens to the public.”