“On the one hand, the opening of the magnificent Nasher Sculpture Center and garden is a public event of international significance… But the sculpture center is also an intensely personal story of the marriage of Patsy Rabinowitz, daughter of a Dallas businessman, and Massachusetts-born Raymond Nasher, a self-made man, the son of Russian immigrants. It is the culmination of their remarkable collecting partnership that ended prematurely with Patsy Nasher’s death from cancer in 1988 at age 59.”
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The Disney As Grace Note
LA’s new Disney Hall is “indeed a dynamic sculpture in the cityscape, but it entices rather than asserts. Its lilting abstract geometries flow seamlessly into one another, and its billowing walls, pieced together out of 10-by-4-foot sheets of stainless steel, seem alternately to reflect and absorb the changing natural light. And then there is the 2,265-seat concert hall itself, a surprise within a surprise, a spacious cocoon of rotund wooden forms with seating all around the orchestral stage.”
Missing The Substance: Can Morrie Make the Jump?
Sportswriter Mitch Albom’s tender memoir of a friendship with an old college professor was a surprise hit when it shot to the top of the bestseller lists a few years back. But the elements that make Tuesdays with Morrie a great book may be the very elements which are making a new theatrical version somewhat disappointing, says Chris Jones. “It has so little shading and such limited thematic complexity. One could make a decent argument that the shamelessly sentimental Tuesdays With Morrie is to Hamlet what Dr. Phil is to Sigmund Freud. It uses the same language, but it emphasizes simple, accessible communication rather than difficult truths.”
Latino Museum Plan Takes A Step Forward
The idea of starting a National Museum of the American Latino has begun to gain traction in recent years, and this week, supporters got a legislative boost, when a California congressman introduced a bill to authorize a feasibility study for the museum. “The museum would be based in Washington and might be under the umbrella of the Smithsonian Institution.” If it were built, it would join two other new museums dedicated to American minorities: “A museum dedicated to Native American culture is nearing completion at the southeast corner of the Mall. An African American museum is awaiting full congressional approval.”
We Want Our Free DVDs!
“Rarely in recent Hollywood history has there been an uprising of this magnitude over such an apparently trivial matter. But ever since the Motion Picture Association of America announced two weeks ago that studios had to stop sending out free DVDs of their movies to voters during the coming awards season, the mob has been storming the castle gates. The ban on so-called ‘screeners’ was intended to stop unauthorized duplication of the films, a problem that concerns many in the industry. But to read the daily headlines in the industry trade papers, nothing less than the future of creativity in the movies is at stake.”
Progress, Slow But Steady
Racial diversity is slowly coming to American TV, according to a new report from a media watchdog group. Hispanics have made the greatest gains in recent years, with Hispanic characters being introduced in many mainstream shows, but Asian-Americans are still grossly underrepresented on U.S. screens. The coalition that issued the report singled out CBS’s new drama, Joan of Arcadia as being absurdly devoid of Asian-Americans, since it takes place in the heavily Asian town of Arcadia, California. Still, the coalition is no longer calling for the network boycotts it threatened a few years ago, and acknowledges that real progress is being made.
Tragedy and Possibility: The Sylvia Plath Revival
“She died 40 years ago, succumbing intentionally to a kitchen oven’s gas fumes at age 30. He survived 35 years longer before dying of cancer. They were still married but no longer together when she left the world of the living. So why are Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes the golden couple of fall 2003?”
New Leadership In Houston Brings Hope For Stability
“The board of the Menil Collection in Houston named its new director yesterday: Josef Helfenstein, director of the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Mr. Helfenstein succeeds Ned Rifkin, who resigned almost a year ago to head the Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington.” The Menil Collection has functioned amid considerable internal turmoil over the last several years, but with the appointment of Helfenstein, it is hoped that an organization which has sometimes had trouble defining itself will finally have a chance to establish a firm direction.
First Impressions In Detroit
As part of the massive expansion of the Detroit Symphony’s Max M. Fisher Music Center, a new 450-seat chamber music hall was built, and the DSO is hoping that it will be the key to drawing new audiences to classical music in the city. The new hall looks great, but how does it sound? “Judging acoustics based on only one night in the hall is a bit like tasting Bordeaux from the barrel, but with that caveat in mind, the sound-bite summary is this: The hall is not perfect, but the acoustics Wednesday were promising enough that it’s safe to call the Music Box the best hall for chamber music in metro Detroit.”
The Next Big Thing In Art? Look East.
“A powerful argument can be made that the most exciting art in the world is being made by Chinese artists – most younger than 40 – who work in their homeland or have immigrated elsewhere… China has emerged from the intellectual repression of the Cultural Revolution to become an economic tiger ready to assert its place in the world. And that sometimes tumultuous transformation has sparked an incredible explosion of creativity.”