Attire-moi! --- Stephanie's: Arts

Art, Cosmetics and Fashion

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 03:36:34 GMT

Source: 國藝會電子報（www.anb.org.tw）

I like the idea that the cosmetic company invites artists to design the package of their products and the company sponsors the artists' exhibition in fine art space (gallery or museum) in return. Fine arts, design and commercialism found a good way to work together. But the author oversimplifies the situation sometimes. For instance, one product package which was designed by an American artist, John Tremblay, did not sell and the author, who accepted the company's excuse for blaming the complicated package design, implied that the artist was responsible for the market. I think the author should further analyzed how strong the product is rather than favors the company, and she even slightly implies that female customers are not always smart enough to appreciate the design. This is absolutely a biased and impulsive conclusion.

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品牌定位決定策略──藝術‧彩妝‧植村秀

文│蘇怡如　　　圖│植村秀提供

　　不論是企業贊助藝術，或者企業尋求與藝術共同合作，似乎多數都離不開經營者、決策者的經營理念或喜好。從藝術家林明弘與企業合作的眾多例子之中，其與植村秀的合作經驗，也可以循溯出類似的背景脈絡。

品牌定位──彩妝是門藝術

　　已為世界第一大彩妝集團萊雅旗下的彩妝品牌之一的植村秀（shu uemura），其創辦人植村秀看待彩妝的態度，似乎成了植村秀作為一個彩妝品牌的定位，而此定位也決定了植村秀如何操作、規劃其產品的合作對象。

　　台灣萊雅化妝品香水事業部品牌經理張凡恬表示，如果談到與藝術家合作的源起與意向，要從創辦人植村秀談起，植村秀認為彩妝是一門藝術，每季植村秀推出新的妝容，其本身是一件「作品」，他透過該作品傳達嶄新的彩妝藝術及其概念，並由此延伸出彩妝產品，也因此植村秀不找名人為彩妝代言，就是希望能單純傳達妝容的理念。此與其他品牌以產品功能為主要訴求的方式並不相同。也因此植村秀推出的彩妝都以「風尚化妝」（Mode Make Up）為名進行編號，自1968年創辦人植村秀發表第一號「風尚化妝」至2008年春夏已至126號。植村秀視每次發表妝容的整體行動都為一舞台表演，他在過程中並不說話，整個舞台的場景、音樂等元素，也完整搭配演出；這與我們一般在各個彩妝櫃上，看到彩妝師為模特兒化妝時，一邊使用彩妝品及工具，一邊講解使用方法，僅僅是彩妝呈現或教授技巧截然不同。也因為植村秀將「彩妝」視為藝術，延續品牌定位及理念，植村秀在規劃各項行銷或品牌活動時，也以與藝文創作者合作為緊扣的重心。而在評估與藝術家合作的方向時，主要著眼於產品視覺包裝的提升，以及植村秀的品牌形象、希冀傳達的意象為主。

植村秀vs.山口藍

　　2004、2005年兩年，植村秀與日本當代藝術家山口藍（Ai Yamaguchi）、2006年與紐約前衛藝術John Tremblay合作限量版潔顏油，其間各有不同的考量及成效。

　　山口藍是植村秀的忘年之交，作品融合日本江戶傳統情調，彩度及線條卻十分當代，不論是插畫式分明的線條，或是色彩運用豐富而予人可愛感，都十足吸引年輕女性。而會選擇以植村秀的明星商品──四款潔顏油作為合作的商品，主要原因是植村秀認為，四款潔顏油分別具有四種不同功能和想法，但很多消費者並不清楚應該如何選擇及使用，以產品面考量，植村秀希望告訴消費者，每一個人都應該擁有四罐潔顏油，依每天自己肌膚的狀況而選擇使用，像他一直以來強調的重點──「傾聽肌膚的聲音」。植村秀同時進一步想像，如果產品在包裝上有不同的設計，那麼在早上洗臉或晚上卸妝使用時，就會有不同的感受。在考量了品牌精神與山口藍作品的特色後，請來了山口藍創作四款潔顏油的包裝。而山口藍所創作的四罐瓶裝也各有不同涵意，分別代表四瓶潔顏油不同的用途及意涵。2005年山口藍將四瓶潔顏油重新定義、包裝為春（喚醒）、夏（熱鬧）、秋（休憩）、冬（醞釀重生）。張凡恬分析，山口藍所繪製設計的圖案意義與產品意義及消費者喜好等各方面都協調得很好，使產品與消費者的溝通不會產生很大懸殊，所面對的消費對象，不須具備很高的藝術知識，於是連著二年山口藍帶著可愛迷人的畫風，成功擄獲年輕女性的心。

植村秀vs. John Tremblay

　　2006年植村秀首度進軍美國，且在美國市場創下佳績，在此背景下，植村秀興起以產品與美國消費者進行交流的念頭，才找來了紐約前衛藝術家John Tremblay共同合作。張凡恬說，John Tremblay的作品以線條和圖形為主要表現，理念與設計雖與山口藍截然不同，但他以西方人的角度並以自己的概念及觀點詮釋四罐潔顏油，也賦予了潔顏油新的趣味和意義，張凡恬也認為，此合作的背後也象徵植村秀不只在亞洲市場，更邁向全球彩妝市場。

植村秀vs.林明弘

　　山口藍和John Tremblay是由日本植村秀總部所主導、合作的藝術家，台灣植村秀並無參與其過程；與林明弘的合作則是為了2007年植村秀在台灣二十週年的慶祝活動，台灣植村秀希望以台灣藝術家為主要合作對象，也是由台灣植村秀自行針對當地市場所主導、規劃推出的台灣限量彩盤產品，張凡恬說，對於台灣植村秀而言，能夠自行規劃產品壓力大卻也相當興奮，除了希望產品整體能延續亮麗豐富的色彩，符合植村秀一直以來的品牌形象，也尋求廣為認識，且不曲高和寡的藝術家，在此前提下找到了藝術家林明弘作為合作對象。

　　林明弘最為人所熟知的作品皆以花樣為主角，與植村秀合作的《綻放的軌跡》眼影盤，同時意謂著林明弘的創作風格及植村秀在台二十週年，一路走來不斷累積而至絢麗綻放的意涵。對於台灣植村秀而言，與林明弘的合作十分愉快，張凡恬說，以往林明弘的作品多數尺幅較大，要創作手掌大小的作品，又是與彩妝品牌的合作，對林明弘而言可能也是一種挑戰。由於這也是台灣植村秀第一次自行製作產品包裝，在選擇合作廠商及往來的過程也力求謹慎，作為專業彩妝品牌以及藝術家，植村秀與林明弘同樣對色彩有所要求，雙方合作過程愉快且順利，若要說有什麼較需花時間溝通的部份，就是林明弘在設計過程中交付的作品圖稿，並不使用顏色色碼，如此一來，植村秀與廠商或林明弘在確認色彩的溝通上，就要花費較多時間。「林明弘在設計過程選擇顏色，他要的不是號碼，他要的可能就是他在某台電腦上看到的顏色，所以這部份很難轉述給廠商或印刷商。」張凡恬說，最簡單的解決方法是，三方同時約來一起確認顏色。「這也是我們第一次把最下游的廠商一起找進來參與整個過程。」張凡恬坦言，合作之前也不無擔心藝術家主觀較強而與市場面不一定相符的問題，但在溝通的過程，一些不動到創作本身，單純消費者使用上的建議微調，林明弘也都欣然接受並進行調整。「比如說打開後鏡子應該如何移動，噴霧應該如何設計……花紋不要遮到鏡子，可能會影響到使用的方便性的部份我們會加以提醒。」也因為與林明弘合作愉快，延續此次經驗，台灣植村秀也提供經費贊助2007年底林明弘於日本的展出。

三件作品的市場接受度與合作成果

　　若要論市場接受度，成績較不理想的應是與John Tremblay合作的限量潔顏油。對此結果，張凡恬認為有兩種可能，一是這是第三年限量版潔顏油系列的推出，對消費者及媒體而言，新鮮度不如以往高，第二是John Tremblay的設計真的太前衛，需要專櫃小姐花許多時間告訴消費者設計的意義在哪？「比方綠茶的包裝上John Tremblay設計很多圈圈，因為綠茶搖過後會產生氣泡，氣泡即代表圈圈，而圈圈又有其涵意等……，這些設計背後的意涵如果期待消費者能完全理解，就要在第一線銷售時，花費時間告訴消費者，但實際在櫃點要操作是有困難的，消費者也要有慧根。」John Tremblay的作品無法直接傳達意念，似乎是John Tremblay在市場上的反應未若以往限量包裝潔顏油銷售熱絡的原因。

