The Frankfurt Book Fair is the publishing world’s major deal-making event. But the fair is expensive, and increasingly attendees grumble. “Many US publishers have scaled back their presence this year, and the decision of St Martin’s Press (Holtzbrinck) to pull out has been watched with interest. Some key US agents have said that the London Book Fair is now a more crucial event on the trading calendar.”
Tag: 10.08.03
Berlin’s Digital Dare
While American TV has made little progress in converting to digital, the city of Berlin accomplished the digital transition in one fell swoop. “The lessons for American policymakers: The paralysis that grips the digital TV transition in the United States can be overcome, and taking away analog TV is not political suicide.”
Cuban Artists Increasingly Kept Out Of US
Increasingly, cultural events in the US featuring Cuban artists(primarily in south Florida) are having to be canceled because the US is failing to issue visas. “We did everything on time, knowing all that is happening with the visa process – and nothing. Some big name writers have declined to participate in the Book Fair all together because they don’t want to endure the humiliation they are being put through in this process. This situation is creating tension, ill-will, and is hurting our cultural events.”
Shakespeare As Glamorous Global Hamburger
Rome has built itself a replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. “The Roman Globe will no doubt be celebrated as yet further evidence of the ‘universality’ of Shakespeare’s art. Unfortunately, by the same reasoning, the conquest of Italian city centres by the McDonald’s franchise demonstrates the universality of hamburgers (hamburger, in Italian slang, means ‘fool’). Don’t be misled by the difference in the product being sold: the Globe is the perfect icon of globalisation. Globalisation replaces many cultures with one, and the language of that new international monoculture is English.”
Forsythe: New Movement Required
As choreographer William Forsyth contemplates moving on from the Ballett Frankfurt, he says his priorities in dance have changed. “He is interested in subtler, more inward kinds of movement in dancing that is more ‘behavioural’ than display, in dance that requires new arenas and new ways of working. He wants the freedom to work outside theatres, in smaller, more versatile spaces. ‘Theatres are inherently ideological. It’s us – the dancers – and them, the public. What about finding other ways of being together’?”
The Whitney – Digging Out Of A Hole
The Whitney Museum is deep in trouble. “Adam Weinberg, its former curator of collections, recently director of Andover’s Addison Gallery, returned as its director on October 1. Weinberg is an encouraging choice; he’s smart, convivial, knows the board, and loves art. In order to save this ailing institution, however, he must do several thorny things while standing up to its pesky trustees.”
Ritchie To Take Over Top LA Theatre Post
Michael Ritchie, who has led the celebrated Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts since 1996, has been named to be artistic director of the Center Theatre Group, which runs the Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson Theatre and the new Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles.
Kramer: Lamenting The Barnes Deal
While some are celebrating the imminent move of the famed Barnes Collection to Philadelphia, Hilton Kramer writes that the deal is a dark one with big implications. “The enemies of the late Albert C. Barnes (1872-1951) are about to achieve their fondest desire: the ‘legal theft,’ as it has been dubbed, of Dr. Barnes’ great collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.”
Carson Wins The Forward
“Ciaran Carson, the Belfast writer who has spent his life pondering the perfect fry – bacon, eggs, sausage, black pudding with fadge [fried bread] and soda farls, cut in triangles, washed down with Punjana tea, and a cigarette – wins the Forward Prize, poetry’s answer to the Booker.”
An Old Debate Renewed
In Canada, as in the U.S., battles over controversial images have often been waged with the definition of the term “artistic merit” at the center. Now, a bill is being debated in the Canadian Parliament which would remove the “artistic merit” defense from the federal law banning child pornography, in favor of a requirement that an artwork be proven to be a “public good.” Kate Taylor says the change would have a crippling effect on Canadian art and freedom. “The artistic-merit defence can at least be argued by bringing artistic peers, critics and academics into court, but how do you prove the public good of an individual art work — no matter how much you might believe in the public good of art in general?”