Tag: 11.04.03

The Serious Business of KidLit

JK Rowling aside, authors who focus their efforts on the youth market are not in what you would call a moneymaking line of work. Most have day jobs, and few ever manage to earn a full-time income from writing children’s books. But children’s authors take themselves and their genre quite seriously, and they put as much time and effort into crafting a 200-word picture book as other authors put into an 80,000-word novel.

Canadian Landscapes Coming Home

“Thirteen exceptional 18th-century watercolours including views of Montreal and Quebec City as they looked in the 1780s are among a collection of rare paintings that have been bought in Britain by the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in Quebec City and Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa… Bonhams, the auction house that negotiated the private sale, says the collection is worth at least $194,000. There is speculation, however, the Canadian officials might have paid a bit more to have them withdrawn from public auction.”

Family Squabbles

The estate of Quebec artist Jean-Paul Riopelle has announced plans to sell 43 of the abstractionist’s works at auction this month, sparking controversy over the issue of who is calling the shots in the preservation of Riopelle’s legacy. At the center of the debate are Riopelle’s daughters, who are not executors of his estate; Riopelle’s longtime companion, who is an executor; and the director of the Musee de Quebec, who is also an executor, and therefore in a potential conflict of interest regarding the sale. The announcement of the auction, which came only ten days before the auction itself, has many observers questioning whether the market value of Riopelle’s work could be lowered by such a hasty selloff.

Alfred Barr’s Reach Across American Art

Alfred Barr was the founder of the Museum of Modern Art. “Even now, thirty-six years after he retired and more than twenty years after he died at seventy-nine (he)remains a figure of fascination and contention. No one had a more profound effect on the direction of American museums over the last three quarters of a century, and no museum director or curator, or anyone else for that matter, except perhaps the artists themselves, did more to shape the national perception and discussion of art in the twentieth century.”

The Power Of The Literary Drunk

Alcoholism is not an entertaining disease, and let no one claim that it is. “But drunks do make great literary characters. They are quest-driven and tragic, marked for a destiny they cannot escape, and full of passion… Like all great literary subjects, drinking is transformative; it changes the metabolism of the alcoholic, even the very structure of his cells. It allows for carnivalesque abandon and provides the novelist with a catalyst for visionary truth… The best writing about alcoholics manages to explore the degradation the disease inflicts while respecting the dignity of its victim.”

Planning For The Future In Florida

The Florida Philharmonic is gone, a victim of the bad economy and public indifference. But, like so many other communities which have lost symphony orchestras, music fans in South Florida are holding out hope that a new ensemble will eventually rise from the ashes of the Phil. This week, the Dade Community Foundation struck a deal that makes such a revival much more likely: it’s purchasing the Philharmonic’s music library for $180,000, and storing it until a new orchestra can take it back. An orchestra’s music library is its most irreplacable asset, and building one from scratch takes years of careful purchasing, so the preservation of the library was a major priority for the musicians of the defunct Philharmonic.

Will Arts Get Booted Off the Island?

Hawai’i is more than just another state in the U.S. Its geographic isolation from the rest of the country means that its population is quite insular and, despite the heavy tourist trade, relatively unchanging. These unique qualities make Hawai’i a charming place to live, but are posing a grave danger for the state’s arts groups, many of which are in severe financial turmoil, and in need of public support. “Years of financial austerity measures have helped the major arts and cultural organizations survive, but administrators say innovative solutions are needed to cope with a confluence of negative local and national trends.”

London, She Is A’Changin’

London’s art world is changing, writes Jerry Saltz. “The best way to understand the change taking place in London is to think about what’s not going on: scandal. Although Jake and Dinos Chapman’s realistic sculpture of two bronze blow-up dolls engaged in mutual oral sex, unveiled last week in the Turner Prize exhibition, is sure to raise a ruckus, a new generation of British artists appears to be turning away from the shock tactics of yesteryear.”