Washington DC’s central library was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and opened in 1972. Now the city wants to redevelop the area around the library, and the building is endangered. “Already, scores of District operatives are lining up for the political staring contest. The Committee of 100 on the Federal City and the Downtown Artists Coalition want the Mies building to house books—and not under the banner of Barnes & Noble.”
Tag: 04.18.03
US Combat Artist Corps
US forces in Iraq include two “combat artists,” “part of a tradition dating back to the American Revolution, charged with going into war to capture its ‘essence’. Unlike war photographers today, combat artists are in no way restricted by the military. Their orders: Go forth and do good. That’s it. Absolutely nothing is dictated, from the medium to the subject to the tone.”
The difficulty of War Art
Art about war is difficult. Passions of artist and viewer have to be negotiated, and the symbolism can be complicated. “With so few works considered truly enduring, is it possible that the power, ugliness and odd beauty of war is simply inexpressible, even in art? If it can be expressed, then who is qualified? Do artists have to see first-hand what they translate into art?”
Stone’s Castro Biopic Shelved
“Three days Oliver Stone spent with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro for an HBO documentary may have been for nothing. HBO has shelved the project because Castro recently imprisoned 75 dissidents, some with terms of 28 years, and had three others executed after they hijacked a ferry in a failed attempt to reach the United States, refreshing an image of the Cuban president not seen in the film. Comandante was scheduled to air May 5, but has been pulled; no future airdate has been set.”
The Inevitable Tragedy of Urban Memory Lapse
It happens in every city, particularly in North America: things disappear. They become other things, or sometimes they become nothing. But they disappear, either because no one wanted them, or they were dated, or dilapidated, or just plain ugly. Eventually, you walk past something that was once something else, and you can’t even remember what it used to be. And that moment, says Geoff Pevere, is one of the saddest aspects of modern urban existence.
Bush Advisers Resign Over Iraq Looting
“Three White House cultural advisers have resigned in protest at the failure of US forces to prevent the looting of Iraq’s national museum.” The advisers were all members of the President’s Advisory Committee on Cultural Property. The three advisers had sharp words for the Bush administration’s failure to have in place any sort of contingency plan for dealing with such foreseeable problems, and committee chair Martin Sullivan, who is one of those resigning, added that the looting was doubly preventable, since the United States was the nation in control of the timetable of the war. “In a pre-emptive war that’s the kind of thing you should have planned for,” he said.
The Fog Of Washington Arrogance
“Let’s be serious. Is anybody really surprised that Baghdad’s great civic art museum didn’t rate a measly tank? That the treasures of ancient Mesopotamia sat unguarded and exposed, ripe for the picking by local scavengers either amateur or professional? The horrendous event was not, after all, a dire outcome of ‘the fog of war.’ It was instead a routine example of the fog of the Bush administration, when it comes to matters cultural.”
San Antonio To Cut Season Short
The cash-strapped San Antonio Symphony will end its season more than a month early, and attempt to retool its finances in order to have the funds to mount a full 2003-04 season. The orchestra has been in dire straits for months, with its musicians frequently playing without pay. Orchestra officials say they are optimistic about plans for next season, but acknowledge that the new season may be a shorter one, and might not happen at all if new sources of local funding can’t be found.
The Problem Is The Donors
In many ways, the San Antonio Symphony has long been considered a model of what a small, regional orchestra should be. So what could be preventing the orchestra’s leaders from reviving their gasping organization? Mike Greenberg says the problem is simple: San Antonio’s big-money types are flatly refusing the symphony’s advances, and ignoring its pleas for relief. “The doors have slammed so consistently that some observers inside and outside the symphony have suspected a coordinated effort by donors to force the symphony to reconstitute itself as a smaller or part-time ensemble.”
Museum Looters Were Pros
The looting of Baghdad’s National Museum of Antiquities was no mere grab-and-go act by a desperate citizenry. According to UNESCO, the vast majority of the museum thefts were perpetrated by professional art thieves who knew exactly what to take, and where to find it. “Museum officials in Baghdad told UNESCO that one group of thieves had keys to an underground vault where the most valuable artifacts were stored. The thefts were probably the work of international gangs who hired Iraqis for the job, and who have been active in recent years doing illegal excavations at Iraqi archaeological digs.”