The National Archives reopens in Washington DC. “The Declaration and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the documents the Archives calls the Charters of Freedom, are back on display in the Rotunda of the Archives building after being away from public view 2 1/2 years. The building has been extensively renovated to make the documents more accessible to visitors, especially the handicapped, and the Charters have been re-encased after minute and painstaking conservation treatment. The entire project is estimated to have cost as much as $136 million.”
Tag: 10.26.03
Another Melbourne Fest Hits the Books
This year’s Melbourne Festival comes to a close. “Festival-goers could take their pick of about 70 offerings this year, but it seemed that most wanted to talk about just two of them: the public program Dancing In The Streets and the controversial Belgian production I Am Blood. The former was roundly judged a success, having attracted nightly crowds averaging about 1000 to dance classes at Federation Square, many of them people who had never attended a festival event. But Jan Fabre’s bloody meditation upon humanity’s inhumanity won few fans.”
The Fictional Rorem
Hard to believe composer Ned Rorem is 80. “His masterpiece is his artistic personality. He’s an extremely acute observer and a master of paradox, which is very French. He was able to import French culture while remaining a thoroughly American figure. In an era of dumbing-down and slipping standards, he really does stand for something.”
George Orwell Named Names
Orwell outed those he believed were communists to the government. His list is contained in a notebook that is about to be released. “The final list contained 38 names of journalists, scholars and actors, including film comic Charlie Chaplin, actor Michael Redgrave, historian E.H. Carr and left-wing Labour MP Tom Driberg. Its discovery earlier this year was proof that Orwell, after conscientious second thoughts and deletions, had sent the Foreign Office some names from his notebook drafts.”
“Power 100” List Demotes Saatchi, Promotes Dentist
ArtReview Magazine’s new “Power 100” list of the most influential collectors of art contains a few surprises this year. Charles Saatchi will be knocked from first place to sixth. But perhaps just as surprising is the man who ranks No. 100: the dentist who fixed the teeth of the Young British Artist set. Artists such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin gave their dentist work in trade for his tooth care. “Emin has regularly sung his praises, telling interviewers: ‘My dentist is the best in Britain!’ She said last night: ‘He’s a really good and kind dentist who took my teeth on when no one else would go near them with a barge pole’.”
The Turner’s New Outrage…(Really?)
“This week, art’s most respected competition, the Turner Prize, invites its biggest controversy with a display of a graphic and sexually explicit sculpture by two of Britain’s foremost artists.”