　　而與山口藍合作則是較為精準掌握亞洲女性購物傾向的例子，至於與林明弘合作的《綻放的軌跡》眼彩盤，張凡恬從產品面來看，彩盤產品本身就比較能吸引消費者，加上《綻放的軌跡》也是植村秀第一次推出彩盤，而它不只有外殼，連包裝盒、鏡面都經過整體設計，傳達的訊息又簡單明瞭，這也是植村秀考量與藝術家合作的重點。

　　整體而言，植村秀與藝術家合作的出發點在於品牌形象的操作，植村秀與山口藍的合作，使得植村秀成為第一個與藝術家合作的彩妝品牌。張凡恬說，如果單只講求銷售數字，推出新產品的銷售數字才會漂亮，但與藝術家合作大多是選擇原有的產品，合作的形象效益雖不會馬上就得見具體數字，但從植村秀的品牌定位出發，即便是與娛樂圈結合的公關性活動，選擇方向也都以形象清新、新崛起以創作為主的樂團或歌手為主。張凡恬認為，一路走來，植村秀之所以能在每年度彩妝形象調查中，於業界排名數一數二，似乎可說明品牌形象的經營也精準地傳達至消費者。

延伸性贊助活動

　　台灣植村秀在藝文的參與上較少單純金錢上的贊助，但在創辦人植村秀提攜後進，認為藝術要從小即開始發生影響的理念下，與山口藍、John Tremblay合作限量潔顏油並於各地市場推出時，每個地區的植村秀，都與當地兒童藝術或者兒童公益相關的團體合作或者捐款。2004、2005年與山口藍合作時，植村秀與「如果兒童劇團」連二年共同推動「兒童藝術扶植計畫」。2004年包含系列講座、活動劇場巡演，以及台北、台中三場「植村秀潔顏油限量版義賣會」；2005年則是以兒童舞台劇的方式展演出04年「兒童藝術扶植計畫」的成果，植村秀並邀及名人進行義賣，將植村秀提供之精裝限量版潔顏油及刷具等套組，以義賣組數乘以十萬元的金額捐贈「如果兒童劇團」。

　　除此之外，植村秀也以贊助彩妝產品及彩妝師支援的方式，贊助學生舞團的演出或服裝設計系所相關的時裝秀，由於行之有年，張凡恬說，每到公演或畢業季節來臨，學生就會自行來電，這部份主要是針對學生族群的服務，與品牌行銷沒有直接相關。其他像是金曲獎、《愛上卡門》歌舞劇等，也都有產品相關贊助，但張凡恬仍強調，贊助或合作的對象，一定要與藝文創作相關，這是植村秀一直以來鎖定的重點。

後續合作計畫

　　其他與藝術及時尚為主軸所展開的合作也都已陸續展開。除了林明弘，2007年植村秀同時找來了華裔建築師Calvin Tsao重新設計「無色限唇膏」的包裝；今年7月下旬植村秀也推出與荷蘭籍前衛設計師Viktor & Rolf合作，以高級訂製服概念打造三款「限量訂製睫毛」，同時也已展開與攝影師蜷川實花的合作，而與蜷川實花的合作，也將延伸至台灣，台灣植村秀欲將與蜷川實花合作的計畫，與台灣服裝設計師作一有趣的結合。張凡恬表示，台灣植村秀是植村秀海外市場中成績最好的，日本對台灣市場相當重視，也給予台灣極高的主導性，未來植村秀鎖定與藝術、時尚合作的行銷主軸，仍然會繼續延續下去。

Looking at art makes better doctors

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 05:28:05 GMT

Monet? Gauguin? Using art to make better doctors: New courses improve powers of observation
From The Boston Globe

Dr. Joel Katz's class of Harvard Medical School students meets on Friday afternoons at the Museum of Fine Arts, where they discuss the Seated Bodhisattva, a towering figure carved in ancient China, Joseph Mallord William Turner's Slave Ship, and other artworks Katz believes will make them better doctors.

On one Friday this spring, 24 of the country's most promising future physicians circled the limestone Bodhisattva as art instructor Alexa Miller posed a question: "What's happening here?" The students initially observed that the figure was made of stone and appeared peaceful. But she pushed them further. "What do you see that makes you say that?" she asked.

After an hour at the museum, the class walked back to Harvard Medical School to apply what they had learned about examining art to diagnosing breathing problems, skin rashes, and neurological disorders, and to reading lung X-rays.

Katz's class is one of a growing number of art courses offered to medical students nationwide and aimed at improving their observation and diagnostic skills at a time when doctors are increasingly relying on CT scans, Maris, biopsies, and other technology to do their work, even though it is far more expensive - and sometimes unnecessary to pinpoint illnesses.

Nana Aqua Judah, who graduated from Harvard in June and is now an obstetrics and gynecology resident in Toronto, said the art class taught her to look more carefully at patients for clues. For example, if a young mother looks run down, it might indicate she's too stressed to take a medication that requires five doses a day, leading Judah to prescribe a once- or twice-a-day drug. Besides, said Judah, who was taking six or seven classes at the time, "to me it seemed like a relief. We were going to an art gallery for a class."

At tradition-minded Harvard, many faculty were skeptical about the idea of using art to make better doctors when Katz proposed the class five years ago, especially since the first- and second-year students who enroll are already overwhelmed with work. But Katz's belief that physicians can improve their diagnostic skills by observing art was bolstered this month when he and his colleagues published a study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine showing that after completing the class, students' ability to make accurate observations increased 38 percent. When shown artwork and photos of patients, students were more likely to notice features such as a patient's eyes being asymmetrical or a tiny, healed sore on an index finger. Observations by a control group of students who did not take the class did not change."We're trying to train students to not make assumptions about what they're going to see, but to do deep looking. Our hope is that they will be able to do this when they look at patients," said Katz, an internist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a former graphic designer. He said several studies show that doctors' physical exam skills, which include observation and taking a medical history, as well as the hands-on examination, are declining he most difficult part of the class for the high-achieving Harvard students, Miller said, seems to be letting go of their urge to find the one right answer. The Bodhisattva, for example, can spark a wide range of emotions, as the statue is towering and imposing when seen from the front but then "almost disappears into space" when looked at from the side, Miller said. As she pushes students to look harder at the sculpture, using a technique called visual thinking strategies, students' observations become more complex, and they notice that the Bodhisattva is powerful, but also small and poignant.

While diagnosing a medical condition involves reaching the right answer, often, to get there, doctors have to open their minds to myriad possibilities.

"When we get fixated on getting the right answer, we miss the diagnosis because it blocks the ability to think flexibly," Miller said. "We want them to puzzle through things."

Educators at other medical schools that offer art classes have similar goals. Weill Medical College of Cornell University has offered a noncredit art course in collaboration with the Frick Collection in New York City for eight years, while Yale Medical School runs an art observation course for medical students that is now a required class.

Students in the Harvard class study a wide range of original art, including oil paintings by Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, and John Singer Sargent, and sculptures from Iran and India. Students have the option of drawing a nude model as well. Instructors draw exact parallels between some artworks and diagnosing illness; students, for example, study texture and pattern in Jackson Pollack's abstract Number 10, and then return to the medical school to study how patterns in patients' rashes can indicate specific conditions. But the course primarily trains students to look at what they're seeing more carefully.

Dr. Robert Brown, a pulmonologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a course instructor, gets undressed above the waist to give his lecture on breathing muscles. Three patients enter the classroom, including a quadriplegic man who also is shirtless, a woman with muscular dystrophy, and a woman with a deformed spine. Afterward, students list what they saw. Brown wants them to notice that his upper rib cage moves outward while the paralyzed patient's upper rib cage moves inward. Paralysis of the diaphragm is a diagnosis doctors often miss, he said, but inward movement of the belly while breathing is one sign.

If they look carefully "during the physical exam they can begin to put the pieces together," he said.

While research into doctors' physical exam skills is sparse, there is a consensus in medicine that those skills are waning. Some doctors believe medical schools are giving short shrift to the physical exam, but others believe these skills atrophy once doctors graduate and start practicing their specialty.

