So much for détente. The Cold War (Arts, circa.2007) is back on, complete with all those wonderfully droll references to sub-zero temperatures. Just when the Royal Academy appeared to have gained permission for the From Russia exhibition, British ambassador Tony Brenton was summoned to explain to the foreign ministry why British Council offices in St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg had opened despite a demand to cease their activities from January 1st.
Of course, the rather sour irony of all this is that, back in the land of Shakespeare & Fry, the Arts Council continues its cull. Following on from Equity’s gnashing of teeth last week, the Tangrum Theatre led London in silent protest, whilst the National’s artistic director Nicholas Hytner (despite being head of one of the 75% of organisations to receive increased funding) branded the ACE’s spending review a ‘strategic catastrophe’ and referred to its regional bodies as those ‘unacceptable fiefdoms’.
Middle Eastern Politik
Due to return to the Royal Festival Hall in a weeks, the Israeli pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim became the first person in the world to possess both Israeli and Palestinian passports after being granted Palestinian citizenship for his efforts promoting cultural exchange between Israel and the Arab world. Presented the passport after a Beethoven recital in Ramallah the pioneer of peace and understanding said: ‘I hope that my new status will be an example of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence’.
Such tolerance and understanding does not appear, however, to be notable attributes of the Afghan state-run Film Council. Wary of the reaction to the rape scene in the film adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, they banned both its import and exhibition. The incredulity felt by many Afghans at what has been perceived as an inflammatory and anti-Islamic act prompted Paramount Pictures to fly the film’s three child actors to a secret location in the United Arab Emirates, scared for their safety. The only other place where the story was also nearly banned due to a clamorous reaction to the rape scene? Indiana, USA.
Let It Be Known, There’s Money in Poetry
£15,000 worth to be precise. Sean O’Brien scooped an unprecedented poetry double (and the increased cash prize), after adding the TS Elliot prize for poetry to the Forward gong he collected last year. To say that poetry is the new investment banking might be a bit hasty however; I don’t see Tony Blair (proud employee of JP Morgan) penning his own ‘Ode to Haditha’ on the side just yet.
In music, Radiohead continued to disrupt the industry’s economic stability, playing a EMI combusted all on its own and Jarvis Cocker slipped effortlessly on to Radio 4, offering a refreshingly passionate assessment of fanzines.
Elsewhere, in Italy, nude models took heart from the Hollywood pickets and went on strike for better pay and conditions (it’s ‘a tough, cold job’ noted Antonella Migliorini,42) and everybody (apart from our own Ryan Gilbey) gushed, fawned and bowed at the feet of the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men. One suspects, in many cases before the film was even watched.
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