The most-recorded song of all-time? The biggest-selling? That would be Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.” “It has been recorded in Dutch, Yiddish, Japanese and – perhaps most surreal of all – Swahili. Its sales have topped 125 million worldwide and its place as the all-time top single has been challenged only once, not by the Beatles, not by Presley nor Sinatra, but by Elton John’s ‘Candle in the Wind 97’ tribute to Princess Diana.”
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National Gallery Review Motivated By Politics?
The Australian government is launching a review of the activities of the embattled National Museum of Australia. “While some see it as a necessary process for any new cultural institution, others fear the agenda is primarily political.” Particularly as it looks like the museum director’s contract will be cut short.
Recording Sales Down Bigtime
People ar still buying music. But sales are down this year. “Buyers have snatched up 597.4 million albums this year, compared with 669.7 million in the same period in 2001. The 11% drop follows last year’s dip of 2.5%, the first no-growth year since Nielsen SoundScan began tabulating sales data in 1991. After enjoying a decade of climbing sales, retailers were alarmed by the 2001 decrease and hoped the drop was temporary fallout from 9/11 and a weakening economy. Today they’d welcome such a benign stumble over this year’s sizable plunge, which can’t be dismissed as a fluke. The culprit?”
The Getty – High Culture On The Hill
The Getty Center is celebrating its fifth anniversary atop its hillside overlooking Los Angeles. The $1.3 billion complex has attracted 7 million visitors since opening, and the complaints that chased its unveiling seem to have quieted down. “On days like this it may appear that people go to the Getty to do anything but look at art. But no, every gallery is crowded, and for each person who strolls through, there’s someone engaged with an artwork.”
Southwest Success Takes More Than Money
The merger between Southern California’s Southwest Museum and the Autry Museum pairs a great collection with (finally) the resources to build on it. But it will take more than money to turn around the Southwest. “Inadequate display and storage facilities, employee theft from the collection, shoddy record-keeping, daunting conservation needs, a chronic lack of funding and an incompetent board were among the Himalayan-size hurdles faced by L.A.’s oldest museum.”
The Difference Between ‘Neo’ And ‘New’
Here in the 21st century, we’re so retro that we don’t even need to look ahead. Or maybe it’s that we’re so global that we’re about to come full circle and become separatist. No, wait: we’re so full of self-conscious irony that we’ve forgotten how to be serious. Well, whatever we are, Philip Marchand finds it all deeply unsatisfying.
San Jose Arts Groups Get Gift Of Status Quo
With economic times being what they are, arts groups across the US have been bracing for government grab-backs of promised funding, and indeed, many cities and states do intend to slash arts funding in an effort to balance budgets. But in San Jose, the city council rejected a commission’s proposal to cut all arts grants by 10%, and approved the full amounts previously guaranteed to 53 cultural organizations.
Subtly Impressive, And Ready For The Public
“Not much has gone wrong at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Japanese architect Tadao Ando’s $65 million addition to the city’s Cultural District that opens Saturday. For a major work by an international superstar, it is a surprisingly discreet building. No swirling titanium walls like the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, no fluttering butterfly sunscreens as in the Milwaukee Art Museum. It sits politely, almost corporately on its site, five gleaming rectangles of aluminum and glass enclosing the second-largest postwar art museum in the United States.”
Putting Fort Worth On The Architectural Map
Tadao Ando’s design for the new Fort Worth Modern Art Museum should establish him once and for all as one of the world’s architectural masters, says Benjamin Forgey. “There is no mystery or ceremony in approaching the high, off-center entryway of the Ando building. You just go in. And then, right away, you begin to experience the magic, generosity, subtlety and self-confidence of Ando’s art.”
ExxonMobil Pulls PBS Funding
In what can only be termed a devastating blow to an already-staggering industry, petroleum giant ExxonMobil has informed Boston public TV station WGBH that it will be terminating its support of PBS mainstay ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ after 2004. The company has bankrolled the program for more than three decades, and the pullout comes as PBS is discussing a controversial proposal to allow corporate sponsors to air 30-second ads on its supposedly commercial-free network of stations.