"When I've been to Africa and the Amazon and there are no CT scans and X-rays and it's just you and a flashlight and a stethoscope and something to look into the patients' ears, you have nothing to fall back on other than your clinical skills," said Dr. Ronald Silvestri, a pulmonologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center who runs Harvard's doctor-patient course, which teaches the physical exam.

In the United States, he said, doctors turn more quickly to these widely available tests and tend to be very rushed when seeing patients. "If you have a 10-minute visit, how good an observer can you be?" While Silvestri believes the quality of care doesn't suffer from the widespread use of diagnostic tests, he thinks the overall healthcare system does.

"It's one reason that American medical care is so expensive," he said.

But whether art classes will have a lasting impact remains an open question.

Students in the course run by Katz and Brigham neurologist Dr. Shahram Khoshbin were evaluated immediately after they took the course, not as practicing doctors, when they will face the threat of malpractice lawsuits for wrong diagnosis.

Getty cutting jobs

Thu, 29 May 2008 00:46:31 GMT

經濟不景氣也吹到博物館界了。來自企業界與民間的捐款大幅減少，美國西岸最大的蓋提美術館不得不宣佈裁員。

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The J. Paul Getty Trust, which recently posted its fiscal 2007 annual report online, last year incurred a staggering operating deficit of $49.36 million on a budget of $307.7 million. The previous year, the deficit was $18.29 million on a $293.57-million budget.

This growing shortfall is likely one of the reasons for the recently announced elimination of 114 jobs, including 40 layoffs. Anne-Marie O'Connor of the LA Times recently quote this explanation for the cuts by trust president James Wood:

The whole goal here is to focus the Getty on the core mission of the visual arts. This is to ensure that we have flexible funds to devote to both building our collections in the museum, the research institute and the library and undertake targeted strategic initiatives where we feel we can really make a difference...

...and maybe also to insure something resembling a balanced budget. The main contributing factor to the spike in the deficit from the previous year was the decline in contributions from $36.2 million in fiscal 2006 to only $2.2 million in fiscal 2007. Because of its already fabulous wealth, the Getty has a hard time soliciting donations.

The endowment, as of the June 30th end of the fiscal year, was a hefty $6.4 billion, compared to $5.6 billion in fiscal 2006, so times are not that tough. Unlike most museums, the Getty reports the total value of its collections on its financial statement---$1.8 billion. Capitalizing collections in this manner is something most museums resist, because they do not regard collections as assets than can be tapped for operations. Getty spokesperson Ron Hartwig acknowledged to me that "most other museums do not list their works of art on their balance sheet. We are taking a look at this."

Despite its vast wealth, the Getty feels compelled to cut back its window-washing to "once a year instead of three times," as revealed by Wood to the LA Times. And I've never encountered a museum press release like the recent Getty Goat announcement: It has hired about 60 of these beasts as landscapers, "to nibble away the flammable brush around its 110-acre hillside campus in Brentwood."

Some of the fired Getty employees may be disgruntled, but at least the new hires are happy. According to Lynne Tjomsland, manager of grounds and gardens, quoted in the Getty's press release:

UPDATE: Patricia Woodworth, the Getty Trust's chief financial officer, has informed me that the "large contribution of the Stark Sculpture Collection" in fiscal 2006 is what accounted for the unusually high figure for contributions that year. She added that the Getty's operating results are significantly impacted by the depreciation charge, which in fiscal 2007 amounted to $47.8 million, compared to $45 million the previous year.

Where to find the best Chinese art

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 01:11:36 GMT

My adviser is regarded as one of the best curators in Chinese art around the world. Feel honored. :) But so far I haven't taken any of his courses yet, not much interaction with him either. He happens to be on leave this year, preparing for a book and an exhibition in Berlin. He just received an outstanding teaching award from the university and became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. I look forward to his course next quarter! (Senior students told me that his course is demanding though) Hope some day I can be a good scholar & curator too.

---
Source: The Art Newspaper
The auction houses are distorting our understanding of Chinese art

Michael Hue-Williams

Auction favorite: Yue Minjun’s Life, 1999, sold for £2.8m ($5.6m) at Christie’s Hong Kong on 25 November

The profusion of Chinese survey shows may be drawing to a close. European and American museum directors and curators will honour their chosen few with one-man shows as the decision making process passes to sufficient confidence.

The Chinese group shows will now be supplanted by Indian survey shows (India is following China in the market by about two to three years). The market may spiral upwards for Chinese artists for a while, but one thing is certain, the mould has been broken.

Chinese artists, especially those in the so-called “millionaire’s club of painters”, have re-invented the art world for themselves and may or may not reap the windfall. They have played dealers and auction houses off against each other. They have dropped their own works into auction with relish and have manipulated their markets with a degree of savvy and bravado that has left many dealers stunned. This art is here to stay and, in my opinion, while European and American markets may plateau or even fall, the Asian markets will continue to climb. Why should not the best Asian artists be priced at the same levels as their western counterparts? Cultural snobbery is being banished by a driving demand.

How to codify the Chinese art scene has mesmerised me for some years. Now that China itself has decided to use culture as one of the pillars of its global, economic and political aims, we must come to grips with this behemoth. This is not a new idea—since the Cultural Revolution (1965-68), Mao Zedong used culture, particularly drawing from the Yan’an Forum in 1942. Useful exhibitions brave enough to cover unexpected and uncharted waters such as the Ullens Center’s opening exhibition, “‘85 New Wave: the Birth of Chinese Contemporary Art”, will prove that radical conceptual art has been produced undercover all along. It has simply not been seen in the West.

Born of the Imperial Court tradition, the notion of the “literati” as an elevated class of intellect is prospering. Xu Bing’s return to China (a former sent-down youth) in a prestigious post at the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts and Cai Guo-Qiang’s survey show at New York’s Guggenheim, opening next month (p34) and slated to go to Beijing, are reinforcing, in a totally contemporary way, the Chinese “ink painting tradition”. Ai Weiwei, just 18 months ago, had a maverick mystery associated with him due to his difficult family history and yet, turns out to be a brilliant Duchampion trickster—and the darling of the curatorial crowd. Huang Yong Ping and Chen Zhen, who both left for Paris 20 years ago, present a legacy of European conceptualism through Chinese subtlety.

The market, however, only has metrics through the available data of the auction houses, and there are many of them—not just the big three. This is unreliable and misleading. There is no depth to the data as many artists have not yet made it to the salerooms. The most frequently traded works from the cynical or social realist painters have boomed but as shows of true intellectual credibility have illustrated (such as “Huang Yong Ping: House of Oracles” at both the Ullens Center and the Walker Art Center, along with Tate Liverpool’s “The Real Thing”), the auction rooms do not tell the full story. “Passing fish eyes off as pearls” is how one prominent artist described the auction houses’ desperate scramble for material for their ever growing sales catalogues. If you really want to learn about the Chinese art scene, look to marvellous curators such as Hou Hanru, Fan Di’an, Fei Dawei, Xu Zhen, Karen Smith, Wu Hung, Feng Boyi, Alexandra Munroe and Lu Jie—not to the auction rooms.

The writer is director of the Albion Gallery in London

Sorting out the Real Reasons Arts Education Matters

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 22:01:00 GMT

為什麼藝術教育重要呢？雖然許多美術老師認為藝術教育重要，但目前還沒有足夠份量的研究顯示藝術教育與智能發展之間的關係，由於缺乏認知，在學校經費日益縮減的情況下，藝術教育往往第一個被砍預算。
這篇文章作者即是嘗試建立藝術教育對人格及智能發展之間的關係。該研究計畫是由Getty Trust贊助完成，以波士頓一帶的中學生為樣本調查，重點是結論，啊，看完之後真是感動，尤其對我這個念藝術的人來說，因為我聽到許很多人都說藝術教育有什麼用呢？對人類文明發展有何幫助呢？我也沒有看到什麼文章將藝術與美感教育和大腦學習認知過程連結，提不出有力的證據（事實上我也沒有很認真找過這些文章）。總之，作者指出從藝術教育中可訓練孩童創意思考模式，以面對複雜多變的社會，並解決日常生活挑戰，而這些技巧都是考試不考老師也不會教的東西。不過我懶得句句翻譯為中文，不想看完全文的朋友，看我畫重點的地方就好了。

Art for our sake: School arts classes matter more than ever - but not for the reasons you think
By Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland | September 2, 2007

Why do we teach the arts in schools?In an educational system strapped for money and increasingly ruled by standardized tests, arts courses can seem almost a needless extravagance, and the arts are being cut back at schools across the country.

