Archive for January, 2010

Ground Zero Museum Workshop – been there? GO!

Posted by Gary Vikan on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

 

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

The tiny Ground Zero Museum Workshop – the “Biggest Little Museum in New York” – in the Meat-Packing District is so powerful that its staff has found it necessary to place boxes of tissue around the room for those who break down during their visit. Among the most moving juxtapositions is the one that includes a photograph of the clock in the PATH workers’ exercise room stopped at 10:02 and 14 seconds, the moment when the North Tower collapsed, and the clock itself. At 1000 square feet, this mini-museum can accommodate just 24 visitors at a time, who must schedule in advance for their two-hour slot. Unlike the experience at St. Paul’s Chapel, that at the Ground Zero Museum Workshop is thoroughly tactile and gritty, including plenty of dirt and seemingly random debris from the pit. In the words of its brochure: “3-D installations, complete with dirt, will make you feel as if you ‘were there’ when the images were taken….”

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

Visitors are even invited to touch a piece of glass from the Twin Towers. 

Photo: GV; Hand: GV

Photo: GV; Hand: GV

Posted in 9/11, Architecture, Cultural Property, Museums, Uncategorized | 539 Comments »

What’s a Great Musician Worth?

Posted by Gary Vikan on Sunday, January 24th, 2010

Severance Hall, Home to the Cleveland Orchestra
Severance Hall, Home to the Cleveland Orchestra

 On January 18th the musicians of the elite Cleveland Orchestra went on strike, and the news made the front page of The New York Times (1/19: “Strike at Cleveland Orchestra Points to Classical Music Woes”). Cleveland is hardly alone among America’s leading orchestras in its struggle to deal with the Great Recession. Endowments are down, subscriptions are down, and for the Cleveland Orchestra (as the article lays out in some detail): the whole CITY is down! A capital of the Rust Belt, Cleveland is not the city it was when the orchestra was founded, in 1918. “Old-money families” are now doing the heavy lifting for a city that  has lost not only its corporate headquarters, but 50% of its population in last 50 years – and 10% in the last decade.

What to do? Follow that fleeing population to where it has gone, and so the Cleveland Orchestra has struck a deal with Miami, as part of its “globalization strategy,” to provide quality classical music down there.

Makes sense, at least for a while.

So what, for the musicians, is at issue?  Management has asked the players - whose minimum salary now stands at $115,000 – to take a 5% pay cut this year, go back to par next year, and accept a 2.5% raise the following year.

Not bad, especially in this economy.

But the Cleveland Orchestra has been operating at a deficit for nearly a decade. This is a structural problem, and so something has to give.

Not only at Cleveland, but at orchestras all across America.

So the bottom line question is: in our society, what is a great musician worth?

Posted in Classical Music, Uncategorized | 72 Comments »

The Magic of Makeup

Posted by Gary Vikan on Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

So you though Queen Nefertiti was simply vain.  That she wore all that makeup, especially around the eyes, so she would be the fairest in the land.

Well, not so. According to an article in the Science Times last Tuesday (“Ancient Egypt’s Toxic Makeup Fought Infection…,”), that colorful stuff she put on was a toxic mix of four lead-based chemicals.

Imagine wearing arsenic to enhance your beauty! And who in the Pharaoh’s government, such as it was, was in charge of public safety? Anyone?

Whatever Nefertiti may have thought of the cosmetic value of the colors she wore, it’s pretty certain that she was aware of and valued their healing powers. She probably recited incantations, invoking the protection of the gods Horus and Ra, as she got ready each morning for her daily duties as Queen.

And as it turns out, all that lead on her face not only made her more beautiful, it killed the bacteria that ran wild when the Nile flooded, entering the eyes and causing inflammations – at least for those unfortunate plain-Janes who didn’t wear enough makeup.

And to think, we’re still worried about lead in lipstick, all these centuries later.

Posted in Uncategorized | 365 Comments »

MLK and the Lorraine Motel

Posted by Gary Vikan on Monday, January 18th, 2010

Photo:GV

Photo:GV

More than 600,000 people visit Memphis each year to see Graceland. I have no idea how many visit the Lorraine Motel while they’re there, as I did, but I can assure you that it is well worth it. It’s just a few blocks south of Beale Street, which in turn is just south of the grand old upscale hotel of Memphis, The Peabody.

Anything but upscale, the Lorraine was one of those rare Memphis lodgings that would welcome blacks 40 years ago.

