“While research has found that arts education can improve overall academic performance, the studies are preliminary on whether the arts can contribute to peace among youth. But encouraging evidence can be gleaned from personal observations. In cities around the country, corrections staff, nonprofit organizations, and individuals are putting together arts education programs for at-risk youth, with city and state arts commissions. In Boston, a nonprofit group called Artists for Humanity has apprenticeships for economically disadvantaged urban teenagers.”
Blog
What Happens When The Definition Of “Classic” Changes
Classic movies aren’t what they used to be. That’s not a judgment – more of an observation. “The canon has been changing over the last decade, and what makes a classic of cinema is now drastically different to discerning young moviegoers than it has been to their teachers or to the critics or to Leonard Maltin. The implications of the new canon are vast, much bigger than the specific films themselves, and they speak to the ways in which a new generation perceives history, reality, and even perception itself.”
Art Sales Scandals – Broken Trust
Recent tax scandals with art sales, and the auction houses’ price fixing trials damage all of the art world, writes ex-dealer Andre Emmerich. “Art dealing is a business based on trust. People who buy and sell art – whether or not they consider themselves collectors – must have confidence in the person they are doing business with. When one dealer is seen to be dishonest, the public is likely to conclude that most dealers are shady, just as the recent scandals surrounding Enron, Tyco and a few other corporations have affected investor confidence across the board.”
What Our Kids Are Reading
Which children’s books sold in 2002? A list of the top titles shows Lemony Snicket on top. But clocking in at No. 3 is former NEH chairman and present vice-presidential wife Lynne Cheney with “America: A Patriotic Primer.”
Breaking Up Andre Breton’s Treasure
“Why are some scholars aghast at the idea of breaking up Andre Breton’s art collection? “The surrealist wizard was an outstanding art critic as well as a classic prose writer, a major poet, and a perceptive commentator on more general intellectual history. Because of his commitment to the work of leading painters and sculptors, Breton’s art collection ranged from André Derain to Man Ray and Joan Miró, from Giacometti to James Rosenquist, a Pop artist he admired. But he was also a connoisseur of the indigenous arts of the Pacific, especially New Guinea and its neighboring islands, as well as of the Hopi and other Pueblo Indians and the pre-Columbian cultures of Mexico. What’s more, his personal friendships extended from the outstanding Parisian poets and artists of his time to such figures as Sigmund Freud and Leon Trotsky–all of whom presented him with signed books and manuscripts.”
San Francisco Opera Cuts Staff, Budget
Struggling to solve its financial situation, San Francisco Opera has cut $5.2 million from its budget. Six jobs were cut, and production cutbacks were made. “In addition to the $2.8 million in savings projected from the staff cuts, SF Opera director Pamela Rosenberg has approved $1.8 million in savings in production expenses, including travel, material and construction costs.”
Destroying The Cradle Of Civilization?
Archaeologists fear that George Bush’s war on Iraq and its aftermath could “obliterate much of humanity’s earliest heritage. Heavily looted in the last 10 years, Iraq’s archaeological treasure remains as precarious as the rest of the country’s post-war future. ‘What’s really at stake here is our past. What happened here was the establishment of civilization as we know it – codified religion, bureaucracy, cities, writing. What developed there was modern life – urban existence.”
Preservation Hall – Those 60s Buildings As Art
London’s Royal College of Art needs to expand in the worst way. The college held a design competition, and everything seemed set to go, until preservationists got wind of the plan to demolish some of the RCA’s current 60s-vintage building. “Hold on a sec, says the Twentieth Century Society. Isn’t the RCA listed? You can’t just knock it about willy-nilly…”
The Hermit Who Wrote A Hit Opera
Not for years has a new opera wowed the critics and enthralled the public as Danish composer Poul Ruders’s opera of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” has done. “Premiered three years ago in Copenhagen in a staging by Phyllida Lloyd, the Dane’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1986 bestseller was acclaimed as a modern masterpiece: savage, satirical, yet lyrical, evoking both a brutal totalitarianism and private tragedy. ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ looks like it may be one of the most popular operas of our time. Productions are planned in Washington, Minneapolis and Toronto. And next week it gets its British premiere when Lloyd’s staging comes to English National Opera.”
The Man Who Saved The Kirov
“In 1988, conductor Valery Gergiev emerged as a “poster-boy for Gorbachev’s perestroika, an intense young man chosen at the tender age of 34 to lead Leningrad’s Kirov Opera. Today, everything has changed: Leningrad is once again St. Petersburg, and the Kirov Theatre has reverted to its czarist name, the Mariinsky (although its ensembles – the opera, the ballet, the orchestra and chorus — still tour under the name Kirov). The one factor that has remained constant is Gergiev. He’s no longer quite so young – his shaggy hairstyle disguises a combed-over bald spot – yet he has lost none of his intensity.”