“High” culture is wildly popular right now, and isn’t that what artists have been fighting for? “Public enthusiasm for art, music, theater, and dance is raising some highbrow eyebrows, however. Academics, connoisseurs, and critics maintain that as arts organizations market themselves to draw new audiences, the quality of their offerings has been ‘dumbed down’. ‘Popularity is not necessarily a measure of success in the arts.” Too many institutions are compromising their standards as they scramble to respond to ‘bottom-line pressures that reared their ugly heads in the 1990s’.” – Boston Globe 08/27/00
Tag: 08.27.00
ARTS BOOM
The arts are booming in Singapore, according to a new report. “Performance arts activities jumped from 1,500 in 1989 to 3,800 in 1999. For visual arts, the number of exhibitions went up from 212 to 406 in the same period.” – Singapore News 08/27/00
HIGH TACKINESS
“In recent times, it has become an unwritten rule of the Olympics that each opening ceremony should go faster, higher and further than the one before. Lighting the cauldron has become not so much a simple emblem as an increasingly emotional focal point for the games. After the heart-stopping moment in Barcelona when an archer lit the cauldron with a flaming arrow, Atlanta pulled off another coup in 1996, when Muhammad Ali, willed on by the world, lit it with visibly shaking hands. Now the pressure is on Sydney to top them both.” – The Sunday Times (UK)
WHEN SHOCK BECOMES SHLOCK
Shock, disgust, and horror are common themes at the heart of numerous contemporary artists’ work. Relying on the grotesque to shake viewers from the complacency of modern life’s distractions and luxuries may be an honorable goal, but is it succeeding? “Disgust is a drug whose effects quickly abate with overdosing. If art aspires to disgust and nothing more, then disgust will rapidly become the pallid salon style of the day – and that is exactly what has happened. Disgusting is now simply what art is; it has lost its shock value.” – The Sunday Times (UK)
THE ART OF NOT KNOWING
An interview with American art legend Robert Rauschenberg who, at age 74, is still creating, improvising, and expounding freely on “the way a serendipitist works.” “For me, art shouldn’t be a fixed idea that I have before I start making it. I want it to include all the fragility and doubt that I go through the day with. Sometimes I’ll take a walk just to forget whatever good idea I had that day because I like to go into the studio not having any ideas. I want the insecurity of not knowing.” – New York Times