One justification for keeping the arts has now become almost a mantra for parents, arts teachers, and even politicians: arts make you smarter. The notion that arts classes improve children's scores on the SAT, the MCAS, and other tests is practically gospel among arts-advocacy groups. A Gallup poll last year found that 80 percent of Americans believed that learning a musical instrument would improve math and science skills.

But that claim turns out to be unfounded. It's true that students involved in the arts do better in school and on their SATs than those who are not involved. However, correlation isn't causation, and an analysis we did several years ago showed no evidence that arts training actually causes scores to rise.

There is, however, a very good reason to teach arts in schools, and it's not the one that arts supporters tend to fall back on. In a recent study of several art classes in Boston-area schools, we found that arts programs teach a specific set of thinking skills rarely addressed elsewhere in the curriculum - and that far from being irrelevant in a test-driven education system, arts education is becoming even more important as standardized tests like the MCAS exert a narrowing influence over what schools teach.

The implications are broad, not just for schools but for society. As schools cut time for the arts, they may be losing their ability to produce not just the artistic creators of the future, but innovative leaders who improve the world they inherit. And by continuing to focus on the arts' dubious links to improved test scores, arts advocates are losing their most powerful weapon: a real grasp of what arts bring to education.

It is well established that intelligence and thinking ability are far more complex than what we choose to measure on standardized tests. The high-stakes exams we use in our schools, almost exclusively focused on verbal and quantitative skills, reward children who have a knack for language and math and who can absorb and regurgitate information. They reveal little about a student's intellectual depth or desire to learn, and are poor predictors of eventual success and satisfaction in life.As schools increasingly shape their classes to produce high test scores, many life skills not measured by tests just don't get taught. It seems plausible to imagine that art classes might help fill the gap by encouraging different kinds of thinking, but there has been remarkably little careful study of what skills and modes of thinking the arts actually teach.

To determine what happens inside arts classes, we spent an academic year studying five visual-arts classrooms in two local Boston-area schools, videotaping and photographing classes, analyzing what we saw, and interviewing teachers and their students.

What we found in our analysis should worry parents and teachers facing cutbacks in school arts programs. While students in art classes learn techniques specific to art, such as how to draw, how to mix paint, or how to center a pot, they're also taught a remarkable array of mental habits not emphasized elsewhere in school.

Such skills include visual-spatial abilities, reflection, self-criticism, and the willingness to experiment and learn from mistakes. All are important to numerous careers, but are widely ignored by today's standardized tests.

In our study, funded by the J. Paul Getty Trust, we worked with classes at the Boston Arts Academy, a public school in the Fenway, and the private Walnut Hill School for the arts in Natick. Students at each school concentrate on visual arts, music, drama, or dance, and spend at least three hours a day working on their art. Their teachers are practicing artists. We restricted ourselves to a small sample of high-quality programs to evaluate what the visual arts could achieve given adequate time and resources.

Although the approach is necessarily subjective, we tried to set the study up to be as evidence-based as possible. We videotaped classes and watched student-teacher interactions repeatedly, identifying specific habits and skills, and coding the segments to count the times each was taught. We compared our provisional analysis with those the teachers gave when we showed them clips of their classes. We also interviewed students and analyzed samples of their work.

In our analysis, we identified eight ``studio habits of mind" that arts classes taught, including the development of artistic craft. Each of these stood out from testable skills taught elsewhere in school.

One of these habits was persistence: Students worked on projects over sustained periods of time and were expected to find meaningful problems and persevere through frustration. Another was expression: Students were urged to move beyond technical skill to create works rich in emotion, atmosphere, and their own personal voice or vision. A third was making clear connections between schoolwork and the world outside the classroom: Students were taught to see their projects as part of the larger art world, past and present. In one drawing class at Walnut Hill, the teacher showed students how Edward Hopper captured the drama of light; at the Boston Arts Academy, students studied invitations to contemporary art exhibitions before designing their own. In this way students could see the parallels between their art and professional work.Each of these habits clearly has a role in life and learning, but we were particularly struck by the potentially broad value of four other kinds of thinking being taught in the art classes we documented: observing, envisioning, innovating through exploration, and reflective self-evaluation. Though far more difficult to quantify on a test than reading comprehension or math computation, each has a high value as a learning tool, both in school and elsewhere in life.

The first thing we noticed was that visual arts students are trained to look, a task far more complex than one might think. Seeing is framed by expectation, and expectation often gets in the way of perceiving the world accurately. To take a simple example: When asked to draw a human face, most people will set the eyes near the top of the head. But this isn't how a face is really proportioned, as students learn: our eyes divide the head nearly at the center line. If asked to draw a whole person, people tend to draw the hands much smaller than the face - again an inaccurate perception. The power of our expectations explains why beginners draw eyes too high and hands too small. Observational drawing requires breaking away from stereotypes and seeing accurately and directly.

We saw students pushed to notice what they might not have seen before. For instance, in Mickey Telemaque's first design class of the term at the Boston Arts Academy, ninth-graders practice looking with one eye through a cardboard frame called a viewfinder. ``Forget that you're looking at somebody's arm or a table," Telemaque tells his students. ``Just think about the shapes, the colors, the lines, and the textures." Over and over we listened to teachers telling their students to look more closely at the model and see it in terms of its essential geometry.

Seeing clearly by looking past one's preconceptions is central to a variety of professions, from medicine to law. Naturalists must be able to tell one species from another; climatologists need to see atmospheric patterns in data as well as in clouds. Writers need keen observational skills too, as do doctors.

Another pattern of thought we saw being cultivated in art classes is envisioning - forming mental images internally and using them to guide actions and solve problems. ``How much white space will you be leaving in your self-portrait?" asked Kathleen Marsh at the Boston Arts Academy. ``How many other kinds of orange can you imagine?" asked Beth Balliro, also at the Boston Arts Academy, as she nudged her student to move beyond one shade. We noticed art teachers giving students a great deal of practice in this area: What would that look like if you got rid of this form, changed that line, or altered the background? All were questions we heard repeatedly, prompting students to imagine what was not there.Like observing, envisioning is a skill with payoffs far beyond the art world. Einstein said that he thought in images. The historian has to imagine events and motivations from the past, the novelist an entire setting. Chemists need to envision molecular structures and rotate them. The inventor - the envisioner par excellence - must dream up ideas to be turned into real solutions. Envisioning is important in everyday life as well, whether for remembering faces as they change over time, or for finding our way around a new city, or for assembling children's toys. Visualization is recognized as important in other school subjects: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Science Education Standards both see it as essential to problem-solving, but art classes are where this skill is most directly and intensively taught.

We also found innovation to be a central skill in art classes. Art classes place a high value on breaking the mold. Teachers encourage students to innovate through exploration - to experiment, take risks, and just muck around and see what can be learned. In ceramics, for example, capitalizing on error is a major consideration, says Balliro at the Boston Arts Academy. To a student struggling to stick clay together, she says, ``There are specific ways to do it, but I want you guys to play around in this first project. Just go with that and see what happens and maybe you'll learn a new technique." Teachers in our study told students not to worry about mistakes, but instead to let mistakes lead to unexpected discoveries.

Finally, many people don't think of art class as a place where reflection is central, but instead as a place where students take a break from thinking. But art-making is nonverbal thinking, and verbal thinking (often public and spoken) is a focal activity of arts classes. We repeatedly saw art teachers push their students to engage in reflective self-evaluation. They were asked to step back, analyze, judge, and sometimes reconceive their projects entirely.

During class critiques, and one-to-one as students worked, teachers asked students to reflect: Is that working? Is this what I intended to do? Can I make this better? What's next? At Walnut Hill School, Jason Green questioned individual students almost relentlessly as they began a new clay sculpture: ``What about this form? Do you want to make the whole thing? Which part of it?" In group critiques, students also learned to evaluate the work of their peers. Making such judgments ``in the absence of rule" is a highly sophisticated mental endeavor, says Elliot Eisner, a noted art-education specialist at Stanford University.

Though we both have a long history in arts education, we were startled to find such systematic emphasis on thinking and perception in the art classes we studied. In contrast to the reputation of the arts as mainly about expressive craft, we found that teachers talked about decisions, choices, and understanding far more than they talked about feelings.

