The Affordable Art Show movement is taking off. The shows are “now a regular event in London and New York and six months ago he tested the water in Sydney, attracting 13,000 visitors and selling more than $4 million worth of art. Now it’s Melbourne’s turn, with the Royal Exhibition Building playing host to works from 120 galleries, 500 artists – and nothing more than $5000.”
Tag: 04.18.04
Scottish Opera On The Line
“Scottish Opera has, for reasons hard to discern, acquired pariah status. No one will speak up for it. Less than a year after the triumphant conclusion of its Ring Cycle, generally held to be one of the great post-war Wagner productions, it is cast in the role of profligate – elitist, unpopular, and irrelevant. Apparently unwilling to conform to the demands of contemporary cultural policy, it has retreated into the ranks of the untouchables, tarred with the great New Labour crime of being non-inclusive. The time has come, say its critics, to shrug it off, to clear it from the desk, to consign it to outer darkness. Except that no one can quite bring themselves to say so.”
University Buys Murdoch Library
The University of Surrey has bought the personal library of writer Iris Murdoch. “The collection of more than 1,000 books – many of them with her own remarks in the margins – surrounded and influenced her from 1952, when she began writing the first of her 26 novels, until a few years before she died of Alzheimer’s disease in 1999.”
Peabody’s New Face
Baltimore’s Peabody Institute “unveils nearly $27 million worth of campus renovations, the most extensive and expensive construction project since the institution opened in 1866.” The school campus has looked in for decades, and the renovations are designed to reconnect with the community.