The Lorraine Motel is the site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968.

It is also home to the “National Civil Rights Museum.” 

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

The Lorraine weaves together two powerful stories.
One is of the assasination itself, which is immediately evoked from the exterior, by the balcony of room #306, now still as it was in April 1968. This view immediately brings to mind the dramatic photo taken just moments after King was shot on that very spot: his entourage frantically pointing toward the rooming house across the street from which the shot came – the victim is at their feet.
00159985.JPG

The Lorraine Motel has been turned into the National Civil Right Museum. The story line begins more than a century before 1968, but as visitors progress along the path of America’s civil rights movement, they progress as well along the path leading to room #306. Gradually, historical time converges with real time and real place, as visitors follow in increasingly rich and poignant detail the story of the struggle – and specifically, of Martin Luther Kings’ role in that struggle – as it leads up to and into the room, and then out on to the balcony where he died.

This is a museum that teaches in the best possible way, and,  at the same time, it is a museum that leaves its visitors powerfully moved.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Should Art Museums be Allowed to Sell Art to Pay the Bills?

Posted by Gary Vikan on Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

Judith H. Dobrzynski, a former Times art writer, had an interesting op-ed piece in The New York Times the other day (1/2) called “The Art of the Deal.” She lays out the financially troubled state of America’s fine arts museums – a condition known by now to all who follow this industry – and then advocates for a revisit of the self-imposed rule that museums cannot sell art to balance their operating budgets. After all, what museum doesn’t have store rooms stocked with secondary works?

Dobrzynski calls for the creation a system monitored by an informed but “neutral” third party that would help decide whether the sale of works of art from a museum’s permanent collection is warranted by extreme and unusual circumstance effectively beyond the control of the museum. Is the alternative – presumably, the financial collapse or near collapse of the museum – so dire that a temporary bending of the no-sell rule is allowable?

She concludes: “until [museums' money troubles go away] , de-accessioning shouldn’t be imposssible – just nearly so.”

Whether her point of view gets any traction remains to be seen. But one distinction she failed to draw might be worthy of exploration: namely, the distinction between art that is part of a donor bequest (or purchased with donor-restricted funds) and art that is purchased by the museum’s trustees with funds they have themselves raised.

It is a distinction much like that between “permanent endowment” funds, that are held in the public trust and are untouchable, and “quasi-endowment” funds,  that have been assigned by the museum’s trustees to long-term investments but which, at their discretion, can be unassigned.

In other words: what trustees choose to do they can choose to undo, with cash and, presumably, with art.

I have no idea what proportion of our nation’s public art assets have been assembled in this way; at the Walters, it is a very tiny portion of our collections, most of which (and the best of which) were part of the Henry Walters bequest of 1931.

But for other museums – and specifically, the ones whose very survival is risk – it may be worth looking into.

Posted in Art, Museums, The Walters, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Should the Elgin Marbles go Back to Greece?

Posted by Gary Vikan on Sunday, January 10th, 2010

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

This decades-old question has new urgency, thanks to the stunningly-beautiful new museum in Athens dedicated to the Acropolis. Something is missing, say the Greeks (www.culture.gr). Not so, say the English (www.britishmuseum.org).

IMG_4731

In the British Museum, so the argument goes, you can see the sculptures close up and personal, and millions upon millions have had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with one of the great architectural monuments of all time, without a trip to Athens.

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

And, after all, who knows what may have happened to these great works in those dangerous times, two centuries ago, when what is now Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire – had not Lord Elgin stepped in?

And then, in the label, a more suble thought is expressed, that in effect makes didactic allies of the old British Museum and the New Acropolis Museum.

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

If you were a Trustee of the British Museum, how would you vote?

Posted in Architecture, Art, Cultural Property, Greece | 744 Comments »

A Bow for Elvis, on His Birthday

Posted by Gary Vikan on Friday, January 8th, 2010

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

A LITTLE “HUNK ‘a BURNIN’ LOVE.”

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

The Voodoo Economics of Kingship – on HIS Birthday

Posted by Gary Vikan on Friday, January 8th, 2010

EPCoinNow see if you can figure this one out.  The clever folks at “Mystic Stamp Company” (note the word mystic) in Camden, NJ, have bought up a bunch of Tennessee State Quarters showing Elvis with unusually fluffy hair – and have colorized them! They have developed some “revolutionary technique” whereby this color portrait shall never “chip, fade or peel.”