By unveiling a powerful thinking culture in the art room, our study suggests ways that we can move beyond the debate over the value of arts, and start using the arts to restore balance and depth to an education system increasingly skewed toward readily testable skills and information.While arts teachers rightly resist making their classes like ``academic" classes, teachers of academic subjects might well benefit from making their classes more like arts classes. Math students, for instance, could post their in-process solutions regularly and discuss them together. If students worked on long-term projects using primary sources in history class, they would learn to work like real historians and their teachers could offer personalized and ``just in time" guidance.

Despite the pressures to prepare students for high-stakes tests, some teachers and schools continue to use methods similar to those in the art studio. Ron Berger, a fifth-grade classroom teacher in a public school in Shutesbury, Mass., provides an inspiring example. He adopted an arts-like approach to all subjects, including math, language arts, science, and social studies. His students engage in long-term investigations rather than one-shot assignments or memorization. Their work is continually assessed publicly in critiques so students develop the ability to reflect and improve. Projects are ``real work," not ``school work" - work that is original and makes a contribution to knowledge.

For example, students investigated the purity of drinking water in their town wells, working in collaboration with a local college and learning how to analyze the water in a college lab. No one in the town knew whether the well waters were safe, and the students discovered and reported that they were. Deborah Meier, a leading American school reformer and founding principal of the Mission Hill School in Boston, praises Berger's teaching. She worries that ``Top-down mandates may actually hinder this kind of culture of high standards."

We don't need the arts in our schools to raise mathematical and verbal skills - we already target these in math and language arts. We need the arts because in addition to introducing students to aesthetic appreciation, they teach other modes of thinking we value.

For students living in a rapidly changing world, the arts teach vital modes of seeing, imagining, inventing, and thinking. If our primary demand of students is that they recall established facts, the children we educate today will find themselves ill-equipped to deal with problems like global warming, terrorism, and pandemics.

Those who have learned the lessons of the arts, however - how to see new patterns, how to learn from mistakes, and how to envision solutions - are the ones likely to come up with the novel answers needed most for the future.

Ellen Winner is a professor of psychology at Boston College. Lois Hetland is an associate professor of art education at the Massachusetts College of Art. Both are also researchers at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and co-authors, with Shirley Veenema and Kimberly Sheridan, of ``Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education," published this month by Teachers College Press.Source: The Boston Globe, Sept. 2, 2007.

Hollywood Bowl

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 18:22:42 GMT

The Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheatre in Hollywood, primarily for music performances, including classical, jazz, pop music. Many famous entertainers have performed here before, like Oasis, Bob Dylan, Elton John, etc. The Hollywood Bowl is well known for its band shell, a distinctive set of concentric arches that has graced the site since 1929. It officially opened on July 11, 1922, on the site of a natural amphitheater formerly known as the Daisy Dell, and has been the summer home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since then. In 2003, the L.A. county government spent much money in improving the overall acoustic quality while kept the shell shape designed by Lloyd Wright.

Indeed, I had a wonderful experience of a classical music concert! The quality of sound was much better than I thought, especially it was an outdoor concert. The attendance of this Thursday night concert was up to 9,045 persons! The number must be bigger on weekends. Wow, Hollywood bowl concert is so popular in L.A. area.

The Hollywood bowl is a huge site which can accommodate about 17,376 persons at one time. We got a seat in the middle-left, kind of hard to see the musicians on stage. As we didn't bring any binocular, we only got a vague yet beautiful sight of the performance. There are four large TVs on each side, which provide sharp and vivid images on stage for the vast audience, very impressive. I totally enjoyed the music and took chance to take some pictures. (Hey, Richard fell asleep again. :P He rode bike to work today, spending more than 2.5 hours on road in a hot summer day. Ok ok, let's not laugh at him. Riding bike to work isn't easy as most of the road is uphill.)

I guess there is no performance in other seasons except summer. So if you are interested in music, summer is a great time to enjoy it! (I wonder how they can enough make money to maintain the expensive facilities all year around...perhaps some generous donors help it?)

6 Movie Formulas That Must Be Stopped

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:30:06 GMT

A funny and intelligent article for everyone. We all know that Hollywood movie is very formulaic, but we never classify the commonest formula. The author points out the movie formulas t have been remaking and selling all over the world again and again. He also mentioned a few movies that are currently showing on move theaters; by reading this article, you may save your time and money in seeing a terrible movie this summer.
After laughing with the author, we might ask ourselves, "why are these formulas so popular?"

Source: http://www.cracked.com/index.php?name=News&sid=2262&pageid=1

Dear Hollywood,

Hi, it's us! The people who spend money on your movies. Please stop making the same ones over and over again. We've seen the same recycled formulas year after year after year—and frankly, we're tired of it.

It's not that we think you're completely useless, just... you know, mostly. We'll admit, you've delivered a few gems recently. Transformers, for example, stumbled upon a refreshing formula: Namely,
Giant Robots Fighting Each Other + Megan Fox Standing Around Looking Awesome:

Now that is a formula we can get behind, (if she'll let us. Pow!). You have our permission and, in fact, encouragement to exploit that particular format for a few more years. These next six formulas, however, we never want to see again.

#6.
Ultra-Masculine Action Star Gets Stuck With Small Child or Children

Who's Doing It Next: In The Game Plan, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays Joe Kingman, a successful quarterback who's whole bachelor lifestyle gets turned around when he finds out (gasp) he has a seven-year-old daughter! No professional athlete has ever balanced his career AND a family. This should get pretty wild, folks!

Who Did It Best: Kindergarten Cop. Maybe because it was one of the first of its kind, or maybe it's because Schwarzenegger, with his enormous arms, indecipherable accent and near-constant shouting, is just so naturally frightening that you better believe his little co-stars were crying in between takes. We wouldn't be surprised if some of them still have nightmares about the giant, gibberish-spewing Frankenstein that, for a few months, spent every single day screaming at them.

Who Did It Worst: The Pacifier. Our deciding factor:

The scene features Vin Diesel's sensitive and dramatic side and serves as a painful reminder as to why most of Diesel's movies focus more on his kicking-ass and blowing-things-up side. Also, the connection Mr. Diesel shares with the little girl he's sworn to protect is cause for alarm. When he holds her close, you can practically hear the wheels turning in his head as he struggles to find innovative loopholes for that pesky Megan's Law.

Why It Needs To Stop: We don't watch action movies for the subtle nuances of the heroes' performances—which is a good thing, because 10 out of 10 action stars cannot act to save their mother. This is never more apparent than when you remove the Terminator's gun and replace it with a baby.

#5.
Psychotic Little Kids Terrorize Adults

Who's Doing It Next: Joshua brings us a little boy who, when his new sister shows up, absolutely loses his shit and starts tearing apart his toys, killing his pets and possibly plotting to murder his entire family. It's almost like The Good Son, except for the fact that it's exactly like The Good Son.

Who Did It Best: The Good Son. There's just something so damn creepy about Macaulay Culkin and that, in conjunction with his complete inability to express emotions, makes the role of a cold-hearted, murderous asshole the only one he's ever been right for. Those soulless shark eyes of his...

When we watch his mom drop him off a cliff at the end of the film, we can pretend he's actually dead and finally get some sleep again.

Who Did It Worst: Village of the Damned (1995). Despite the best efforts of Luke Skywalker and Superman, this movie was painful. The people of this aforementioned village took way too long to realize there was a problem. Just about every woman was simultaneously struck with a sudden case of pregnant, and then nine months later the town is loaded with tiny, Aryan mind-readers.

Take note: If there is a town full of identical kids, they're either evil aliens or everyone's wife is having an affair with the same blond-haired, blue-eyed sex machine. Either way, drown those bastards immediately.

Why It Needs To Stop: Because there is not a single nine-year-old on the planet who could take us in hand-to-hand combat, though we welcome any and all challengers. Is a third-grader hinting at suffocating a member of your family? Uppercut that smirk right off his little face and give him some chores. It's called parenting, folks.

#4.
Young, Hip, (Read: Black) Guy Invades Typically White World

Who's Doing It Next: In Who's Your Caddy?, rapper Big Boi stars as rapper C-Note, a streetwise cat who tries to obtain membership to an elite country club that is, apparently, populated exclusively by people who would rather believe black people didn't exist.

Who Did It Best: Trading Places. Not just because it's so funny that we'll look the other way when Eddie Murphy sleeps with transvestites and makes Norbit, but because it was smarter than all of the black-meets-white comedies that came after. It didn't rely on having a bunch of monocle-sporting, white aristocrats dance poorly and awkwardly say words like "dawg" and "jiggy" to get laughs. It had things like "plot" and "character arcs," things that have been ignored by copycats trying to be hipper and edgier.

