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PEOPLES DAILY, WEDNESday, february 17, 2016
Arts & Culture
FROM THE LIVE STAGE
‘The Kiss’ and other Rodin bronzes up for auction in Paris
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ive small bronze statues by French 19th century sculptor Auguste Rodin will be auctioned in Paris next week, including a cast of his celebrated “The Kiss”, which is estimated at 1.5 to 2 million euros ($1.70-2.27 million). The five statues, to be sold by auction house Drouot on Tuesday, come from the collection of late French art dealer Jean de Ruaz, who bought them from the Rodin Museum in the 1940s. The main piece is an 85 cm (33.5 inch) high cast of “The Kiss”, produced in 1927, 10 years after Rodin’s death, by the same Alexis Rudier foundry that had cast many of Rodin’s pieces. First exhibited in 1887, the sculpture portrays Paolo and Francesca, two characters from
Dante’s Divine Comedy, but became known as “Le Baiser”. It is one of Rodin’s best known works, along with “The Thinker” and “The Burghers of Calais”. Auctioneer Alexandre Giquello said some 40 to 50 casts of the work were made after Rodin’s death but only about 10 to 15 are of high quality and undisputed provenance. De Ruaz had lent the work to New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1963, he said. During Rodin’s life only about seven casts were made and those had been sold at auctions for 6 to 7 million euros. “We expect the statue will sell for more than 1.5 million euros,” Giquello said, adding that it will be the first public sale of a cast of “The Kiss” made after Rodin’s death.
The white marble version of the work housed in Paris’ newly renovated Rodin Museum is nearly 2 meters high, but miniaturized bronze casts are highly popular with collectors. The other pieces Drouot will auction next week include “Eternal Spring”, another medium-size bronze of a kissing couple, cast between 1935 and 1945 and estimated at 300,000 to 400,000 euros. Three small statuettes, also cast after Rodin’s death, are estimated at between 30,000 and 100,000 euros. Rodin’s work has been widely forged, notably by convicted forger Guy Hain, who in the 1990s produced thousands of fake bronze Rodins, often using original Rodin plaster casts and the Rudier stamp.
Auctioneer Alexandre Giquello looks at the sculpture ‘Le Baiser’ (the Kiss), bronze cast made in 1927, which is part of an exceptional sale of five remarkable bronzes by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), displayed in Paris, France.Reuters/Philippe Wojazer
‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ headed for Broadway debut
A hand-painted mural showing a scene of the 1960 bestseller ‘’ To Kill A Mockingbird’’ is shown on a building near where the homes of 1960’s writers Harper Lee and Truman Capote’s homes once stood in Monroeville, Alabama October 23, 2013. Reuters/Verna Gates arper Lee’s classic novel into an Oscar-winning movie found and published last year “To Kill a Mockingbird” is in 1962, starring Gregory Peck called “Go Set A Watchman.” coming to Broadway for the as noble lawyer Atticus Finch, “Watchman,” described as first time in a new stage version and has been produced for the a first draft of “Mockingbird,” written by “West Wing” writer stage in various U.S. cities and in astounded readers and critics by Aaron Sorkin, producers said on London, this will be the first time portraying the heroic Finch as a Wednesday. “Mockingbird” will be seen on racist who supported segregation. The Pulitzer Prize-winning 1960 Broadway. Sorkin is best known as the novel about racism and injustice in Lee’s novel has sold more than creator of the Emmy-winning the American south will make its 50 million copies and was thought White House television series Broadway debut in the 2017-2018 to be the author’s only book until an “West Wing” and an Oscar-winner season, producer Scott Rudin said. unpublished manuscript featuring for the screenplay of “The Social Although the book was made some of the same characters was Network.”
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with Patrick-Jude Oteh 0803 700 0496, 0805 953 5215 (SMS only)
PRICING OUR PERFORMANCES
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hat is the exact price of a performance? What will constitute a fair price for a stage performance? Usually, it is the gut feeling of a person who is preparing the budget for the performances that determines what a‘fair price’ is. The expenses are legion – from directing fees, to artistes’ fees, technicals, costumes, make-up, per diems, accommodation (if you are travelling out of your base), transport, and some people do add incidentals or what some people refer to as miscellaneous. Then there are costs associated with rentals – stage, lights, props and maybe even a backdrop. However, the reality on the ground is that most people who come to seek for our expertise make us forego a lot of the above expenses. So you forego directing fees and reduce artistes fees and for some of us we just have to keep working so we bend a lot of the rules and compromise on what should constitute a ‘fair price’ and at the end of the day when we find that our accounts are refusing to balance, we short change the artistes. This is usually a common occurrence. So the actor works for many weeks and finds his/her way to rehearsals at his own cost and at the end of the day, he is not paid. Most times, most artistes take it in their stride and they actually make no noise because they are not sure where the next job is going to come from. Of course, some of us exploit this pliant nature of artistes to our own advantage. However, the new phenomenon that is creeping up for those on the field is the possibility of our work being judged by a set of rules in which we are not expected to have any input. And if you dare to raise a voice that artistic works cannot be judged that way you get written off as an ‘arrogant artiste’. Let me explain – you get called up for a job and asked to present a budget. After this is done you now get told that there is a fixed amount for transport, there is a fixed amount for accommodation, there is no per diem and the fee is also fixed. First, my question – if you knew all these why did you put me through the rigmarole of a budget? And second, why should my work be judged on the basis of a set of rules in which I have no say? Going into the technicalities of the production – you expect me to make the production as real as possible which means that I have to transport set pieces and possibly a band and you tell me that my transport costs are fixed. How do I go about this if I am not to walk away with the feeling that you never wanted me to do the job in the first place? These days I tell my colleagues that we are an endangered species as we are expected to produce and work in very excruciating circumstances. I am very much aware that there is desperation in the land. The length to which people go these days to make ends meet. But the stage art despite her value to us has failed to rise up above the sometimes mundane. I came in contact recently with a group that uses the stage arts to pass serious messages that the government is finding it difficult to confront. Not our government but another government. Of course they are working in sometimes very dire situations. Imagine a situation where in a train station that has a busy schedule all day – suddenly in the midst of the station, a popular song starts and a group of people start dancing to the song. Soon, the small group becomes a market place of people struggling to showcase their dancing skills from the aged to the young. No one is exempted but the beauty of it is that they are all doing it out of their own volition. Suddenly, the music stops and a spokesperson steps forward to speak to the audience in their hundreds. How do you quantify this? How do you put a price to this kind of creativity? It is like pricing a painting. This is what we are now confronted with. Perhaps it is time to move into the movies. That seems to be the main selling point now. We attempted to get a loan to mount a series of stage productions recently. All those who should know kept asking us ‘what kind of film do you want to shoot?’ It is baffling. However, we would not give up just yet. More exciting days are ahead. It is only a matter of time.