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Washington Museum collects dozens of Obama memorabilia
Updated: January 22 2009, 22:47 CET
WASHINGTON: During President Barack Obama’s inauguration Larry Bird and Harry Rubenstein, two curators from the National Museum of American History, collected dozens of objects, from hats and homemade signs to buttons and other paraphernalia, to tell the story of the first black president to future generations. People wrapped themselves in Obama blankets. Vendors sold every Obama button imaginable. It's a moment that curators might need to capture someday in an exhibit, so they've been working to collect as many as 100 different Obama items. The first few Obama items will go on view this weekend in the museum's "The American Presidency" exhibit - perhaps a novelty Obama license plate or a toy train in the exhibit's inauguration case, Rubenstein said.
"You really felt that you were part of something that was bigger than yourself," said Bird told IdahoStatesman.com. He ventured out Tuesday and combed through the million-plus crowd to find unique items the museum could use. Official items from inaugural organizers will also join objects the museum has collected in recent weeks, such as the Obama action figure and an Obama periscope to help people get a glimpse of the president from the massive crowd. They will be added to a collection of about 90,000 political history objects that includes a sign from Thomas Jefferson's inauguration that reads "John Adams is no more" and Abraham Lincoln's top hat worn when he was assassinated.
The election of President Barack Obama is having a major impact on collectors of political memorabilia. His image already appears on thousands of political buttons. And millions of dollars worth of items related to Mr. Obama have been sold on eBay. Some of those items may become quite valuable in the not-so-distant future.
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Washington presents Obama, King and Lincoln to the people
Updated: January 20 2009, 13:24 CET
WASHINGTON: Today Barack Obama will be inaugurated, a day after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and A citywide celebration of the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth began this month and features more than 80 exhibits and programs. The symbolism and power of such events and history are drawing millions of people to the inauguration and are sparking tourism in Washington, D.C. For this occasion several museums profile their presidential collection to the visitors of Inauguration Day.
Even before he takes office, President-elect Obama's image has become part of the permanent collection at the National Portrait Gallery. The gallery acquired the iconic collage by Los Angeles street artist Shepard Fairey, depicting Obama with the word "Hope." The image — later modified with the messages of "Change" and "Vote" for the Obama campaign — became one of the most memorable images from the 2008 election.
The recently reopened National Museum of American has special exhibits on first ladies, including Michelle Obama, and the presidency. It also displays the flag that inspired the national anthem plus permanent exhibits The Smithsonian Institution offers five exhibits on the 16th president, including "Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life," with more than 60 artifacts from Lincoln's life now on display. Next month Ford's Theatre — where Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 — will reopen for tours and performances after an extensive renovation. There will be an open house on February 12 to mark Lincoln's Birthday (he was born Feb. 12, 1809). The theater also commissioned a new play on Lincoln called "The Heavens are Hung in Black.". The National Park Service also is hosting Lincoln bicentennial events, including a celebration at the Lincoln Memorial on February 12. At the National Archives the "Taking the Oath" exhibit displays documents related to George Washington's inauguration and the first presidential oath of office.
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Times are also changing for independent film festivals
Updated: January 15 2009, 15:51 CET
PARK CITY: Every year in January and February the world celebrates many major film independent festivals like the Gothenborg International Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam and the Berlinale Berlin Film Festival. Today in Park City, Utah, the famous Sundance Film Festival opens her doors to the public. For 20 years, one of the hallmarks of the Sundance Film Festival has been giddy bidding over low-budget movies that distributors hope will generate big returns at the box office. But today the picture is likely to be different. Plenty of celebrities are still planning to pile into tiny Park City, Utah, for the 10-day event. But studio executives, directors and others say that when it comes to acquisitions, restraint will prevail.
The Sundance slowdown started last year. Geoff Gilmore director of the Sundance Film Festival estimates that the total outlay by buyers to acquire movies at Sundance plunged to about a third of the roughly $45 million spent in 2007, or around $15 million. This year, the festival faces an additional challenge: Many of the major studios have either closed or slimmed down their divisions that specialized in independently produced fare.
