What were the most popular art exhibitions of 2002? The Art Newspaper does its annual survey. This year “Van Gogh and Gauguin” was the top show on both sides of the Atlantic. At the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam the show drew almost 7000 visitors a day – for a total of 739,117.
Tag: 02.07.03
Architects Buzzing Over Muschamp’s Flip-Flop On Libeskind
Last December New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp wrote of Daniel Libeskind’s plan for the World Trade Center site that “If you are looking for the marvelous, here’s where you will find it. Daniel Libeskind’s project attains a perfect balance between aggression and desire. It will provoke many viewers to exclaim that yes, this design is actually better than what was there before.” Then this past Friday he wrote that “It [Libeskind’s idea] is an astonishingly tasteless idea. It has produced a predictably kitsch result.” Architectrue watchers are wondering what happened, and some are angry…
What’s Wrong With Canadian Filmmaking?
Producer Ivan Reitman has some ideas. “The Canadian producer has been trained and encouraged to focus on qualifying for a range of content rules and points set by an ever-changing platoon of politicians and bureaucrats. Unfortunately, this intense focus on technical criteria sometimes means that creating films for the real world is ignored. The audience is forgotten. Navigating the minutiae of this hermetically sealed world of institutionalized filmmaking genetically selects Canadian producers for failure.”
Artist Mails Himself To Tate
An unemployed actor had himself sealed up in a box and mailed to the Tate Museum. He said he had “turned himself into living art to explore the way that artists are seen as objects.” A number of people from the Tate came out and applauded as the box was opened.
Mandela, Artist
Nelson Mandela is enjoying a surging art career. He has been making drawings in charcoal and pastel of his time as an inmate at the brutal Robben Island prison. “In just five months, the 84-year-old former South African president and Nobel Peace laureate has sold more than 1,000 lithographs of five drawings. The inspiration for the new career came when art publisher Ross Calder saw Yoko Ono was using John Lennon’s sketches to raise money for charity. He took the idea to Mandela, suggesting he could do the same. ‘I may be artistic, but it’s in the back, far recesses of my mind. It will take a lot to get that out’.”
Art Thief Sentenced To Four Years
The French waiter who stole millions of dollars worth of art over six years has been sentenced to four years in prison for the thefts by a Swiss court. Why did he take the art? “He believed he was one of the very few people sensitive enough to appreciate the true beauty of works of art.”
Broadway Musician Strike Inevitable?
Negotiations on a new contract between Broadway producers and musicians began this week, and musician minimums are the big issue. The two sides are well apart. “Producers have taken what one source calls a ‘blood oath’ that they will hang together in the event of a strike. They expect the union to take a divide-and-conquer approach, striking only those shows with weak box offices or that don’t yet have their ‘virtual orchestras’ in place (there are a few). Should that happen, every show will bar musicians from the theater and use pre-recorded music.”
Pop Goes The Jingle
“With traditional sources of revenue falling, the music industry is now desperate to get advertisers to use original pop songs to sell everything from handbags to hamburgers. This trend, which media types call ‘synchronisation’, is leading to another: the decline of the jingle. Once pop songs in their own right (America’s first radio jingle, Pepsi’s “hits the spot”, became a jukebox hit in 1939) catchy jingles are being discarded. Despite the $90,000-plus cost to license a pop song (compared with $15,000 for a customised jingle), advertisers, especially those aiming at younger consumers, think it money well spent.”
British Awards Have American Taste
The Bafta Awards are the British equivalent of the Oscars. But this year the field is so crowded with Americans, the exercise looks more like a Hollywood preview. “The pre-eminence of all-American stars, films and craft talents in the nominations made by those who consider themselves the elite of the British film industry is causing a scandal. And rightly so. ‘Where are the Brits?’ is what’s being asked as the lists are scanned.”
Critical Disconnect
It seems like critics are more out of step with audiences than they have been in a long time. Critics’ favorite movies aren’t the big box office hits. Reality TV has captured viewers’ hearts, but not the critics. And pop music critics consistently pick albums and artists that don’t sell well. “So what gives? Should critics really worry about staying in sync with the masses? Should they start grading on a curve?”