ArtsJournal blogger Our Girl In Chicago is upset at some of the changes coming to the Times books section. “It’s not as though my reading habits are going to take a big hit even if the NYTBR banishes fiction reviews from their pages altogether. Yet the blinkered reasoning proffered by [Times executive editor] Bill Keller rankles. First there’s his general blithe condescension toward novels, apparently based on an assumption that while nonfiction is serious, fiction is just playing around. Even if Bill Keller really thinks this, it astonishes me that he’d say it, let alone that the Times would base editorial policy on it.”
Tag: 01.22.04
Small Town, Big Plans
Butler, Pennsylvania is a former farm town about 40 miles north of Pittsburgh, which in recent years has grown to be a distant suburb of the Steel City, with the result that Butler’s residents are now desirous of something more of a civic identity than grain elevators can provide. “In response, the local arts council has designed a five-year plan to develop Butler Cultural Village, a one-block area in downtown Butler” which will bring together the town theater, orchestra, and a new museum in one complex.
Private Funding for Public Access
When the state of Massachusetts slashed its arts funding allocation by 62% last year, several Boston theaters which were hoping to make accomodations for visually and aurally-impaired patrons had to shelve their plans. But now, the “Cultural Access Consortium, a not-for-profit organization that tackles accessibility issues for audiences and artists who are sight- or hearing-impaired or both, will begin providing technical and financial aid to area theatres through a new program, the Access Collaborative.”
No Boost For Florida Arts
Florida arts advocates hoping to rebound from deep cuts in state funding last year got no help from Governor Jeb Bush’s 2004 budget proposals. “Buried in general revenue appropriations is $8.5 million recommended for arts grants. That’s below Bush’s $12 million recommendation last year, although slightly above the $6 million actually approved by the 2003 Florida Legislature.”
Britain’s Theatrical Architect
“Frank Matcham’s achievements as the most successful and prolific theatre architect in Britain, arguably the world home of theatre, remain unsurpassed. This year is the 150th anniversary of his birth and it is being marked, coincidentally, by the restoration of his two finest surviving buildings.”
Live, Local, And Immediate
“As other technology companies scramble to match the success of Apple’s online music store, iTunes, which sells songs for 99 cents each, a different online-music economy is emerging around the sale of recordings of live performances – often with no restrictions on how they can be played or shared.” Jam band Phish and mainstream rockers The Dave Matthews Band are two of the first big-name acts to have jumped on the live-performance-record bandwagon, and at the heart of the movement is the belief by the artists involved that the recording industry is shooting itself in the foot by trying to restrict consumer usage of available music.
Dissecting The Theme
Most classical music fans would quickly recognize the Paganini theme that Rachmaninoff expanded into one of the most familiar piano concert-pieces in the repertoire. But most listeners have probably never considered what actually goes on in a theme-and-variations, where one composer’s singular idea is transformed into a wide-ranging and free-flowing work, yet without ever straying too far from the original thought. Rachmaninoff penned 24 variations on that Paganini theme, and Michael Barnes has taken the daring step of actually explaining each one in an American newspaper. The Pop Culture Enforcement Squad is presumably making its way to Austin to deal with Mr. Barnes.
Art & The Politics of Diplomacy
It all began when the Israeli ambassador to Sweden came across an installation at the National Historical Museum in Stockholm which features a pristine photograph of a recent Palestinian suicide bomber floating freely in a partially frozen sea of blood. Interpreting the work as an endorsement of anti-Israeli terrorism, the ambassador demanded its removal, and then hurled a nearby spotlight into the pool. Shortly thereafter, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the ambassador to congratulate him, and Jerusalem’s leading newspaper editorialized that the ambassador’s vandalism was a greater work of art than the original. The museum director is incensed, and believes the act was premeditated, in response to the director’s criticisms of Israeli policy.
No Glorification Here
Veteran journalist Larry Defner is exasperated by the outcry against the Swedish artwork seen by some to be an anti-Semitic endorsement of suicide bombings. “Snow White and the Madness of Truth makes Palestinian terrorism – and Israeli repression, too, but mainly Palestinian terrorism – so graphic and immediate as to be nauseating, which is the effect terrorism and repression should, but unfortunately don’t, have on people at large. The Jewish reaction to the artwork and to Ambassador Zvi Mazel’s trashing of it show how… as soon as the cry of anti-Semitism goes up loudly enough, there is no discussion in Israel or the Diaspora about whether or not it was justified.”
Kennedy Center Appoints Interim Leadership
“The Kennedy Center voted yesterday to appoint Alma Powell and Kenneth Duberstein, the vice chairmen of its board, to oversee the center’s operations while it continues to search for a new chairman. Powell and Duberstein will take over the duties of James A. Johnson, who announced last April that he would step down this month after seven years as chairman… The 32-year-old federally supported arts center has enjoyed an artistic renaissance in recent years.”