On the other hand Gilmore states: “ Everyone speaks today of this being a moment for change. And yet the truth is for independent film, change has been constant. As the Director of the Sundance Film Festival over (nearly) the last two decades, I’ve witnessed an ongoing and constant evolution. Indeed every passing year has seemed to proclaim the end of an era and the beginning of a ‘revolution’!” “Audiences are changing. The over thirty-audience is the target for much of the independent arena - whereas the new generation represents an interesting contradiction. There is no question that the current college audience is much more sophisticated about cinema- about art film or international and independent work- than was my generation 30 years ago. But frankly they seem to have less interest in it. Or at least they have a greater range of activities to engage in and thus are more selective and demanding about how they are going to spend their hard-earned dollars. It’s difficult to say whether the new generation will continue to harbor the passion for film that we had. Independent film has broken a lot of ground and had a lot of success in the last two decades. But what was innovative then is now familiar. Whether new audiences can be intrigued by innovative independent work, coaxed by critics, and motivated by marketing, whether they will be interested by new subjects and artistic invention, remains to be seen.”
Sundance began in 1978 as the Utah/US Film Festival, but seven years later Robert Redford took it over and the focus shifted toward American independent film. Veteran buyers of specialty films say 1989, the year that Miramax bought Steven Soderbergh's "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" for $1 million, ushered in the era of bidding wars that has dominated the scene in recent years. In 1991, the event was officially renamed the Sundance Film Festival.
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Vienna museum struggling despite record-breaking amount of visitors
Updated: January 14 2009, 15:26 CET
VIENNA: The Albertina in Vienna announced that the Van Gogh exhibition closed last December after attracting a record-breaking 589,180 visitors since 5 September 2008. Visitor numbers far exceeded the ambitious target of 450,000. That figure had already been reached by mid-November. With an average number of 6,202 visitors a day, Van Gogh topped all previous blockbuster shows at the Albertina: Albrecht Dürer in 2003 (472,000 visitors; daily average: 4,968), Pablo Picasso in 2007 (345,000 visitors; daily average: 3,141), and Peter Paul Rubens in 2004 (239,000 visitors, daily average: 2,916). In terms of daily visitor figures Van Gogh was far and away the most popular exhibition ever to be shown in Austria.
Earlier this month the Albertina museum in Vienna, director Klaus Albrecht Schröder has told the Art Newspaper that the global financial crisis has been a "catastrophe" for the Albertina though. In addition to losing over €2 million ($2.7 million) in pledged private support over the past few weeks, the museum has been forced to cut its budget by a total of €12 million over the next three years, a decision which has already led to the cancellation of a Jörg Immendorff exhibition scheduled for September.
In addition, two major exhibitions have yet to find sponsors: a Gerhard Richter retrospective scheduled to open January 30 and "The Age of Rembrandt," opening on March 4. Each includes over 160 works.
The withdrawn €2 million in funding was to have come from a European private donor, a bank, and another undisclosed Austrian company. The Albertina is a state-run museum but is unusually reliant on private-sector funding.
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Controversial ‘Mob Museum’ to stimulate Las Vegas tourist industry
Updated: January 12 2009, 13:10 CET
LAS VEGAS: The city of Las Vegas needs $50 million for a ‘Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement’ ( “the Mob Museum”), and stated a federal stimulus package (a special package of spending and tax measures meant to increase economic activity) should help. Mayor Oscar B. Goodman , a former criminal defense lawyer who represented several Mafia figures in the 1970s and 1980s, told the New York Times he thinks that a center on the history of organized crime is “absolutely falling within the four corners of what President-elect Obama is trying to achieve.” The planned museum is to include interactive exhibits where visitors can snap their mug shots, stand in police lineups and wiretap one another.
Citing studies showing that 250,000 tourists a year would visit the attraction and noting that tourism is to Las Vegas what car sales are (or were) to Detroit, according to the mayor. Slated to open in 2010, the museum would occupy the entire 42,000 square feet of a three-story neoclassical building that was the first federal courthouse in Clark County and one of the sites of the 1950 hearings into organized crime led by Senator Estes Kefauver, Democrat of Tennessee.
The creative director of the planned museum, Dennis Barrie, who also curated the International Spy Museum in Washington and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, said the structure was the second-oldest in Las Vegas and needed a $26 million restoration.
The F.B.I. supports the museum and has agreed to lend records and other artifacts to be exhibited. But among those opposed is a former federal prosecutor, Donald Campbell, who had a hand in breaking the mob’s hold on Las Vegas in the 1980s. Still the whole project is controversial in the US and Las Vegas. But according to the New York Times Mr. Goodman is clearly enjoying the national attention the museum financing plan as he prompted. “This is $1 million worth of publicity for us,” he said. “I love it. Just spell my name right.”
www.themobmuseum.org
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