There are curious omissions in this year’s Tony nominations. “Not for the first time in a theatre culture that is at least as much about commerce as it is about art, the list of omissions has a drama all its own.”
Tag: 05.13.04
MoMA’s Art Sale
The Museum of Modern Art has sold more than $100 million of artwork from its collection “during the past five years, more than eight times the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s proceeds of $9.23 million in the past five years. Unlike the Met, which typically sells second-tier works, MoMA, throughout its history, has unloaded important objects that would have been treasured icons at almost any other museum, and that collectors have eagerly acquired. Alfred Barr Jr., the founding director, believed that the collection should “metabolically” shed older works as it acquired new ones.”
A Smart Building For Geniuses
Frank Gehry’s new Stata Center at MIT “occupies historic, even mystical ground. It sits on the site of the former Building 20, a boxy wooden structure that was thrown up in 1943 and became known as the Magical Incubator for the breakthroughs that took place inside, including the invention of radar and Mr. Chomsky’s pioneering work in linguistics. This building is on the precise site of one of the major flourishings of innovation in the 20th century.”
I, Márquez – Diplomat
“Mexican opposition politicians are appealing to Latin America’s best-known writer, Gabriel García Márquez, to mediate in the diplomatic crisis that has taken their country’s traditionally good relations with Cuba to the brink of collapse.”
Hughes: Reconsidering deKooning
Robert Hughes is unimpressed by Wilem deKooning’s reputation. “De Kooning has been written about, mainly by Americans, in terms that might seem over-the-top for Rubens. More tempests than Lear and Moby-Dick put together. Hysterical weather reports from some outer galactic fringe, accessible only to Hubble telescopes and art historians – such as John Mekert, who wrote the catalogue for the 1984 retrospective: ‘The creative force of eros has merged with the flux of a shapeless magma of light and unbound matter drifting towards congealment into form.’ Yikes!”
Cut-Rate Opera Doesn’t Fly
Why did Raymond Gubbay’s Savoy Opera fail so quickly? “Gubbay was selling the Savoy Opera as unexceptional everyday West End fare, without the ‘snobbery’ and ‘elitism’ that supposedly put “ordinary” folk off. But what came across, I think, was an unfortunate impression of mediocrity. And Joe Public never wants to pay good money for that. Precisely the opposite, in fact.”
A Bad Night At The ENO
Richard Dorment vows never again to set foot in the English National Opera. “When the curtain finally fell, I did something I’ve never done in a lifetime of opera going – joined in booing the director Phyllida Lloyd when she came on stage to take her bow. The sound came out involuntarily, an expression of pure hatred directed at a person who had so wantonly done violence to a beloved work of art. Had I a rotten tomato to hand, it would have given me great pleasure to throw it.”