“Once, a museum, a Hollywood studio, a book publisher or an orchestra shaped public conversation about the arts. Today, they respond. Where once there was tastemaking by decree, now there are trends arrived at by consensus. As ’50s bohemia morphed into ’60s counterculture and then into the rapid absorption by the mainstream of every hot fringe trend, the public challenged the establishment’s role in defining quality. In the age of podcasting, peer-to-peer file-sharing and pocket camcorders, everybody’s a curator, a critic and a producer, all at the same time.”
Tag: 05.23.05
Penguin Birthday Marred By Race Charges
Penguin is celebrating 70 years in publishing. “To celebrate the birthday, Penguin is issuing 70 new short titles, or Pocket Penguins, drawn from its back catalogue or new work. Now, unexpectedly, the titles have provoked outrage and surprise because they include work by only two authors who are not white.”
The Sound Of Music (With Emphasis On The Sound)
“Some may call it sound design, sound sculpture or sound art, but it’s actually music. Bypassing the visual sense, they send their messages and ideas straight to the brain with their aesthetic treatment of sound – and that is surely what music is. What is interesting to observe, though, is that in a world increasingly dominated by the visual, with adverts, text messages and multi-channel TV, sound and music is becoming an alternative and more powerful force, finding a way into our emotional lives and functioning in a way that art does.”
Portrait Of An Art Thief
Forget that romantic image of the art thief as a cunning, live-by-his-wits rogue. Other misconceptions: “There is a massive amount of fraud involving art and antiquities. It is perpetrated not by opportunist thieves but by organised criminals. There is nothing ‘gentlemanly’ or ‘white-collar’ about it – these are dangerous individuals.”
Sheikh Defrauds Qatar Cousin Through Inflated Art Sales
Sheikh Saud Al-Thani apparently defrauded the Qatar government for millions of dollars by using “vastly inflated invoices issued by Islamic art dealer Oliver Hoare.”
UNESCO Fixes Up Its Showplace
Embarrassing, really, that the UN agency responsible for preserving world culture should have let its own shoplace headquarters crumble. Now a long-overdue restoration. “In recent years, large mesh nets have been hung from the façade of UNESCO’s main building to catch falling chunks of concrete. Roofs leaked and water damage plagued the basement where archives are stored. The neglected state of the UNESCO complex seems particularly paradoxical given the agency’s role as a guardian of the world’s cultural heritage. Since 2000, UNESCO has embarked on a campaign to add Modernist monuments to its World Heritage List, which obligates U.N. member states to care for sites in their territories.”