“Frank Gehry, the architect who created the stupendous Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, has been given the go ahead to build the most outrageous set of tower blocks ever conceived for [the UK] on Brighton seafront.” [Editor’s Note for American readers: ‘Tower block’ is English for ‘high-rise apartment complex.’] The buildings are said to look like “four giant transvestites caught in a gale,” and will be built in the city of Hove, which has something of a history with cutting-edge architecture.
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Pioneering Denver Museum Falls On Hard Times
“The private museum that helped transform a gritty Denver street into a cutting-edge spot for art galleries is in a deep financial and management funk. Museo de las Americas, an 11-year-old institution that two years ago had plans for a $10 million expansion, now finds itself running a bare-bones operation… The institution’s executive director – who was working for free – resigned in June after less than six months on the job. Twelve of its 15 directors have left in the past year, and past-due bills are piling up. Salaries run about $21,000 per month and expenses run $15,000, but the Museo has only about $60,000 banked.”
A Different Sort Of Art Auction
You can find pretty much anything for sale on eBay, of course, so it probably shouldn’t be a big surprise that you can find an empty tube of toothpaste with a $41 asking price. Or a worn-out hairbrush. Or a human soul, won in a video game contest and now being resold. But there’s a twist to these bizarre aucton items. “Meet Neal Livingston of Mabou, N.S., a 58-year-old maker of independent films, electricity and maple syrup who is currently using the world’s largest on-line flea market as an incidental gallery for a new media project titled, appropriately enough, Junky Old Stuff.”
Ravinia Rethinking Its Orchestral Partnership
To most music lovers in the Midwest, the Ravinia Festival is nearly synonymous with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. But the partnership betwen the two organizations has seen far better days, and since the CSO does not own the festival – a nearly unique situation among major American orchestras – Ravinia is considering serious changes to its schedule which would deemphasize the orchestra’s participation. Ticket sales for CSO performances at Ravinia have been off sharply for the last several years, and that has the festival seriously considering a plan which would cut the number of performances the orchestra puts on at Ravinia each summer.
Turgeon’s Bilingual House Hit With A Lawsuit
Stephen Williams, the Canadian author who has sold 37,000 copies of his book Karla: A Pact With The Devil since it was released five months ago, is suing publisher Pierre Turgeon and his bilingual publishing house, Cantos, claiming that Williams has been paid only a fraction of what he is due from the book’s proceeds. The book in question, which examines the case of a notorious Canadian serial killer, has been exceedingly controversial, and was at one point thought to be in violation of a gag order issued in the case. Turgeon claims that the controversy has hurt sales, and denies that the book has turned a profit.
Finishing What They Started
The UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles has been mostly finished for a decade. When the building opened in 1990, a design for a theater was incorporated and roughed out, but never fully built. The Hammer Museum has now received a $5 million gift from the widow of director Billy Wilder, with the money to be used to complete the theater project. “The Wilder donation gives a much-needed boost to the museum’s fund-raising campaign for its planned $26.5-million renovation.”
Money Talks, Diversity Walks
The McMichael Canadian Art Collection is absurdly dedicated to a tiny circle of seven specific artists, thanks to its stubborn founder, and yet it still receives an inordinate amount of backing from the provincial government of Ontario, says Sarah Milroy. “Attempts to gracefully loosen the grand vizier’s grip of steel have come to naught, with the province appointing successive waves of like-minded souls to the board to defend the rough-hewn ramparts from the encroachments of contemporaneity. No sticky incursions of race will be welcomed in this Mighty Whitey chapel of Canadiana, thank you very much.”
Wouldn’t It Be Better To Force Them To Give More?
This week, the du Maurier Arts Council, a division of the du Maurier tobacco company, handed out its annual arts grants for the last time. A new Canadian federal regulation prohibits tobacco companies from being directly involved in arts funding, as part of a larger bill which restricted tobacco advertising. With money for the arts hard to come by in any case, many arts advocates are furious at the new regulation, with one theater executive saying, “The federal government telling anyone they can’t give money to the arts is a load of s—.”
The Pianist Who Lives In Gershwin’s Head
Kevin Cole has carved out a niche for himself as America’s leading interpreter as Gershwin’s piano music, and has solidified his reputation as a crowd-pleaser with performances from coast to coast. But Howard Reich sees potential in Cole that goes far beyond simple performance. American orchestras all seem to struggle when called upon to plan a concert of classic American music (Copland and Bernstein aside,) and Reich thinks that Cole “ripe for an artistic directorship that doesn’t yet exist, but ought to.”
Playing The Parent Card
The new generation of teens and pre-teens are, naturally, more computer-savvy than any previous bunch of kids. And that means that they do a tremendous amount of file-sharing, and they know exactly where to find the free (and illegal) music. Furthermore, they do not appear to be terribly responsive to begging or threats. So the recording industry is trying to get to them in the only way they think might have an effect: they’re calling the little pirates’ parents.