“With the approach of the 70th anniversary of Guernica’s destruction by German bombers serving the nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War”, the townspeople of Guernica are seeking the iconic Picvasso work’s relocation from Madrid’s Reina Sofia modern art museum.
Tag: 07.02.06
US Gallery Cancels Iraqi Gold Show
The famed Nimrud Gold was to have been shown at Washington’s Sackler Gallery. “I always felt that the gallery could not serve as a venue unless we received clear guarantees on a number of points, principally relating to security and funding. When no such guarantees were received, we concluded that we could not proceed.”
Oscars Revise Foreign Film Awards Rules
It’s actually a minor change. “Entries in the foreign language category are no longer required to be in the official language of the country submitting the film. Any language or combination of languages is acceptable, as long as the dominant one is not English.”
Remembering Aaron Spelling
The critics hated most of the shows Spelling put on the air, yet that didn’t keep them from liking him. They also were quick with their praise when he came through with a “Family,” a “Day One” or a viewing experience as profound as “And the Band Played On.”
CD Sales Down Again In First Half Of 2006
CD sales are down in the first half of 2006 by 3.4 percent. Yes downloads are up, but they don’t make up the gap. And “cassettes, are on their way to join vinyl and 8-tracks on Boot Hill. Cassette music sales fell a whopping 54 percent in the first half of 2006, peddling only 632,00 units, compared to the 1.3 million tapes sold in the first two quarters of ’05.”
Kimmelman: New Paris Museum “Brow-snappingly Wrongheaded”
Paris’ new Musee du Quai Branly “simply makes no sense” writes Michael Kimmelman. “Old, new, good, bad are all jumbled together without much reason or explanation, save for visual theatrics. If the Marx Brothers designed a museum for dark people, they might have come up with the permanent-collection galleries: devised as a spooky jungle, red and black and murky, the objects in it chosen and arranged with hardly any discernible logic, the place is briefly thrilling, as spectacle, but brow-slappingly wrongheaded. Colonialism of a bygone era is replaced by a whole new French brand of condescension.”
Is Montreal Really Getting A New Concert Hall?
“This is the seventh time in the past two decades that a Quebec government has promised a new home for the [Montreal Symphony]. One could put together a modest bus tour of all the sites around Montreal that have been touted as the orchestra’s future address. This one will be different… because the plan is clear and the process foolproof. A private developer will design and build a hall to the orchestra’s specifications (1,900 seats, shoebox shape), assume all the risks of construction and pocket $105-million during the course of a 40-year lease by the province. At the end of the lease, the province would own the building.”
Publishing On Your iPod
“Fader magazine has made its entire summer music issue available for download on iTunes, in what it says is a publishing first. The full issue is free to download as a PDF file, which offers a digital copy of every page — article and ads — in the magazine. It’s accompanied by a 47-minute podcast featuring music covered by the magazine. The leap off the page and into an area of the Web typically reserved for audio files is one considered natural by Fader, which has covered emerging music since 1998.”