Monster Mash: 'Glee' tour coming to L.A.; Sotheby's posts profit; Giacometti sculpture buyer revealed

-- Victory lap: The cast of Fox's "Glee" is coming to L.A.'s Gibson Amphitheatre in May as part of a four-city tour. (Playbill)

-- In the black: Following staff cuts and other reductions, Sotheby’s said it has swung to a profit for the fourth quarter, beating analyst estimates. (Reuters)

-- Revealed: Lily Safra, a London-based billionaire, is said to be the buyer of the Alberto Giacometti sculpture that broke records at an auction in February. (Bloomberg)

-- Financial woes: The Institute of Contemporary Art in London faces budgetary cuts due to a rising deficit. (The Art Newspaper)

-- Anniversary: A new museum dedicated to Frederic Chopin has opened in Warsaw on the composer's 200th birthday. (Associated Press)

-- Labor agreement: Musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra have agreed to a freeze on minimum salaries for next season, as well as a hiring freeze with certain qualifications. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

-- Overhaul: The Ramona Bowl in the Inland Empire is refocusing its programming after nearly going broke last year. (Press-Enterprise)

-- No relation to Tyler Perry: "Medea," a new opera by German composer Aribert Reimann, had its world premiere at the Vienna State Opera on Sunday. (Agence France Presse)

-- Passing: Ernet Beyeler, a top collector of modern art in Europe, has passed away at age 88 in Switzerland. (Wall Street Journal)

-- In memoriam: A memorial for the late Lars Hansen, former executive director of the Pasadena Playhouse, is planned for March 14 at the Colony Theatre in Burbank. (Playbill)

-- And in the L.A. Times: Art critic Christopher Knight on "American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915" @ LACMA; when artists and photographers "borrow" from other sources.

-- David Ng

Photo credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Anne Keehn]

Regarding the story "When artists and photographers 'borrow'":

This is a hotly debated issue in many sectors of art—and, in particular, graffiti and street art, which often mixes and mashes motifs straight from popular culture and advertising in an attempt to re-contextualize their meanings. Shepard Fairey is embroiled in a legal battle against the AP over this very issue. Fairey contends that all media should be grist for one's own artistic mill—including other people's work.

Perhaps this phenomena of artists "borrowing" (some might call it stealing) from each other is the inevitable outgrowth of a society that does not invest in art for art's sake. Advertising is where many of our most creative minds must turn, in order to sustain their work (Damien Hirst for Levi's, Shepard Fairey for Virgin and Dewar's whisky). This inevitably creates a world where we are always referencing ourselves—where we must regurgitate material that we have already processed—because it is safe, familiar, and money-making. Jaron Lanier put it succinctly:

"Funding a civilization through advertising is like trying to get nutrition by connecting a tube from one’s anus to one’s mouth. The body starts consuming itself... As more and more human activity is aggregated, people huddle around the last remaining oases of revenue."