AMONG THE STAID OLD MASTERS GALLERIES —

— clustered on a London street, an upstart arrived a half-dozen years ago. Jay Jopling’s Cube Gallery has brought worldwide attention to some of the most talked-about artists on the British art scene, including many of those in the “Sensation” show, which opened at the Brooklyn Museum last fall. His reaction to the Brooklyn flap? “That was great! You’d pay a million dollars to get publicity on that scale!” – ARTnews

HAS ABSTRACTION LOST ITS EDGE?

“The practice of abstractionism has failed to engage creatively with the radical change in human experience in recent decades; it has, seemingly, been unwilling to re-invent itself in relation to the systems of artistic expression and viewer expectation that have developed under the impact of the mass media.” Like their confreres elsewhere in the world, abstractionists in India are asking themselves an overwhelming question today: Does abstractionism have a future? Art News In India

ONLINE ART

Suddenly a number of art sellers have made major investments to get online. Will selling art online be a success? Hard to tell since no one even really has a good idea what the conventional art market is worth. – ARTnews

THE POLITICS OF PLAIN TALK

The ongoing debate over “linguistic transparency” – the idea that good writers must write clearly – has pitted George Orwell against Theodor Adorno. The ranks are now being divided between intellectuals who are intolerant of deliberately difficult jargon, and those who believe plain talk can endanger writers’ ability depict the complexities of the world in more radical terms. – Lingua Franca

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF A FILM

The screen version of Otto Preminger’s “Porgy and Bess” starred a Who’s Who of 1950s-era black American actors. Released against the backdrop of the insurgent civil rights movement, the film sparked considerable controversy during its initial run and eventually disappeared from the public eye. Why is that? – CultureFront 01/00