The 30th anniversary noted on the coin is, one assumes, the 30th anniversary of the King’s reputed passing – August 16, 1977.

The reason it’s being offered in the newspapers right now is, of course, because today, January 8, 2010, would have been (for some, is) Elvis’ 75th Birthday.

Ergo, the exhibition opening this very day at the National Portrait Gallery: “One Life: Echoes of Elvis.”

Back to voodoo economics.

 

EPCoin.2

So, when it comes to ordering your coin or coins, you discover that they apparently cost nothing – that’s the “Yours Free” part of the ad - and that’s why, I guess, there’s a limit on the number of such mystic coins you can buy at one time: namely 5.

But then there’s the ”shipping and handling” of these numismatic treasures. That comes to $2.95 for the “yours-free” coin.  But let’s say you decide to order the limit of 5 “free” coins.  The shipping and handling for 5 (will they be in separate little boxes?) is 5 x $2.95 = $15.75.

What do you make of this…?

Tags:
Posted in Elvis, Numismatics | 48 Comments »

Should the Rosetta Stone go Back to Egypt?

Posted by Gary Vikan on Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s “Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities,” friend of Walters’ curator Regine Schulz (left), and charismatic star of anything pyramids-related on TV, was all over CNN prime time two weeks ago.

His emotional plea was simple and complelling: Zahi wants to borrow the famous Rosetta Stone from the British Museum for an exhibition in Egypt. What a novel idea!

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

Now, some might reasonably wonder if the Rosetta Stone, once back in to Egypt, will ever make its way back to England again. Not to worry, says Zahi, we are not the “Pirates of the Caribbean”; you English (and, by implication, all western powers) are the real pirates. 

This is a line of reasoning that Ben Weideman of CNN finds quite compelling. 

And Zahi goes on to point out the obvious: namely, that King Tut’s treasures have been sent all over the world by the Egyptians.

Well, have a look at the label, and read it through the eyes of Zahi Hawass.

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

The Rosetta Stone was discovered in the town the Egyptians call Rashid, not Rosetta, by the invading French, but very soon taken from them by the conquering British. In fact, the British “captured” it and “presented” it to King George the III.

Interesting enough, but read on: it seems that the usefulness of the Rosetta (aka Rashid) Stone for deciphering hieroglyphs was realized nearly 200 years ago! It certainly is not much to look at and, until recently, it was exhibited without a glass cover on its case, so that anyone could touch it.

So Zahi Hawass seems to have a point, and at this stage, no decision on the possible loan to Egypt has been made by the Trustees of the British Museum.

And so that pretty plain chunk of black stone in the main Egyptian gallery at the British Museum – the one with all those little squiggles on it – is now more popular than ever!

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

Posted in Art, Baltimore, Cultural Property, Museums, The Walters, Uncategorized | 737 Comments »

This Could be Your Dog on Music

Posted by Gary Vikan on Monday, January 4th, 2010

Photo: GV - "Scooter"

Photo: GV - "Scooter"

Wouldn’t it be nice if your best friend – i.e., your dog – were as blissful as this one?

Well, now there are some clever folks writing music to soothe the souls of monkeys and so, can dog music be far behind?

This came to my attention in the Sunday Magazine of The New York Times of December 12th, “The 9th Annual Year in Ideas” (p. 55: “Music for Monkeys”).

A cello player from the National Symphony Orchestra has this idea that (human) music is responsive to the pulses and heartbeats that we first encounter in the womb. And so, he reasons, one should be able to write music specifically responsive to the primal rhythms and sounds of other species.

He got in touch with a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin who runs a “colony” of cotton-top tamarins (a kind of monkey), and got from this professor tamarin calls that demonstrated fear and others that demonstrated calm.

The cellist then wrote music for cello and voice based on those different sorts of monkey vocalizations, and played that music back to the monkeys, along with some people music (Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” and Metallica’s “Of Wolf and Man”).

Generally, the monkeys didn’t much care for the people music, though they did show at least a little interest in excerpts from Metallica.

But they really got excited about the monkey music.

The pieces based on threatening calls made them anxious, which they manifested by cocking their heads and scratching themselves, whereas those pieces based on calming calls induced the tamarins to engage in foraging behavior, eating, and drinking.  In a nutshell, happy activities.

This clever NSO cellist has since written species-specific music for cats and for mustached bats.  

So, can dog music be far behind?

Posted in Classical Music, Neuroscience | 46 Comments »