Pauline Marcil has been appointed Canada’s new poet laureate. “Marcil, 60, wants to use her new job to bring “artists in contact with the political world.” She also wants to revisit the idea of having events such as poetry and literature readings at the Parliament building.”
Tag: 11.21.04
MoMA Opens To Long Lines And Cheers
The new Museum of Modern Art reopened Saturday with a line of thousands that stretched around the block. “Many arrived hours before the 10 a.m. opening to be among the first to see the museum’s collection of world-class modern and contemporary art. At 10 a.m. sharp, the doors swung open to cheers.”
The National Music (And Language)
Why does some music sound specifically English or French or German? Researchers have discovered that “the music differs in just the same way as the languages. It is as if the music carries an imprint of the composer’s language. The researchers say that consciously or not, composers may have used the rhythm and melody of their native language to influence their music, especially around the turn of the 20th century, a time of particular musical nationalism.”
Inside The New La Scala
The new La Scala is due to reopen December 7. “The new La Scala will be luxuriously – but much more scantily – clad. The red velvet of the theatre’s seats has been renewed. Its boxes have been relined in crimson silk. But to get back its original acoustics, 11 coats of paint have been removed from the walls, the fitted carpets have been ripped out and the linoleum that covered the floors of the boxes has been stripped away to reveal terracotta tiles.”
Inside Daniel Libeskind
“An architect without a monstrous ego is like a building without a roof. It’s part of the package. But Daniel Libeskind’s memoir leaves the impression that he thinks of himself as some kind of mystical rabbi who divines the soul of a place and then, with a gentle touch of his hands upon drawing paper, allows a manifestation of that spirit to spring from the ether in the shape of a building.”
MoMA – A New Way Of Looking At Art
“The new Modern is not just beautiful, though Yoshio Taniguchi’s building is that and then some. It offers a new way of looking at art, a new way of living with it and a bracing enthusiasm that has not been felt for years.”
Was New MoMA Worth It?
“With the reopening yesterday, one naturally asks, was it worth it? Has the museum effected a corresponding improvement in its ability to coherently display and interpret its superb collections of painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, architecture, and design? On balance, no. In some ways, the reborn MoMA is exciting, almost a different museum. However, much of that feeling has to do with the architecture. In other ways, it’s much less revolutionary than promised, and it sometimes seems confused about what it’s trying to achieve.”
The Once And Future MoMA
“The new MoMA is so different a place from any time in the museum’s 75-year history that its original commitment has been pushed to a middle ground, from which it will continue to recede while the institution pursues related interests. This is not conjecture. The new building and how it is used send a message that had been sounded with increasing frequency since the last expansion.”
MoMA’s New Frame
“The new Museum of Modern Art, which reopened to the public Saturday after a $425 million renovation and expansion, is that bracing shower: a work of architecture that is serene, urbane and blissfully understated.”
Let’s Save Taliesin (We Need It)
What’s America’s best building? Robert Campbell suggests that Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin ought to be considered. But it’s in bad repair. “Wright is arguably the greatest American artist in any field of the visual arts, and Taliesin is perhaps his masterpiece. If we don’t save it, we have no claim to call ourselves a culture. The cost of restoration has been estimated at $60 million. The Big Dig is costing 250 times that.”