Looters emptied the house of Iraqi vice-premier Tariq Aziz, “stealing everything from paintings to curtains, kitchen units, and even stripped the electrical wires from the villa’s main switchboard. But what they left behind in his library was politically notable: the complete works of Saddam Hussein in Arabic, the mafia novels of Mario Puzo, author of the Godfather, and a book on geopolitics by Richard Nixon, former US president.”
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Suing To Sell Books On The Streets Of New Orleans
On the streets of New Orleans you can sell candles, razor blades, toiletries, pencils and shoelaces. You can sell photographs, weigh people, stage art shows and hold cooking demonstrations. What you can’t do is sell books. Now a move to sue to get the ordinance changed to allow bookselling.
The Greatest Generation
The American artists who came of age in the 60s and 70s are the country’s greatest generation of artists. “They are men mostly, with big egos and big ideas. They were the first Americans to influence Europeans. The work these artists made changed, or at least questioned, the nature of art: what it looked like, its size, its materials, its attitude toward the places where it was shown, its relation to architecture, light and space and to the land. The artists even questioned whether art needed to be a tangible object. Minimalism, Post-Minimalism, Earth art, video art, Conceptualism – suddenly art could be nothing more than an idea, a thought on a piece of paper that played in your head. It could be ephemeral or atmospheric, like the experience of a room illuminated by colored fluorescent tubes.”
Johnny On The Spot – The Perfect Life Of John Eliot Gardiner
Conductor John Eliot Gardiner “heads the list of most recorded, and most awarded, musicians in history. He has wealth, a knighthood, a captivating wife, charisma. At home in several languages and an accomplished historian, he is also infuriatingly brainy. Put another way, he is ambitious, self-centred, workaholic, privileged, caustic. Human nature is not always generous to those who win.”
Computer Program Can Identify Composers?
“A standard PC file-compression program can tell the difference between classical music, jazz and rock, all without playing a single note. This new-found ability could help scholars identify the composers of music that until now has remained anonymous.”
Commercial Interests Picking Apart Libeskind’s WTC Plans
Stakeholders in the process to build on the site of the World Trade Center are already starting to pick apart the Daniel Libeskind design that had been chosen for the site. The owner of a retail mall that had been in the base of the World Trade Center doesn’t like the design: ‘We don’t think [the Libeskind plan] works. So why don’t we sit down and fix it? Why not have a meeting? It’s not that difficult. We think we can help and make it better.’ Westfield’s unhappiness is significant because the company and the Port Authority will have to renegotiate Westfield’s lease at the site.”
Stolen Schiele Painting To Be Sold
An Egon Schiele painting that spent half a century in an museum in Austria before being returned to the heirs of the Jewish collectors from whom it was stolen by the Nazis is expected to bring in £7 million at Sotheby’s in London in June.
What Music Slump? Indie Labels Flourish As Majors Struggle
While execs at major recording labels “wail about the industry’s imminent collapse, indie labels and artists are singing a much happier tune. Profits are up – in some cases by 50 to 100 percent. That’s in contrast to overall album sales, which dropped about 11 percent in 2002. You won’t hear many of these labels’ artists on pop radio – and ironically, that’s one of the secrets to their success. By avoiding the major expenses associated with getting a tune on the air – which can cost upwards of $400,000 or $500,000 per song – independent labels are able to turn a profit far more quickly, and share more of those profits with their artists.”
Greece’s Acropolis Museum – Now All It Needs Is The Art
“Greece is rushing to build the $100 million New Acropolis Museum to house the Marbles for the 2004 Summer Olympics, locating it next to the rocky citadel in the heart of ancient Athens. The three-level museum will be topped with a glass-walled Parthenon Gallery to display the carvings in brilliant sunlight, just 800 feet from, and slightly below, the temple they once adorned. Innovative and earthquake-proof, the museum aims to rebut longtime British objections to the Elgin Marbles’ return – that Greece lacked first-rate display space to assure the safety of the 480-foot-long section of the Parthenon frieze. British officials are also worried that a repatriation of the Marbles, even on loan, could set a precedent for other claims on antiquities removed from original sites.”
Dutoit’s Legacy Lives On In Montreal
A year after the Dutoit debacle, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra would like to move on, and look to a future it insists is still quite bright. But Arthur Kaptainis isn’t ready to forget the man who gave the MSO its reputation and distinctive sound: “There are many subscribers and musicians who prefer a disposable past. By suspending its former practice of listing in its concert programs its first and most recent performances of works, the MSO administration itself has attempted to toss Dutoit into the memory hole. But it has not succeeded. The evidence of what he achieved is inextinguishable, for it is there every week.”