Who Did It Worst: We're calling this one early for Who's Your Caddy? Not only does it feature a tired formula that we were sick of back when Chris Rock was doing it, but it's also about fucking golf. Oh, and Jeffrey Jones (the principal from Ferris Bueller's Day Off and probably some other movies) is in it, and we're pretty sure we heard somewhere that he was a pederast.

Why It Needs To Stop: If we wanted to see a fast-talking black guy infiltrate a world that still thinks black people will eventually just disappear, we'd watch Trading Places. If we wanted to watch that same exact premise but throw in a rapper or two, we'd watch How High. If we wanted a movie with the same black-meets-white premise, plus rappers and golf, we'd watch The Legend of Bagger Vance.

#3.
Brilliant Musician Rises, Falls and Finds Redemption

Who's Doing It Next: Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez bring us El Cantante, even though we didn't ask for it, don't know who it's about and won't see it. Evidently, it's about the man who brought salsa music to America. We'll remember that when we're watching absolutely anything else we can find.

Who Did It Best: We're waiting for Judd Apatow's biopic send-off Walk Hard starring John C. Reilly, due out later this year. Paul Rudd plays John Lennon. Jack Black plays Paul McCartney. We're not too worried about any of the other details of this film.

Who Did It Worst: Ray. He played piano and did a whole lot of drugs. We get it. This movie would have been perfect if it hadn't been needlessly dragged out for almost three goddamn hours. Also, this movie has made it increasingly difficult to sell our script, Blind Fury 4: The Stevie Wonder Story.

Why It Needs To Stop: Ambitious star makes big, finds coke, hits rock bottom, climbs back to the top. Is there one musician who didn't follow this format? There's got to be at least one. Let's make that movie and break up the monotony a little bit.

#2.
Father Is Wronged by Gang; Kills Entire Planet

Who's Doing It Next: Before the summer ends, look for Kevin Bacon in Death Sentence, the story of a man who loses his son to a murderous gang and spends the remaining 85 minutes of the movie murdering every single gang member, reminding us that enough wrongs will eventually make a right. Spoiler Alert: John Goodman is in this movie. As a matter of fact, he's the underground crime boss, so you have to figure that this entire film is just leading up to a riveting final fight scene that pits Kevin Bacon against John Goodman. That is the exciting conclusion. Footloose vs. Roseanne. No matter who wins, we all lose.

Hopefully we've saved you some time and money.

Who Did It Best: It was a tough call between Man on Fire and Death Wish, but we're giving it to the latter for it's slightly more totally insane approach. Sure, Denzel was undeniably badass and efficient with his killing spree, but he only brought justice to those who directly wronged him. Death Wish, however, has Charles Bronson killing the rapists who killed his wife, criminals who want to mug him and, finally, other jerks that just look like they some day might think about mugging someone. For blurring the line between vengeance and genocide, (venocide), Death Wish takes this one home.

Who Did It Worst: Surprisingly enough, Death Wish III. Bronson is pretty deep into his 60s and clearly can't even remember why he started murdering nameless carjackers to begin with. Sure, there's an assload of chasing and bloodshed, but his heart's just not in it anymore.

Why It Needs To Stop: Two weeks after Death Sentence disappoints you at the box office, Jodie Foster comes out with The Brave One, the story of a woman who—you guessed it—sets out on a revenge-focused murder buffet after her husband is killed. Two movies. Two weeks. One plot. Oh, except this time it's a woman. So it's different.

#1.
Put Robin Williams in a Comedy, Sit Back and Let Him Work His Magic

Who's Doing It Next: Old Dogs, starring Robin Williams and John Travolta, presumably as the titular "old dogs" who find themselves taking care of twin seven-year-olds, probably having to learn some "new tricks" along the way. We can only hope that the seven-year-olds are played by the Wayans brothers, leading to whacky hi-jinks that amuse the audience until a violent gang murders the children, sending Williams and Travolta on a murderous rampage. With Williams being a real-life coke addicted parody of himself, we're pretty sure Old Dogs would have all of the bases covered.

Who Did It Best: Death to Smoochy. The rest of the ensemble more than makes up for Williams' unsettling hamming. Also, Williams has never been more at home than with the role of a pathetic, washed-up actor that everyone pities.

Who Did It Worst: Our toughest call on this entire list. Here, there are just so many awful movies. Well, License to Wed is currently fizzling at your local theater. According to the previews, and the previews are as much of this movie as anyone we know will see, Williams screams and does bad impressions but, this time, wears a Priest costume. Beyond that, there's Flubber, and we don't want to forget Man of the Year or Patch 'Motherfucking' Adams. In the end, we feel pretty good about RV because it featured both Robin Williams and a car full of annoying kids.

Why It Needs To Stop: We're at a total loss for the best Robin Williams comedy. Mrs. Doubtfire maybe? He threw a piece of fruit at Pierce Brosnan in that one. That's gotta stand for something, right? Aladdin gets points because we don't ever actually have to see Williams once, though the same five or six impressions he's been doing his entire career are everywhere. Without a standout winner, it is reasonable to conclude, then, that this formula has never once worked, which is astounding considering it's been used for close to 30 years and shows no signs of stopping.

Fundrasing skill is essential to museum directors

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 02:47:32 GMT

Source: http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article01.asp?id=694

美國美術館尋找館長不再只看重行政能力與學術成就，現在又多增加一項評量標準：募款能力。本文指出，過去面試館長人選時，委員會問：「你對本美術館未來的願景為何？」現在則是問：「你曾經最多募到多少錢？」國家對美術館的補助越來越少，相對地美術館要籌到的捐款越來越高，經濟壓力大。這也是為什麼紐約大都會博物館和倫敦泰德美術館花了不少錢開發週邊產品，販售所得對財務收支非常重要。Anyway, 以後想當美術館館長的人，得在財務知識與募款能力好好加強。

p.s. 看完這篇文章，發現當美術館館長薪水還不錯呢！一年竟有70萬美金的收入。

More US museums need directors than ever before --- Fundraising skills essential

By Jason Edward Kaufman

NEW YORK. There are currently over two dozen major US museums looking for new directors, more than at any time in the past 20 years. Museum professionals think that the number of posts may be difficult to fill especially as fundraising has become such an essential part of the job.

The majority of the vacancies are in the Midwest, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center. The Kimbell Art Museum, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Blanton Museum of Art, and the Nasher Sculpture Center, all in Texas, are looking for directors.

On the West Coast, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the Santa Barbara Art Museum and the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle are searching for chief executives. The Smithsonian Institution is searching for a new chief executive and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia are also looking for new heads.

Millicent Gaudieri, executive director of the Association of Art Museum Directors, said that most openings are a result of retirements. However, David Gordon, who will step down from the Milwaukee Art Museum by next March, has left by mutual agreement with the board. Mr Gordon says he will be writing and acting as a consultant. Similarly, Willard Holmes announced plans to leave the flagging Wadsworth Atheneum as soon as a replacement is found, and recently accepted a position as associate director for administration at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

However, the pool of qualified successors appears to be dwindling as trustees increasingly demand a track record in administration as well as fundraising. One curator-turned-director told The Art Newspaper he was interviewed for 18 institutions and was rejected by 17 because he had no prior fundraising experience. “The main question asked by the search committee is not, what is your vision for the museum?” he says, “but what’s the most money you’ve raised?”

This echoes Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum, who told the Association of Art Museum Curators six years ago: “We have to reassure trustees that hiring curators as directors will not compromise the museum’s bottom line.”

Timothy Potts, outgoing director of the Kimbell in Fort Worth, believes the number of foreign directors at US museums is “simply a reflection of the large number of significant museums in this country, and the unique level of activity in the arts scene here—in acquisitions, exhibitions, new buildings and just about any other aspect of museum life you can think of.” Yet Mr Potts recently abandoned his $700,000 pay package at the Kimbell to become director of the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University, where he says: “The emphasis can be on quality and scholarship rather than purely populist criteria: not so different from the Kimbell, but an increasingly distant luxury for many US museums.”

