The time between theatreical release to DVD is getting shorter for movies. “These days the turnaround time from cineplex to DVD is 4 1/2 months, on average, with movies becoming available for rental and sale on the same day. A few recent films made the trip in fewer than 90 days. (Five years ago, the typical Hollywood flick didn’t show up on home video for at least six months.) It’s no secret that movie studios, which generally earn more money from home video than box office returns, are eager to capitalize on DVD dollars as soon as they can.”
Tag: 03.13.05
The Art Of £500
What’s the best art you can buy for £500? “My first port of call is that of any lazy bargain hunter – eBay. At the rock bottom end of the price list are an awful lot of paintings of dogs and tulips. Indeed, should I so wish, my budget could get me 50 portraits of golden Labradors; but I suspect my walls would then be petrifying, rather than powerful. At the £500 mark, there are more exotic animals; a family of elephants drinking by a lake; a tiger with a soul-piercing gaze.”
Runaway Boards?
As the actions of the boards of several arts organizations in the Pacific Northwest have shown in recent months, arts boards have a lot of responsibility (and headaches). “I think there’s a belief that to be on a nonprofit arts board, you maybe just show up at some meetings a few times a year. The truth is, the “hand-to-mouth business” of nonprofit art is scary and dangerous, and takes a lot of care and coddling and attention.”
Chicago And Music Make Up
The City of Chicago and its musicians have been on uneasy terms for several years. But “a multifaceted dialogue involving city officials, club owners, record-company and studio owners and music-industry veterans has created the Chicago Music Commission, which aims to raise Chicago’s profile internationally, turn its musical variety into a major tourist attraction and bring millions of additional dollars into city coffers and businesses. One city official called it the Chicago cultural equivalent of the Czech Republic’s “velvet revolution,” in which the communist regime quietly gave way to the coun-try’s first free elections in 40 years.”
Do Music And Images Really Belong Together?
David Patrick Stearns doesn’t think much of attempts to marry orchestra music with images. “My newest theory on the subject is this: Sight and sound are a perpetually uneasy marriage and always will be. So how about an annulment, or at least separate bedrooms – allowing cohabitation rights without the responsibility of mutual support? Even when video and music are successfully manipulated to work toward one goal, they just might compete for the same part of your brain and cancel each other out. Maybe sight and sound can happen simultaneously without everyone working so strenuously to achieve some unified statement. Maybe greater dividends arise from an un-unified statement.”
The Cleveland Museum’s New Future
The Cleveland Museum had a big week of life-changing announcements. “First came the awe: After a decade of planning, the museum’s 26 voting trustees agreed unanimously on Monday to go ahead with a visually stunning, $258 million expansion and renovation designed by Rafael Vinoly of New York. Now comes the shock: The six-year construction process, which will start in September, means that the museum’s spectacular permanent collection will be off-limits and out of sight for at least several years.”
Three Theatres Reach Finals Of Business Competition
“Three not-for-profit theatres have arrived at the final round of the third National Business Plan Competition for Nonprofit Organizations, a project of the Yale School of Management-The Goldman Sachs Foundation Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures.”
Berlin’s Cultural Comeback
“The toppling of the Berlin Wall in 1989 recast daily life, as the two halves of the country awkwardly reunited. A capitalist gentility took hold in the historic Scheunenviertel, a district of the old East Berlin, as courtyards along Sophienstrasse and elsewhere were tidied up and residential buildings converted into showcases for art. Today, what Prague and London were in the 90’s, Berlin has now become: a magnet for anyone who wants to live and work in a city that is humming with cultural energy and, by contrast with the rest of northern Europe, an insane bargain.”
Can Anyone Save ICA?
London’s Institute of Contemporary Art has changed leaders as well as leadership models. But observers say that what ICA needs is a complete change of direction, if it is to survive and compete in an increasingly competitive environment. “Caught between the huge ambitions of its founders, its limited resources, its militant amateurism and a vast expansion in the number of arts institutions competing for ideas, attention and resources, [ICA’s new leadership team] faces quite a task.”
Humanities Meet Human Nature
Eileen Mackevich forced departure from the helm of the Chicago Humanities Festival has left the event at a crossroads. Mackevich, who co-founded the festival, was known for crafting a high-minded series that somehow never smacked of elitism, and her ouster was widely portrayed as a purely political move by her enemies on the board. Regardless of the circumstances, the festival will have its hands full as it tries to regroup under new leadership.