Planners of a project at San Francisco Airport hired Brooklyn artist Vito Acconci to make a piece of public art for the project. But five of his ideas were rejected before one stuck. And drivers coming out of the terminal might not even be aware that they’re looking at public art…
Tag: 07.01.03
Plans For WTC Memorial Pour In
Monday was the deadline for plans to be submitted for a memorial at the site of the former World Trade Center. “By the 5 p.m. deadline, thousands of proposals, enough to fill a caravan of delivery trucks, had been received at the nondescript, six-story warehouse at 515 West 36th Street in Manhattan. Entries started being accepted on June 9, and the last ones trickled in for more than an hour after the deadline. The contest is expected to be the largest design competition ever, exceeding even the 1,421 designs submitted for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Little more is likely to be heard about the proposals until September, when about five finalists are to be announced.”
Kirov To Get New Home
“The Kirov Ballet is to get a starkly modern glass and marble new home designed by Dominique Perrault of France. His design, of black marble covered with golden-hued glass, won a competition to design the new Maryinsky Theater for the Kirov, and the results were announced on Saturday.”
Sequelitis – Not Paying Off At The Box Office?
In a year dominated by sequels, movie box office is down. “Box-office revenues for the year are down 4% and movie attendance is off 8%. The past three weekends are also down compared to last summer.”
American Movie Ratings: “Infantilizing Censorship”
If your film gets an N-17 rating (no one under 17 admitted) in America, it’s the kiss of death. “The rating board’s inscrutable, often infuriating judgment calls about sexual content are legend. No one, not even maverick Lions Gate, will release an NC-17 film — and with good reason. Key theater chains might not book it; many TV and newspaper outlets would refuse to advertise it; and once it went to video, where the real profits are for most films, major chains such as Blockbuster wouldn’t stock it. ‘American film is being horribly infantalized. If you want to see something adult, you have to stay home and watch HBO’.”
Canada – More Than Just Anne Murray
What kind of culture does Canada project to the rest of the world? To itself? “I moved to Toronto in April, 1996, and have been slowly discovering that Canada (as a land, as people, as a political identity) and its culture are not always in sync. This is not necessarily a bad thing. A place where fringe, marginal or esoteric sensibilities come to stand for a whole country can’t be that bad. But it may account for the lack of interest in Canadian popular culture locally. If you don’t see your life reflected in your own culture, why look in the first place?”
Gioia: State Arts Funding Crisis
NEA chief Dana Gioia says there is a crisis in state arts funding. “He said although no state has eliminated arts budgeting, “the mere debate suggests that the political and social consensus that once existed on the necessity of public support for the arts and arts education is breaking down.”
CheckMate
A new exhibition features chess sets made by artists in the 19th and 20th Centuries. “There are 19 sets on display, each one set out to illustrate a move in an apocryphal game played between Napoleon, playing as white, and General Bertrand on St Helena in 1820. Five new sets by contemporary artists Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Paul McCarthy, Yayoi Kusama and Maurizio Cattelan mark out the climax of the game.”
Hitler And The Arts
A new books examines Hitler’s aesthetics. “Adolf Hitler wanted to be the greatest patron of the arts in history. ‘It was a pity,’ he observed, ‘that I have to wage war on account of that drunk [Winston Churchill] instead of serving the works of peace’.”
Olympic Dreams…But Can You Deliver?
What should hosting an Olympic Games mean to a city? “Many Olympic cities have promised regeneration and few have delivered. From the Foro Italico in Rome to Homebush in Sydney, the world is littered with desultory, underpopulated Olympic zones that were once the subject of some planner’s proud boast. If the Olympics automatically gave its sites a boost, then Wembley, where the games were held in 1948, would be the hottest place in north London. This time, London has to mean it, and it has to deliver.”