Summer, the season of music

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:26:02 GMT

很多朋友都利用夏天旅行，尤其聽到很多人要往歐洲跑。現在學校開學還有近兩個月，不過除了七月初的Zion National Park之外，我已經沒有任何旅行計畫了。上個月家裡遭小偷闖空門，光天化日之下竊走不少值錢的珠寶、現金和筆記型電腦，損失非常慘重（可惡的小偷！），現在我和Richard兩人必須開源節流，省點錢，原先計畫八月出國一事就必須取消了，乖乖留在L.A. 過日子吧。旅行的機會，將來一定很多，例如蒐集資料、作學術研究、或參加國際研討會等，所以暫時先擱著吧。（住得靠近商業區的好處與壞處很明顯，好處是購物方便，壞處是來往人群複雜，治安較差）

留在L.A.其實也挺好的，因為夏天是音樂的季節，到處都可以發現免費或便宜的音樂會可參加，這是住在大都市的好處，文化活動相當豐富。我們曾參加過LACMA的Friday Jazz Night, Pasadena的Vromon Bookstore每週日傍晚也有爵士音樂表演，在Pasadena old town的一座公園也有週末音樂會，有拉丁音樂和爵士音樂，有時候Pasadena也有藝術之夜，整晚在Pasadena好幾處表演場所都有免費的音樂會，從古典樂、流行樂到爵士樂都有不少選擇...anyway, 喜歡音樂的人，夏天到處都是看表演的機會，不過我個人比較喜歡在酒吧欣賞表演，至於戶外露天的表演音響效果通常較差一點。這週末我和Richard想和朋友一起到Culver city（近L.A. downtown）的一家爵士酒吧坐坐，據朋友說這家爵士酒吧裝潢平實，但音響設備佳且演出超高水準，也不時有實驗性質的爵士樂團表演，她非常推薦這家酒吧。另外她也推薦另一家在Hollywood有名的jazz club，裝潢時尚，有吃有喝有跳舞也有純聽音樂的地方，她說這可能是好萊塢一帶最棒最著名的爵士club。等我們去試試再告訴大家如何吧。:) 除此之外，八月份我們將欣賞L.A.著名的Hollywood Bowl音樂會，我們幸運地拿到兩張免費的票，這場音樂會以表演莫扎特精華作品為主，確定曲目我還不很清楚，但我相信應該是很夠水準的表演。Walter Disney Concert Hall的表演我們也想去看（此處著名的建築景點之一），不過我還沒積極注意表演節目，再等等看有沒有機會拿到折扣的票囉。

轉念一想，這個夏天還不錯，欣賞好音樂讓人快樂起來。

---

(English version)

Many people go travelling in summer, but this summer we are not going to have any more trip in the next two months. A burglar just stole our valuable stuff and we lost a lot of money, so we'd better be careful with our spending. (Damn thief!) I'll stay in L.A. for the rest of my summer. Fortunately, summer is the best season for music. As lovers of music, we can easily find various kinds of concerts throughout the whole city. Many of the outdoor concerts are free, like the Friday Jazz night at Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the concerts in the park in old Pasadena. This is a great advantage to live in a big city!

We are going to a famous jazz bar this Saturday in Culver city (close to L.A. downtown), which is also for a farewell party to my friend. The jazz bar is famous for excellent jazz music performance, and quite often it also presents experimental musiciens, which is fresh and distinctive. The interior design of the jazz bar is not impressive though, according to my friend. The other jazz bar in Hollywood has better decoration, fancy and chic, attracting a lot of young people. We're looking forward to trying it someday. I'll update the experience at the music bar on the weekend. :)

Thinking in this way, this summer is not bad. Enjoying good music brightens my mood.

Discovering the Other

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 16:29:37 GMT

The International Film Installation Art at the National Palace Museum, Taipei

July 7~Aug 19

Official website:www.npm.gov.tw/events/96events/installations/

Too bad that I can't go. I would like to recommend friends in Taipei to take a look. It's good and it's free!

From the curator:
Discovering the Other: World. Asia. Taiwan. Taipei. National Palace Museum.

It may sound as a paradox, but the scoop of this relatively small presentation is no less than the whole world. The planet. Not just the world of artists and filmmakers, but also the world of all people. All people for example that fly like crazy around this globe as we can see in the present day futurism of Marilyn Fairskey. Airport people we know so well since they are us. If not me. Her ingeniously shaped vision of airports shows them as places that could be nowhere and anywhere. Not just Australia. Not just Asia. Maybe not even just the world.

Being open to the world. Being open to other cultures. It might not be enough. Living another culture could be the only way for serious exploring. Edgar Honetschlaeger can hardly be seen as an Austrian artist anymore. Not only is he one of those other globalists, he also spent more than a decade in Tokyo and it sharpened his witty view on one of the most interesting and hard to conquer cultures on earth. A view that is playful and serious at the same time. A view that helps others to understand. With pleasure.

Yael Bartana also left her country of origin, Israel. Also to sharpen her view. However, in her case she went back time and again to make her work in her country. Or her former country. One of the most complicated countries in the world that she reveals in illuminating miniatures. Made with the gaze of an outsider and an insider at the same time. Therefore, the self can be very much the other. A tragic miracle.

In addition, Deborah Stratman traveled the world and Asia in particular. Not to find a new country, but to see things like an age-old group of acrobats that travel through China. A China that for a very long time has been big enough for them, but now even in remote places the world is getting smaller.

The world of Apichatpong Weerasethakul might be the biggest of them all, since he does not stop at the real world. Probably one of the most modern artists/filmmakers working and living in Asia right now his work is full of the older wonders and believes of his native Thailand. Weerasethakul made a name for himself in the Western art world as well as the international film world, but the spirit of his work stayed close to his roots.

And yes Ella Raidel left her country to settle in Taiwan. In Taipei. Far from being a local artist, she made her new town, new country, new continent as her new subjects. Like urban landscapes that move and change overnight. Having still a fresh eye on Taipei and being familiar with the National Palace Museum, her contribution could be called tailor made. She worked together with the local artist and curator Hongjohn Lin.

Moreover, the real home artist is the internationally famous filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang. He is bringing a specific local atmosphere to the museum, but it is an atmosphere even a lot of locals will not know. The intimate style of professional love mixed with the charming style of home movies. Clearly thought in opposition to the high and official art of the National Palace Museum. Nevertheless, it is also clearly an opposition that is willing to fit in. That speaks to the tradition.

For a short while, the National Palace Museum will be the home and the theatre to some of to most interesting artists and filmmakers on the globe. Artist and filmmakers who made the discovering of other worlds, other cultures and other arts to their nature. They are here to discover the museum and the museum should discover them.

Gertjan Zuilhof
programmer, International Film Festival Rotterdam
curator, Discovering the Other

Chinese transaltion:

世界、亞洲、台灣、台北、國立故宮博物院。
乍看之下好像互相矛盾，但是這個相對而言不算大的展覽所胸懷的野心，卻不會比這整個世界要小。
而且我們這裡所說的世界，並不只是藝術家和電影工作者的世界，也是所有人的世界。
就像現在在全世界瘋狂飛行的人們，
我們可以從瑪麗琳‧法爾絲基具未來主義風格的作品中所看見的人們。
這些在機場奔波的人們我們都很熟悉，因為他們就是我們。
瑪麗琳‧法爾絲基聰明而有智慧的勾勒出機場的意象，
其作品中所顯示出的人和地方可以是任何地方，也可以什麼地方都不是；
不是只是澳洲、不是只是亞洲，也許也不只是這個世界。
我們可以持有一種對世界開放的態度，持有一種對其他文化開放的態度。
但是這些可能都還不夠。
也許去居住在另一個文化裡，是唯一能夠認真的發現他者的唯一方法。

愛德格‧洪內史雷戈，現在幾乎不太被認為是奧地利藝術家了。
不單單因為他是標準的世界公民，他也花了超過十年的時間在日本居住。
這些經驗使得他對於這個世界上最有趣、也最難被征服的文化有著非常有趣的觀點。
他的看法幽默，但同時又很嚴肅。因此能幫助人們以著一個愉悅的心情去了解異己。
亞爾‧芭塔娜也離開她的出生國家-以色列，尋求她思想上的磨練。
但無論如何，最後她仍一次又一次的回到她的國家創作新的作品；或者是說，她的前一個國家。
一個也許是這個世界上最複雜的國家；而她僅僅是用一個發光的螢幕呈現出來。
亞爾‧芭塔娜同時以一個圈外人與在地人的角度來觀看這一切，
因此這個自我既是自我，也可以是他者：一個非常悲傷的奇蹟。

