“Final negotiations in Prague to Purchase+Save+Renew the Historic“Lost 1903 Prague Cultural Center" - PRLog (free press release)” plus 1 more |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2010 11:09 AM PST PRLog (Press Release) – Nov 23, 2010 – http://www.culturallandmark.com/ special_report/ index_Press_ Release_CLM_ 10Nov2010.html re: Cultural Landmark Management Ltd. in closing negotiations with Barrandov Studio a.s. to purchase the 71+ year closed historic Art Nouveau + Classicism "Lost 1903 Prague Cultural Center" and Smecky Orchestral Recording Studio , to renew, rebuild, expand and reopen it as a private sector, public accessible, mixed-use, music/cultural center, "Prague Music Center," close to Wenceslas Square in Prague, in the "UNESCO World Heritage Zone," and the "Prague Historical Reserve," after 2 1/2 years of preparatory negotiations, "in the public interest." Cultural Landmark Management Press Release: November 10, 2010 Historic, Sustainable, cultural site renewal, private sector, public accessible, mixed-use, barrier-free, music center / cultural center / film, media + TV orchestral + philharmonic music recording studio, "Prague Music Center," Art Nouveau + Classicism, 'pending applicant status' with the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic (MKCR) since 2008 for future official classification as a "protected, listed, historic cultural landmark." CulturalLandmark.EU CulturalLandmark.com = Protection + Conservation + Preservation + Renewal + Site-Sensitive 'Sustainable Mixed Use Solutions' for Cultural Historic Landmarks Protection... >Renewal... >Sustainable Operations CulturalLandmark.EU ( CulturalLandmark.com ) provides comprehensive services to organizations and communities in support of the conservation and renewal of their historic cultural landmarks in manners that are sensitive to the historical, cultural and aesthetic needs of the community in which they are found. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| In a Sleepy Russian City, Not All Welcome a Cultural Revolution - New York Times Posted: 26 Nov 2010 03:31 PM PST PERM, Russia — This homely city on the edge of the Ural Mountains — once a place of political exile — is the unlikely forum for a furious, even bitter, debate about the role of culture in public life. Should art lead or should it follow public tastes? Should it provoke and stimulate, or soothe and entertain? And — more to the point — how much should it cost, who should pay, and who should benefit? Russians like to tackle big, open-ended questions, but the arguments that have been front-page news in Perm for two years are contentious, particularly because they raise another issue, always relevant in Russia: who gets to decide? What began as a self-styled cultural revolution is now slipping into a culture war of sorts. On one side is a self-assured elite from Moscow, here to instruct the provinces about what is new, cool and on the cutting edge. On the other side are the guardians of a local culture, who feel threatened and belittled by the implication that they are a bunch of rubes. "The Moscow group hasn't understood that Perm doesn't live in the 21st century, but 40 years ago," said Vladimir Abashev, a professor of philology at Perm State University. "Their cultural policy is aimed at a very small minority." It all began a couple of years ago when Oleg Chirkunov, the appointed governor of the Perm region since 2005, seized on a cultural initiative as a way to kick-start development and give this unglamorous city an exciting, post-Soviet identity. He enlisted the help of a former university classmate, Boris Milgram, a theater director who left Perm for Moscow in the 1990s. Mr. Milgram became Perm's regional culture minister and in turn attracted a group of scene setters from the capital, including Marat Guelman, a well-connected gallery owner, and Eduard Boyakov, a founder of Russia's national theater awards and a theater director. Within a year this group had opened a nationally acclaimed contemporary-art exhibition in a reconverted Stalin-era riverboat station, a new theater, a series of avant-garde concerts, street-art projects and festivals and had caused a lot of talk. "Contemporary art is a powerful provocation, and without provocation, there is no real creative process," said Mr. Milgram, whose goal is to organize 59 festivals in Perm each year. It is an odd number, which some say is out of proportion to the demands or interests of the city's one million inhabitants. Still, Alexei Trifonov, a music manager brought in from the capital to enliven the offerings at the orchestra here, sees the Perm experiment as an opportunity to close the cultural gap between Moscow and Russia's provinces. "Here there is a chance to do something new," he said. In September 2009, Mr. Guelman — who is also director of the Permm museum of contemporary art and the Perm Center for Development Design — announced that the city would become Russia's cultural capital. Moscow newspapers called it the next Bilbao, the gritty Spanish city put on the map by the Guggenheim Museum branch there, designed by Frank Gehry. Now the governor and his team are pushing Perm as a candidate for the title of European cultural capital, an annual European Union honor that usually goes to cities within the union, of which Russia is not a member. Neither, however, is Turkey, whose largest city, Istanbul, currently holds the title. Flights of hubris are also a Russian tradition, so no one is knocking Perm's lofty ambitions. It's also very Russian for initiatives to flow from the top down, with little regard to the realities on the ground. Sometimes all those initiatives need are well-placed individuals, in this case Governor Chirkunov — who serves at the pleasure of the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, not of the voters — and the galvanizing presence of people like Mr. Guelman. This kind of cultural decree angers Alexei Ivanov, a local author with a national following who is an unrelenting critic of the new team from Moscow and of their goals and methods. "What is happening in Perm is a catastrophe," he said. "They dreamed up this idea of a cultural revolution, but Perm has never lacked for culture. All these projects are there to turn over money to Guelman and his friends. They are drawing blood from our budget." There have also been vicious, xenophobic diatribes from conservative legislators and puzzlement on the part of citizens trying to grasp the relevance of a wall-size portrait of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California with a basketball hoop on his forehead, or a group of giant red figurines perched on a downtown square and a nearby rooftop. Comments and criticisms are welcome, and even necessary, Mr. Milgram said. "Our legislators were ready to get offended because the red men had no heads, and they thought it was supposed to be them," he said. "Others say if these figures are there, they must mean something. So then, what does it mean to have statues of Lenin in public squares all over the country? This is about levels of consciousness." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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