“The Libeskind design was considered the front-runner for weeks, although a rival plan by an architecture team called Think, which featured two soaring latticework towers called the World Cultural Center, collected strong support as the decision neared. Ultimately, however, rebuilding officials voted in favor of Mr. Libeskind’s somber treatment of the memorial and the incorporation of an active street life in the commercial portions of the site.”
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Big Cuts At SFMOMA
“The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art plans to cut its exhibitions by as much as 25 percent in the wake of an expected $1 million budget deficit for 2003 and stock market losses that have left its endowment fund $13.9 million in the red. SFMOMA, which has built an international reputation in the past decade, will gradually reduce its exhibits from about 25 per year to perhaps 18 to bring its spending in line with the shrinking economy and the realities of the museum business.”
San Antonio Symphony On The Brink
The latest North American orchestra crisis appears to be heading for a flashpoint in south Texas, where the San Antonio Symphony board is preparing to make a presentation to its musicians today, laying out the cuts the board believes will be necessary to save the financially strapped ensemble. One board member insists that layoffs and payroll cuts are not on the table, but another is ominously quoted as saying, “I think there’s some people who feel, ‘Go ahead and let the symphony fail. It will come back as a smaller orchestra. San Antonio can’t afford this full-service orchestra.'”
Marketing A Memorial
Let it never be said that the two finalists in the Ground Zero sweepstakes were content to sit back and let others decide the fate of their designs. Both Daniel Libeskind and Rafael Viñoly have been working overtime in an effort to make their respective proposals attractive to New York’s political and artistic bigwigs. “With talk of truth and beauty, memory and monument, these architects have been selling themselves like movie stars… Not since Gary Cooper appeared in The Fountainhead has the public been so riveted by architecture and architects.”
Freezing Time In A Memorial – Is It Such A Good Idea?
Like many critics, Christopher Hawthorne was impressed with the emotional punch of Daniel Libeskind’s plans for the World Trade Center site. But like some others, he’s cooled to the idea with time. “What’s really happened is that the passing of time has offered the chance to imagine how the various schemes first unveiled months ago might strike us in 2013 or 2053, rather than 2003. And in that test, Libeskind’s doesn’t fare so well. The ruling above-ground gesture of Libeskind’s plan, seen especially in the towers that would ring the site, is that of the shard, the sharp fragment unleashed by shattering or explosion. Combined with the idea of keeping the pit as open as a fresh wound, the shards seem to aestheticize the violence of Sept. 11. And the further we get from that day, the more misguided it seems to fix the site’s violent history in glass and steel.”
War Is Expensive, Even On Exhibit
“The new Canadian War Museum appears to be headed for tens of millions of dollars in cost overruns, partly the result of unexpected water problems at the LeBreton Flats work site, but also due to a fast-paced construction schedule aimed at completing the building while many of the veterans it honours are still alive.”
How Not To Sell Public Art To The Masses
In Milwaukee, plans for a major work of public art by sculptor Dennis Oppenheim have been shelved after a public outcry against the decidedly modernist piece. James Auer is disappointed by the plan’s defeat, but thinks he knows what the problem was – lack of proper salesmanship. “Perhaps we can retreat, regroup and give some thought to a few general rules about introducing a major work of art by a top talent to a public that is wary of modernism in general and conceptualism in particular.” Auer specifically suggests involving the local media early on in the process, rather than making formal announcements about new artworks which have already been approved.
Why Cut The Arts?
Why are the nation’s governors and legislatures talking about zeroing out (or at least severely slashing) arts funding, when such cuts will be less than a drop in the bucket of spending cuts and tax increases most states will need to balance their bloated budgets this year? The arts are always a popular target for conservative policymakers, but on a fiscal level, the proposed cuts make no sense. Not only does public support of the arts tend to result in more money flowing back into state and local coffers than going out, but the cuts will, in the long run, likely have a negative impact on the economic quality of life in the affected states.
Paying For Piracy in Canada
A series of long-awaited and controversial payouts to musicians, composers, and music publishers has begun in Canada, using money generated by a tax on blank, recordable CDs. The tax was designed to provide a method for compensating music industry professionals for the effects of illegal music piracy. The payout began “right around the time the [industry] was appearing before the Canadian Copyright Board in Ottawa to ask for both significant increases in the levies it’s already been charging and an extension of the levy to computer hard drives, MP3 players, mobile phones and other media.”
Small Edinburgh Press Wins Publisher of The Year Prize
Scotland’s Canongate press hit the big time last year when Yann Martel’s Life Of Pi took the Booker Prize. Last night Canongate’s ascendency to the major league was “confirmed in spectacular fashion as Canongate won Publisher of the Year at the British Book Awards.”