After decades of dreams and empty promises, the Greek culture minister says that building an opera house for Athens is a priority of the government. – Athens News
Tag: 03.10.00
CULTURAL MANIPULATION?
Critics charge that a Malaysian broadcaster is airing too many foreign programs and that by watching, young Malaysians will lose their sense of patriotism and national identity. They want the government to impose content restrictions to boost Malay content. – The Star (Malaysia)
INVESTIGATION ON
A number of American museums are now checking to see if any of the artwork they own might have been stolen by the Nazis during the Second World War. Suspected works include a Rembrandt and a Courbet. – CNN
- MADONNA SUSPECT: The LA County Museum of Art says it is investigating whether a Madonna and Child tempura panel painted around 1425 went through the hands of one of the most important art dealers the Nazis used in their wholesale plundering of Jewish assets, Hans Wendland. – Times of India (AP)
- Painting uncovered on check of the museum’s collection for items of questionable provenance. – Los Angeles Times
SOUNDS OF SILENCE
Last summer the new $22 million Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art opened with fanfare. It’s not been a hit with visitors. “How empty is it? On winter weekdays, MOCA gets about 100 visitors, including school groups. Saturday and Sunday daily attendance at least doubles that number. On some days, there are more children scampering around the newly opened (and free) Kidspace than there are black-turtlenecked cognoscenti ogling the art.” – Boston Globe
HIGH RISE ADVISOR
New York’s Museum of Modern Art makes a deal to be “artistic advisor” to Japanese billionaire Minoru Mori, to create an art museum atop a 54-story office tower in Tokyo. – Los Angeles Times
GIULIANI STRIKES BACK
NY mayor Rudy Giuliani says that he can’t touch the Whitney Museum because it’s privately funded. But “as a private citizen,” he said he felt that artwork attacking him was “exaggerated political demagoguery” that does “a grave injustice to people who suffered in the Holocaust.” – New York Post
- Will Giuliani go to see this year’s Whitney Biennial? “Gee, I’ll put it on my schedule. Get my Palm Pilot,” he said sarcastically. – MSNBC
- Previously: COME AND GET US MR. MAYOR: The Whitney Biennial is about to open. You just had to know someone was going to take a poke at NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani after his pronouncements on art during last fall’s “Sensation” show at the Brooklyn Museum. ” ‘Sanitation,’ an installation by Hans Haacke, a well-known German-born New York artist, puts Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in the company of the Nazis, with quotations by him written in the Fraktur script favored by the Third Reich and the sound of jackboots marching in the background.”- New York Times
THE YEAR OF THE MUSEUM
Between record numbers for the Norman Rockwell, show, a Science and Industry Museum “Titanic” exhibit, a “Dead Sea Scrolls” show, and a “Monet to Moore” exhibition, this year looks to be a record year for Chicago museums. – Chicago Tribune
A BRACING DUNK IN THE PRESENT
Consider the things around us – graphics, fashion, industrial products, architecture, interiors, furniture, toys, stage and movie sets, and computer animation… all these things are the products of someone’s imagination. New York’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum pulls together a national design triennial – projects by 83 designers and firms, all produced in the last three years. “We expect survey shows to be irritating, and this one does not disappoint.” – New York Times
JOFFREY REBIRTH
When it fled New York and landed in Chicago five years ago, the Joffrey Ballet was broke and nearly busted. But the Midwest has been kind, and the company has staged a rebirth. “People ask me when we’re going back to New York to dance, says artistic director Gerald Arpino. “I tell them, `When the New York dance companies tour to Chicago, then we’ll return for a visit to New York.’ But this is a Chicago company now.” – Chicago Tribune
SO WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The famed Imperial Ballet of Russia finally made its North American debut this week in Toronto. Or did it? Well, something called the Imperial ballet showed up, but in name only. Like many Russian performing arts companies these days, the Imperial is little more than one of those Russian pick-up troupes of freelance dancers that spends most of its time touring the world and trading off the dwindling mystique of an appropriated name. – National Post (Canada)