The Evening Standard’s Norman Lebrecht has won the Whitbread Award for a First Novel. “Starting at 54, even with this groundwork established, is still kind of late. There are precedents – Annie Proulx, Penelope Fitzgerald and most famously Mary Wesley. But why, if Lebrecht is capable of writing such a good novel, did it not spring from him sooner? Simple, he says. He wasn’t ready…”
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This Year’s Grammy Nominations
Grammy nominations got spread around this year. “In years past, a glut of nominations would push a single artist above the fold, but this year the flattened field presented more subtle story lines amid the sprawl of 104 categories. Among those themes: the musical reverberations of Sept. 11, the solidifying of rap’s stature in top categories and the heralding of a new generation of young female stars in the closely watched category of best new artist.”
All ****ed Up And On The Cover
This week, London’s Guardian newspaper asked five artists to produce cover art for the paper’s features section. To illustrate a story on the nastiness of reality TV, Turner Prize winner Gillian Wearing produced a graffiti-like three words which would be considered rude in most newspapers. Here’s the cover…
Art Cover Provokes Reader Protests
“While a handful of callers were supportive, the vast majority complained about the cover, which was designed to accompany a feature about the increasing nastiness of TV entertainment. Although the cover was designed to provoke debate about the coarseness of TV and of modern language, several readers took issue with the notion the cover design constituted art.”
Who Are These Guys?
Grammy nominators did a ho-hum job of picking artists this year. “In the top three categories alone, the reaction to the nominees is likely to range from hurrah to ‘huh?’ to ‘double-huh’?”
Wearing Apologizes For Cover Art
Turner Prize winner Gillian Wearing was one of several artists invited to design a cover this week for the front page of The Guardian’s tabloid section. “To illustrate an article on the new reality game shows, her front cover consisted merely of the three words “Fuck Cilla Black” [Black hosts a reality show] in black felt tip pen surrounded by white space. The cover provoked more than 200 complaints,” and today Wearing apologized.
The Complete List
Here’s a list of all of this year’s Grammy nominees
The Guardian Explains
“Some more cynical readers have suggested the outcry over the cover was just what we were after. ‘Shock tactics designed to outrage people so you can belittle their ideas about art,’ was how one reader saw it. But if we knew an image like Wearing’s was bound to offend some of our readers, I can assure you there was absolutely nothing satisfying about the wave of anger and dismay that rolled into the paper yesterday.”
Nazi Heir Art Collection To Open In Berlin
The heir to a Nazi arms supplier has canceled plans to build a museum in Zurich to display his large art collection after protests there. Instead, it will be shown in Berlin next year. “The 2,500-piece collection was assembled by Friedrich-Christian Flick, a grandson of an industrial baron who helped arm Nazi Germany’s war machine. The collection includes works by contemporary artists such as Bruce Nauman, On Kawara and Nam June Paik. It is to go on display in 2004 for seven years in a downtown Berlin exhibition space.”
The Literary Loss Between Page And Screen
“Literature has always been a poisoned chalice for filmmakers. It’s irresistible because it offers great stories and characters, but it often makes geographic demands that translate into huge budgets. Worse, it covers psychological and intellectual territory that nobody has ever really figured out how to translate into movies.” This is especially tough in a country like Canada. Though Canadian writers have scored big internationally in recent years, getting movies made of their work is especially difficult.