“Although it is difficult to track the extent of the black-market culture trade, several have tried to do so. According to Argos, a French insurance group, about US$10-billion worth of art treasures is stolen and traded around the world every year. It’s become the fourth-largest illicit activity – behind drugs, guns and fraud. The history of modern conflict is the history of mass looting – and not just the garden-variety filching of electronic goods; an educated few leap on wars as opportunities to take a nation’s cultural collections into private hands.”
Blog
No White Knight For Florida Philharmonic (So Far)
So far no one has stepped forward to help bail out the Florida Philharmonic, which needs to raise $20 million by Friday so it can stay in business. “The Philharmonic, which has run deficits ranging from $900,000 to $3.6 million each year since 1999, needs about $4 million right away, Lewis said. The orchestra can make its May 9 payroll but will run out of money before it can pay employees on May 23. ‘What is difficult for me as a potential donor . . . is to hear that the orchestra has been so badly managed before and now we should trust you to make a better orchestra.”
Moving On – Frank Stella
Frank Stella is “probably the world’s most famous living abstract artist. He is 70 years old and on the short side, but he has a sweeping, imperious manner. He was born in Massachusetts and studied at Princeton University. His frequent pronouncements about art are flavoured by a generous dollop of intellectual pride, which goes strangely with his high-pitched New York voice – comedic shades of Woody Allen or Joe Pesci. ‘I only really care about the immediate impact that art has on you,” he says. “I like all the other things that go after, but I can’t help it, I go by the first hit’.”
Poetry’s Popular – But Not Some Poetry…
“The great tradition of English poetry has become an almost exclusively academic interest. The days when every literate household contained a copy of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury are long gone. Spenser, Sidney and Milton don’t benefit from popularity-boosting costume dramas. They demand a sort of concentration we are reluctant to give – you can’t read them in the bath or on the train. Even the more accessible Romantics, such as Coleridge and Shelley, engage us more as psychological cases than as versifiers. The idea of a poet is more alluring than the idea of a poem. We’re a cynical, materialistic lot, and we want language to be functional, not fanciful. Yet at a shallow level we consume more poetry than ever before.”
Why They Love Saatchi
Charles Saatchi’s new gallery is a big success. “More than 4,000 a day have passed through the wood-panelled monument to civic bureaucracy since it opened to the public on 17 April, turning one man’s fancy into one of the must-sees on London’s tourist map. It was always bound to be a hit. The Saatchi name is a bigger brand than any that Charles ever represented in his advertising days. The gallery is its latest, logical manifestation, embracing some of the most iconic objects of the end of the 20th century. All that remains to be resolved is whether it can live up to its own exquisite hype.”
Nashashibi Wins Beck’s Prize
Rosalind Nashashibi has become the first woman to win the Beck’s Futures Prize – one of the art world’s richest. Her entry was a black and white film of senior citizens rummaging through a jumble sale. “Her four 16mm films were billed as explorations of cultural displacement.”
Rijksmuseum Closed After Asbestos Scare
Amsterdam’s famous Rijksmuseum has been closed for an indefinite period after asbestos was found in the building during an inspection.
Iraq Museum Director Describes “Crime Of The Century”
The director of Iraq’s National Museum goes to London to describe what happened to his museum. “The looting was the crime of the century, Dr Donny George told representatives from some of the world’s leading museums at a meeting in London. The meeting, at the British Museum, saw photographs of the vandalism and heard that many of the 170,000 items in the collection had vanished. The aim of the London summit was to decide what can be done by the international community to restore Iraq’s devastated heritage.”
Savannah Symphony Files For Bankruptcy
The Savannah (Georgia) Symphony, which was unable to meet its payroll in January and hasn’t performed since, has decided to file for bankruptcy. The orchestra owes $1 million it can’t pay.
Recovering Iraqi Art Loot – What’s Next…
“Unesco is to send a team of eight experts to Iraq to make an assessment of the situation and devise a plan for the next stage in the salvage operation. It is also calling on the UN Security Council to pass a resolution which would place an immediate embargo on all Iraqi cultural goods. This would also include the return of goods to Iraq that may have already entered the market. The UN organisation will then compile a database with all the archives, lists and inventories relating to Iraqi heritage.”