此外，黛博拉‧司拉特門一直在世界各地旅行，特別是在亞洲。
她不是企圖去發現一個新的國家，而是通過在中國的旅行，
觀看世界萬物：好比說發現了一群上了年紀的馬戲團走鋼索表演者。
這個中國，長久以來對鋼索表演者來說，已經太大了，
可是現在，即使在他們這麼偏遠的地方，這世界似乎也越來越小。

亞比查朋‧魏拉希沙可的世界可能相對於以上這些藝術家來說是其中最大的，
因為他從來沒有在真實的世界中停止移動過。
也許也可以說他是當今生活在亞洲的藝術家/導演中最現代的。
他的作品充滿了從他的出生地-泰國而來的的古老傳說與信仰元素。

亞比查朋‧魏拉希沙可雖然在西方的藝術社會以及國際電影世界裡，
闖出了他的名聲，但是他作品的精神卻一直根留在他的家鄉。
還有愛拉‧萊德，她離開她的國家而定居在台灣、台北，
但是她完全不是一個當地的藝術家。
她發掘了屬於她自己的新城市、新國家、就好像是她新的創作對象所具有的新內容。
正如在她眼中在一夜之間改變與移動的城市風景，
她對於台北仍然還保有新鮮的眼光，同時還有對於國立故宮博物院的熟悉。
愛拉‧萊德的作品可以完全說是為此量身訂做。
她目前與當地的藝術家/策展人-林宏璋一起工作。

除此之外，真正在地的藝術家，也是國際有名的電影工作者-蔡明亮，
他將帶給國立故宮博物院非常特別、也非常在地的氣氛，
但卻又是一種連許多本地的人也不會知道的氣氛。
一種很親暱的風格，將「愛」用一種很迷人的家庭電影的風格混淆而成的專業風格。
很明顯的可以看出這將是與國立故宮博物院的官方藝術迥異的角度；
也非常清楚的可以看到將會是十分適合在此展覽的一種角度，與傳統對話的一種角度。
因此在未來短短的六個禮拜，國立故宮博物院對於當今世界上最有趣的藝術家及電影工作者而言，
同時會是一個家與一個戲院。這些藝術家與導演，發現了另外一個世界，另外一種文化，以及與他們原來本質不同的藝術。
他們來到了這裡，發現國立故宮博物院，而國立故宮博物院，也發現了他們。

Gertgan Zuilhof

國際鹿特丹影展節目策劃人
發現彼此國際電影裝置展策展人

p.s. 對影展有興趣的朋友，也參考此部落格的觀影心得：http://blog.yam.com/tonyblue/article/10882826

Once

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 07:23:53 GMT

Title: Once

Director: John Carney

Comment: Strongly recommended!

這部電影是今年到目前為止我覺得最棒的電影，通常強檔片多選擇秋天上映為趕上奧斯卡頒獎，所以我還在期待秋天可以看到許多好片。這部電影情節不落俗套，音樂好，演員自然演出，是我強力推薦的理由。導演John Carney一開始選角時選擇專業演員，但專業演員通常唱不好，於是他最後放棄，改為選擇兩位音樂家。男主角Glen Hansard是愛爾蘭搖滾樂團The Frames主唱，女主角Marketa Irglova是捷克鋼琴家，兩人在鏡頭前的演出非常自然，效果奇佳。男女主角在電影中都沒有名字，男主角是街頭表演音樂家，同時在父親的在吸塵器店幫忙打工，賺點微薄夠餬口的錢，而女主角是在同一條街上賣花的東歐移民，兩人在街上相遇，發現對方音樂才華，各自唱出彼此過去的羅曼史，慢慢推展劇情，兩人也逐漸暗萌情愫，男主角邀請女主角一起到錄音室錄製試唱帶準備給唱片公司看，最後男主角從都柏林飛到倫敦求發展，希望有朝一日得以發片出專輯，且挽回前女友（這是一開始的計畫，但遇到女主角後他是否還能回到過去與前女友的感情值的懷疑），而女主角則選擇切斷彼此關係，食言不出現見他最後一面而與丈夫在一起，雖然兩人無話可說，但為了讓女兒有個爸爸，她做出這樣的決定。鏡頭結束在女主角的公寓前，鏡頭漸漸拉遠到整棟磚紅色的老公寓與街道一景，配上傍晚時分微弱的陽光，導演成功營造一種遺憾的感覺。

從劇情發展來看，這部電影其實很容易一下子就掉入cliche，例如男女主角一開始掉入情網時，若好萊塢片子就會有兩人發生關係的一幕，但在這部電影中他們甚至連親吻都沒有（只有在片尾男主角向女主角告別時親吻她的臉頰），還有男主角的音樂才華，好萊塢片子可能會描述男主角最後發跡，從一個無名小卒到成為一位廣受歡迎的歌手，然後順便加上一點成名之後受到的挑戰與挫折，但最後都能克服之類的情節，但Once都沒有這樣做，男主角只是帶著試聽帶獨自飛往倫敦碰運氣，他帶著所有親朋好友的祝福，至於能不能成功我們不得而知。

在運鏡方面，導演運用許多長鏡頭捕捉街景，將街道上的雜音一起錄下來，沒有刻意處理景深，且鏡頭有時候刻意不穩定，效果如手拿攝影機，有時候也有畫面粒子較粗的質感處理人物表情特寫，充滿藝術感。看多了好萊塢講究且精緻的取景，這電影顯的非常真實。背景音樂運用非常好，都是好聽的抒情搖滾歌曲，看完電影後我立刻訂購電影原聲帶。去年年底我看音樂劇Dreamgirls時，覺得這部音樂劇電影真好，情節緊湊且音樂好，只是人物個性較flat，單一面向，沒有深度，但這是還可以接受的缺點，不過看過Once之後，Dreamgirls立刻被比下去，水準只能說中上而已（好多報章雜誌對Dreamgirls的評價非常高，這些影評人都太慷慨太nice了）。

這部好電影可惜台灣不上映，暑假只有一堆爛片與美國同步上映，what a pity! 至於在美國或歐洲的朋友，這部片子絕對值的一看。

Office website of "Once": http://www.foxsearchlight.com/once/ and http://www.oncethemovie.com/

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Title: Live Free or Die Hard

這是Bruce Willis的新片，一部典型的好萊塢動作片。老實說我一般不看這種電影，因為情節簡單又老套，特效一堆，大量打鬥畫面，娛樂性夠但沒有深度，不過因為電影在Pasadena拍攝時，我上法文課剛好經過看到，很好奇 old Pasadena在電影中看起是怎麼樣。全片劇情沒有涉及L.A., 不過我還是認出來哪些畫面在old Pasadena拍的，畫面一開始的夜景不確定（Bruce Willis將女兒的男友拖出車子的地方），有點像在Pasadena取景的，另一個我十分確定的場景是Bruce Willis用手機打給FBI官員時，站在一家咖啡館窗前，看到電視新聞，這家咖啡館確實是Pasadena的店，然後Bruce Willis與Justin Long看到Capitol Hill被炸的電視畫面，走出去看到真正的Captiol Hill仍在，兩人轉彎走到一個狹小的巷道，Justin Long終於想到這場災難是怎麼一回事，拿出Nokia手機打字。根據劇情此地應為Washington D.C. 實則在Pasadena拍攝，而且這個老街道就在我的法文教室旁邊喔，看到時興奮了一下，嘻。後來敵方派戰鬥機攻擊Bruce Willis，場景在高速公路上，當初為拍攝此畫面時，電影公司申請關閉L.A.國際機場附近的高速公路，引起不少民怨。

這部電影有時候我當笑話看，因為實在太好萊塢了，劇情完全可以預測，例如電影一開始十分鐘內就死了一堆人，但主角怎麼打都不會死，壞人一路都是壞人，好人就是好人，誇張的巧合與特效，最後壞人通通死光了（Bruce Willis說：I want to get my daughter and kill every body else. 典型的動作片對話，壞人一個都不留），FBI的救援終於到現場，然後三位好人上救護車獲救。Well, 若好萊塢電影有優點的話，那就是導演們對電影情節發展的速度控制得非常好，緊張快速，鏡頭變化用運得當，立刻切入重點，深抓住觀眾的眼睛。

Pictures: Once電影劇照，男女主角以及兩人在錄音室中唱歌的畫面。至於Die Hard中Pasadena的場景就請大家自己去看電影囉。