Its endowment shrinking, the Packard Foundation is following other foundations and “is announcing today a more narrowly focused mission and a 2003 grants budget of $200 million. The organization gave out $616 million in grants in 2000 and $250 million last year. ‘There has been significant investment in time and energy to talk with grantees about how to move forward in what is a difficult funding environment for everyone’.”
Tag: 01.27.03
UK Musicians Protest Licensing Plans
British musicians protested a proposed new licensing scheme for entertainment in small pubs. “Around 500 musicians wore gags in a demonstration against the government’s licencing bill, which they claim will silence live entertainment in Britain’s pubs and clubs.” The bill will require venues in England and Wales to obtain licences from their local council for any form of entertainment, with a maximum punishment for performing without permission of £20,000 or six months in jail. Protesters claim it will hit small acoustic bands, folk singers and even carol singers and nativity plays in church halls and could kill off traditions like Morris dancing.”
Britain Stops Export Of Raphael Painting
The British government has ordered a temporary hold on the export of a valuable Raphael painting to allow a “last chance” effort to raise money to keep it in the country. “The National Gallery is campaigning to keep it in the UK after the Duke of Northumberland, one of England’s wealthiest land and art owners, accepted a £32m offer from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.”
Copyright “Screwup” Made Martha Graham Company Possible Again
The Martha Graham Company is back performing again, only because of “the highest-profile intellectual-property screw-up in history.” Graham didn’t protect her copyrights properly, and after her heir Ron Protas tried to prevent the company from using Graham’s work, it was discovered that some of the choreographer’s most well-known work was now in the public domain. “Graham’s oversight has ultimately proved to be the saving grace of both her company and her legacy.”
Splendor Wins Sundance
“American Splendor” wins the grand prize at the Sundance Film Festival. “The movie tells the story of a Cleveland file clerk named Harvey Pekar, who wrote a famous series of comic books documenting his boring life and discontented psyche.”
Penguin Hires Ousted Random House Editor
Only two weeks after she was fired by Random House, Ann Godoff has has been hired by Penguin as the president and publisher of a new book imprint. Will she bring over some of the big authors she published at Random House? “These are people who I have a longstanding relationship with and I would be surprised if we were not able to work together again at some time.”
John Browning, 69
American pianist John Browning has died of heart failure. “Mr. Browning maintained an active solo career, if never quite at the most glamorous level, and with the name Cliburn dogging his own in many a review and article. Although he lacked nothing in bravura technique, his pianistic style was reserved, elegant and penetrating, more intellectual than overtly emotional yet eminently approachable.”
The Forgotten Masterpieces
A new book wonders about the wherabout of great works of art that for one reason or another disappeared and slipped from the pages of history. “Supreme among them is Michelangelo’s bronze version of David, a statue he worked on while carving his celebrated colossus of the same biblical hero.”
Blockbuster Time In Queens
The Museum of Modern Art opens a blockbuster “Matisse Picasso” show in a couple of weeks. But MoMA is in a much smaller space (in Queens)than its longtime Manhattan home. Crowds “promise to be larger than anything the site has yet encountered, raising inevitable questions about how visitors will move through the building without clogging it and whether they will have room to appreciate the nearly 140 works by two of the 20th century’s masters.”