English Heritage has released a report that concludes that the country’s “historic environment is ‘a massively underexploited asset, which is under attack from all sides.’ Threats include ‘a skills crisis, incongruous development, half a century of unsympathetic agricultural policy, inappropriate tax regimes, climate change and natural erosion, and of course, a lack of funds’.”
Blog
Is The Art Museum-Building Boom Done?
“During the 1990s stock market bubble, every major arts institution planned to build or renovate. Some projects were completed (Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art), some started long ago remain on track (Museum of Modern Art in NY, Nelson Atkins in Kansas City), while others have scaled back (the Metropolitan), and still others appear to have stalled (Art Institute of Chicago, Boston Museum of Fine Art, Whitney Museum, Jewish Museum in San Francisco).”
Miami Art Show – City Of The Future?
The first Art Basel Miami was a big success. Though “visitor sophistication may not have been high” and expenses were more than expected, there were plenty of sales. So much as to prompt the following speculation: “If Art Chicago is clearly doomed in the next decade, the real fight is now between the Armory Show of New York and Art Basel Miami Beach. Which of these cities, both packed with very different pleasures, will prove more lastingly tempting?”
Liking What’s Being Proposed For The WTC
Architects proposing ideas for the World Trade Center site meet in a public forum to talk about their plans. How do you reconcile the ideas? Maybe collage the best of each and come up with something collaborative? “I came expecting a fight. Instead, everyone is so warm and fuzzy and self-congratulatory it distresses me.”
New NYT Editor Cracks The Whip
Steven Erlanger is the New York Times’ new culture editor. And he’s jumped into the job with a memo to his troops exhorting them to do better: “I’ve been impressed and gratified by some of what we’ve published in the last weeks of the year. But I’ve also been dismayed by some of the flat, careless and inelegant writing I’ve seen, some of which has gotten into the paper. What we do in the section matters. I’m concentrating now on understanding how it works before deciding how to make it better.”
Frank Rich Rejoins NYT Culture Pages
Frank Rich, considered the most-feared theatre critic in New York during the 1980s when he was theatre critic at the New York Times, is moving back to the NYT culture pages. For the past eight years Rich has been writing an op-ed on the NYT editorial pages. “We plan for his column to be an anchor of the Arts & Leisure section. In addition, he will work closely with Steve Erlanger, our newly appointed cultural news editor, in planning coverage and the overall design of the culture pages.”
Sachs Steps Down From Running The Frick
Samuel Sachs II has announced he’s stepping down as director of the Frick Museum after six years there. “A quirky institution known for its stuffy, family-run board, it now attracts nearly 350,000 visitors a year, up 20 percent a year since Mr. Sachs became director. When he arrived, after having run the financially ailing Detroit Institute of Arts for 12 years, Mr. Sachs said his mission was more one of “fine turning” than of making major changes.”
HipHop And The Academy
“A quarter century after its founding in New York’s South Bronx, the culture of beats, rhymes, and life is finding new devotees in classrooms, conferences, and faculty meetings coast-to-coast. Berkeley, Stanford, Michigan, Yale, Harvard, New York University, and M.I.T. have each boasted courses examining some aspect of the culture, while the prestigious annual American Studies and Modern Language Association conferences have featured similar panels. Some snicker that as long as Princeton theologian Cornel West doesn’t record a follow-up to his 2001 album, Sketches of My Culture, the academy will continue unfettered in its engagement of the global, billion-dollar culture.”
Did The Chinese Really Discover America?
Gavin Menzies’ new book claiming that Chinese discovered America 70 years before Columbus landed is getting lots of press. But does the research hold up? “Sadly, many observers concur that accuracy matters little to publishing houses, especially when fudged facts are almost guaranteed to generate controversy, and therefore sales. ‘The publishing industry’s gullibility is boundless and its devotion to the bottom line endless, so if they can maintain their fealty to P.T. Barnum and put one over on the public, they’ll do so without losing a wink’s worth of sleep’.”
Score One For the Little Guy
A Norwegian court has acquitted an Oslo teen of video piracy charges levelled against him by Hollywood studios. The teen had broken the encryption code on DVDs he had purchased in order to play them on his Linux-based computer. The court ruled that no one can be convicted of breaking into his/her own property, and that the charges were without merit. Free speech advocates hailed the ruling, while the studios said that they were examining their options for an appeal.