The new Savoy Opera in London is a grand experiment in the business of art, writes Norman Lebrecht. “The revolution was, unseen, in the bottom line. This was opera without subsidy, opera with an entrepreneurial spirit – opera as it used to be, organised by resourceful enthusiasts for an audience that consisted not of bow-tied aesthetes and glams in gowns but, in the main, of working men and women who might otherwise have been watching farce in Whitehall, a musical on Shaftesbury Avenue or a DVD at home. After sixty years of public support for the arts and a general recognition that they are a jolly good thing, here was a genuine attempt to test the market and see what sort of people, and how many of them, might go to the opera if it was brought to them at a guaranteed professional standard and at a reasonable price.”
Tag: 04.16.04
One Store Fits All?
How is it that everyone on earth seems to be happy shopping at Walmart? “Eight out of ten American households shop at Wal-Mart at least once a year. Worldwide, more than 100m customers visit Wal-Mart stores every week. Photographs circulated over the internet and purporting to come from the Exploration Rover show NASA’s recent discovery of a Wal-Mart on Mars. The mathematics of big numbers suggests that Wal-Mart’s growth must slow. Amazingly, the opposite appears to be happening.”
Art From Vandalized Books
For a year, someone came into the San Francisco Library and destroyed books with gay or lesbian themes. The culprit was finally caught, but until after many books were vandalized. Loath to throw out the books, librarians gave them to artists so they could make art from them. The resulting projects are now on display
How Is The Value Of Art Decided?
What makes a Van Gogh painting worth $82.5 million and another good painting worth millions and millions less? “The art world has capitalized on the fact that most people believe they can’t really understand why a work of art is worth what the market is asking. It helps to realize that the process of setting value is different for dead artists such as Van Gogh, whose works now trade more like commodities, and living artists, whose worth is still being determined, particularly if they are young.”
Nielsen People Meters Under Attack
The Nielsen company’s new “people meters” to monitor TV viewership have come “under attack from television networks, minority groups and even lawmakers when a test of its electronic “people meters,” newly installed in select New York homes, began reporting a sharp decrease in viewership for television shows that feature minorities. Because the current system — a decades-old technique involving week-long diaries that are mailed to the homes — had never yielded such a drastic swing, the critics contended that the new technique must somehow be unreliable.”
Latin American Antiquities Endangered
The plundering of archaeological sites, tombs and churches for pre-Columbian and colonial objects in Latin America is now so widespread that officials are now saying that “these antiquities can be considered the art world’s endangered species. ‘Countries in Latin America are deprived of their history at an alarming rate’.”
On Pop Culture And The Art Of
John Rockwell: “Pop culture is not necessarily interesting in itself: it’s merely an index of the state of the broader social culture, or a way to sell newspapers or CD’s or commercials. The trouble with that mercantile mindset is that the popular arena is indeed the source of some of the best art out there, and artistic excellence calls forth smart criticism. Even elitist criticism — the kind produced by critics who love popular art but scorn the populace as a bunch of Menckenesque rubes easily manipulated by commercial interests.”
No TV For Kids?
Should parents not let their toddlers watch TV? That’s what the new study says. “It’s worth remembering that there are some significant flaws in the study, including that results were based solely on interviews with children’s parents, who may not have accurately recollected how much television their kids watch. Still, it’s hard to ignore the findings that, of 1,345 children ages 1 and 3, the risk of developing attention problems by age 7 increased by roughly 10 percent for every hour of television watched daily.”
Bellevue Museum Postpones Reopening
The Bellevue Art Museum (just outside of Seattle) has decided to postpone its reopening from July until October. “The museum closed last September after nearly running out of cash. That came less than three years after the museum moved with much fanfare into a new, $23 million building in the heart of downtown Bellevue.”
Indian History Turns Up In Shops
“As works of art and artifacts continue to disappear from Indian temples, smaller museums, art galleries, and from the country’s numerous palaces, often with the help of local communities, India is fast turning out to be a rich and inexpensive picking ground for antiques. It is easy to get hold of a piece of Indian history: all one needs to do is visit the souvenir shops.”