Representational Art Back On The Radar Screen

“Once photography took over the role of depicting reality in the mid-19th century, painters faced the question of what to paint. As new styles from Impressionism to Abstraction flowered, the dominant approach was to avoid anything the camera could record.
Still, artists who stuck with recognizable images continued to paint and exhibit their work – without the respect of modern art’s movers and shakers… these painters of so-called representational art have finally been brought back into the fold – and that the art world has finally shed the notion that a single style defines a ‘serious’ artist.”

Bypassing The Middleman

As the corporations that control the popular music market continue to tighten their grip and shrink their playlists, bands outside the increasingly narrow “mainstream” are turning to the vaguely defined world of internet buzz to market themselves. With the recent proliferation of web sites designed to be “people hubs” (bringing users together around common interests or relationships), musicians have seen an opportunity to generate interest in their work without having to crack the playlist at MTV or ClearChannel.

The Ultimate In Narrowcasting

“Wires, batteries, plastic containers, cardboard boxes, drills, glue guns, a single-watt FM transmitter, perhaps a toy truck or a stuffed rabbit — put these together and you have a personal radio station that could start a public revolution. At least that’s the idea behind Radio Re-Volt: One Person .00One Watt, a project by Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center that intends to open the radio airwaves to the general public, one small radio station at a time.”

Standing Room’s Looking Like A Pretty Good Deal

Movie theaters figured out years ago that patrons like to be able to watch a film without requiring major physical rehabilitation when they pry themselves out of their seats at the end of the evening. So why are so many newly refurbished Broadway theaters still sporting totally substandard seating with zero leg room? The answer is a combination of historic preservation restrictions and profit-driven decision making.

Britten’s Family Values

Benjamin Britten lived his entire life obsessed with the concept of family, and was known for creating surrogate units around himself wherever he went. “There were families that Britten devised and then depended on to facilitate and fulfil his work: the companies that staged his works, and in particular the managements of the English Opera Group and the Aldeburgh festival. But there were many times in the later 1940s and 1950s when the conduct of these surrogate families was overshadowed by frustrations, jealousies and even thinly disguised homophobia.”

The Cult of the First Edition

“What persuades anyone to part with more than two million dollars for a long roll of teletype paper covered in the scribbled script that would one day become On The Road? How can any old book be worth nearly half-a-million dollars when the same thing brand spanking new is sitting on the paperback classics shelf for less than $30?” Still, someone is clearly fueling the markups, and first editions remain one of the most cherished of literary collector’s items.

Scottish Opera Goes Begging

Desperately searching for ways to stay afloat financially, Scottish Opera, which will be forced by the Scottish Executive to go dark for a year in summer 2005, is considering mounting a tour outside of Scotland to be paid for by England’s Arts Council. “There is concern that if the opera drops out of sight, the road back will be even tougher. Staging a brand-new opera in Scotland, however, could potentially cost up to £400,000.” So if there is a tour, Scottish audiences may miss out on seeing their own opera company.

Is The Nobel Following A Pattern?

It’s become almost a tradition for the Nobel literature recipient to be someone who wasn’t even on the critical radar screen at the moment, and so it is with Elfriede Jelinek. And yet, “Ms. Jelinek fits a more familiar pattern. She is the seventh European literature laureate in the past decade. The academy has also again shown a preference for literature with a political echo. As with several recent winners, including last year’s, J. M. Coetzee, a critic of South Africa’s apartheid government, Ms. Jelinek has used her literary work as a form of political engagement.”