“With “Adele,” Lauder and the Neue Galerie are making a grand gamble: Can a splashy, nearly unimaginable art acquisition turn an obscure museum into a must-see destination? Can a single painting – even a $135 million one – lift a museum to prominence?”
Tag: 09.26.06
Why London’s Theatre Museum Matters
“Does it matter? Isn’t theatre something that’s supposed to happen in the moment rather than be artificially preserved? I’d say it matters hugely for both practical and symbolic reasons. The great advantage of the Theatre Museum was that a large part of our history was stored under one roof.”
String Theory – It Ain’t The Only Game In Town
“In string theory – an idea that’s been around since the late 1970s – the universe is a 10-dimensional place, with six of those dimensions curled up inside themselves like a cat in front of a fireplace. All particles and forces are different resonances and vibrations of these 10-dimensional strings. Strings are far from the only game in town. There are other, potentially equally promising approaches to unifying physics’ two seemingly incompatible visions of the cosmos: general relativity and quantum mechanics.”
Paul Allen, Brain Cartographer
“Experts say the Allen Brain Atlas, which will be formally unveiled today, will boost understanding of brain circuits and chemistry — and what goes wrong in conditions ranging from schizophrenia and autism to Parkinson’s disease and drug addiction.”
Why The V&A Turned Down Gates’s Leonardo
Gates wanted onerous terms for display of his Leonardo codex and the Victoria & Albert Museum felt it couldn’t comply. “The terms for the showing of [the codex] included having people being searched going in, having to leave all their metallic objects behind and so on. The security people said that if you had these two airport-style walkthroughs, the corridors would be jammed up.”
In Cambodia A Museum Reborn
“After a period of near ruin in the 1970’s under the Khmer Rouge, when this city was forcibly emptied, and then years of struggle to raise money and hire staff members, the National Museum of Cambodia has made a comeback. Visitors are coming in droves, catalogs of the permanent collection have been prepared, and conservation is now a major priority.”
Metropolitan Opera’s New Era Begins
“The Metropolitan Opera embarked on a new era with a season-opening gala last night that dripped wealth and celebrity but also included an unprecedented dose of populism: a simulcast in Times Square, where the giant Panasonic, Nasdaq and Reuters screens beamed Puccini’s tale of love and abandonment north to a blocked-off section of Broadway.”
Deborah Voigt On Singing 150 Pounds Lighter
“I don’t think my voice has changed, but I am only hearing it from inside, so I can only speak about the sensation of singing. Every 20lbs I lost, I felt less rounded and less able to support the sound; well, that was because my support system was vanishing. At 150lbs heavier, you take a breath and those muscles are already engaged, you don’t have to think about it. Now, I have to think about it, about how things line up.”
On The Trail Of The Russian Fakes
“The boom in the Russian art market has been so intense that it has spawned countless forgeries. Many are indifferent landscapes of northern-European origin, which have been embellished with false signatures and details to make non-Russian subjects look Russian and therefore more valuable.”
Toronto’s Back-To-Basics Opera House
Toronto’s new opera house is a plain Jane. It was also a bargain. “How did the COC come up with so satisfactory a facility for so little money? For one thing it chose to forgo, at least for now, what other theatres clamour for: state-of-the art stage equipment. Everything is manually operated – one reason, the company notes, it opened on time.”