The co-chairs of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s board say that MOCA’s newly appointed director, art dealer Jeffrey Deitch, would “be violating his employment contract … if he were to use his position to improperly benefit himself or his friends and former business associates.”
Tag: 01.12.10
Variety Is For Sale After All
“Owner Reed Business Information — which insisted as recently as July that it was not putting its top title on the block — has been quietly dangling Variety before potential buyers for some time, according to at least five individuals.”
PBS CEO Vows To Increase Arts Programming
“PBS’s cultural programming — which is expensive to produce and doesn’t necessarily draw the largest viewership — has gradually become marginalized.” But in a talk Tuesday in Los Angeles, the network’s president and CEO “recommitted PBS to arts programming, both on television and online. She described an ambitious arts initiative with three components….”
Ohio Univ. Receives $13M Gift For Arts Ed Center
“A 1938 alumna has pledged more than $13 million to Ohio University to establish a center for arts education, officials announced yesterday. The gift from Violet L. Patton, 92, is among the 20 largest personal donations in Ohio University history.”
NY City Ballet Spring Season To Feature Big Premieres, Salonen, Calatrava
“Ballets by the choreographers Melissa Barak, Mauro Bigonzetti, Peter Martins, Wayne McGregor, Benjamin Millepied, Alexei Ratmansky, and Christopher Wheeldon will all have their world premieres. Four commissioned scores will also make their debut, including a violin concerto composed by Esa-Pekka Salonen, for Mr. Martins’ work.” Five of the new dances will have scenery designed by architect Santiago Calatrava.
‘Digital Maoism’: Does Information Really Want To Be Free?
An unhealthy social contract has developed on the Web, says Jaron Lanier, one in which “authors, journalists, musicians and artists are encouraged to treat the fruits of their intellects and imaginations as fragments to be given without pay to the [online] hive mind. Reciprocity takes the form of self-promotion. Culture is to become precisely nothing but advertising.”
Pride And Prejudice And Zombies Crew Turns To Tolstoy
“Quirk Books, the folks who brought you Pride and Prejudice and Zombies … and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, have moved on from bloodying the frock of Jane Austen … [to] Leo Tolstoy. No, the company’s fourth augmented classic isn’t going to be War and Pieces of Brain, nor will it be The Undeath of Ivan Ilyich. It’s Android Karenina.”
Who’s That Clarinetist? The NY Phil Won’t Say
When a New York Times critic wanted to give a special mention to the clarinetist who played the big solo in the New York Philharmonic’s recent performance of Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Symphony, the orchestra’s press office refused to identify him.
Philanthropist, BSO Chairman Edward H. Linde Dies At 68
“Mr. Linde was chairman of the board of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was a major benefactor to the Museum of Fine Arts, which named its west wing after him, his wife, and the Linde family in recognition of the more than $25 million they donated to the museum.”
Britain’s Dance Boom
Dance has skyrocketed in popularity among participants and spectators, males and females, children and adults — and they come from a wide swath of backgrounds. One significant indicator: “The ratio of boys to girls applying to the Royal Ballet School used to be 20:80,” but “now it is 50:50.”