Tuesday May 1
THE
IDEA OF PROTECTION: "The world is caught up in an explosion
of ideas and inventions. As a testament to the extent to which
they are revered, and their status in the global village, they
now warrant their annual celebration. Last Thursday marked the
first World Intellectual Property Day." Sydney
Morning Herald 05/01/01
Monday April 30
CHANGING
FACE OF NONPROFITS: "Nonprofit arts centers across America
are facing a multitude of increasingly challenging tasks: audience
development; community relations; financial stability; and getting
quality 'product' to put on stage. Once the genteel home that
readily opened its doors to serve local arts groups and the occasional
touring show, arts presenting now has simply become big business."
Hartford Courant 04/29/01
Sunday April 29
SELLING
SOUTH AFRICA: Much of the tourism in South Africa these days
is around Aprtheid-era landmarks. It's a little disconcerting
- and misleading. Daily Mail &
Guardian (South Africa) 04/29/01
NEA
GIVES FOR EDUCATION: The National Endowment for the Arts has
given a $500,000 for arts education. "The grant went to Young
Audiences Inc., a 49-year-old arts education organization, to
create Internet sites for a national program called Arts for Learning."
Washington Post 04/28/01
- THE
NEA AFTER IVEY: What does Bill Ivey's resignation as chairman
of the National Endowment for the Arts mean to the NEA? Probably
not much... Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
04/29/01
Friday April 27
BILL
IVEY'S NEA STYLE: Not many post mortems yet on departing National
Endowment for the Arts chairman Bill Ivey's term. Here's an earlier
assessment. "To be sure, his willingness to avoid language
that strikes some as elitist has helped the NEA's standing both
on and off Capitol Hill. But does it really help the agency fulfill
its mission to improve the arts in America?" The
New Republic 04/26/01
WHY
SPORT AND NOT ART? When international athletes come to Australia
to compete, their every move is disected in the press. But when
a large gathering of artists comes, there's nary a mention. Why
is that? Sydney Morning Herald 04/27/01
Thursday April 26
AFRAID
TO BE CREATIVE: Is the reason we're creative, the reason we
create culture because we're afraid? After "a survey of existing
literature from social scientists," a Hungarian sociologist
concludes that they have undervalued the role of fear as a motivating
force in the creation of culture."
Central European Review 04/25/01
BLAME
THE CULTURE? The problems in aboriginal communities are often
blamed on colonization. But an Australian anthropologist says
"immense social problems being experienced in Aboriginal
communities do not stem only from a history of colonial conquest,
prejudice and racism but may also be maintained by certain indigenous
traditions and beliefs." Sydney
Morning Herald 04/26/01
Wednesday April 25
NEA
CHIEF TO LEAVE JOB: Bill Ivey has resigned as chairman of
the National Endowment for the Arts. Ivey, appointed by Bill Clinton
had said he'd like to stay on in the job in the Bush administration,
but evidently the administration had other plans. "Ivey's
quiet manner was credited as setting a harmonious tone with Congress."
Washington Post 04/25/01
SLEEPING
WITH THE ENEMY: Ten years ago newly-elected Michigan governor
John Engler announced plans to "eliminate the state arts
council and drastically cut public funding to the state's cultural
institutions," earning the wrath of the state's arts organizations.
In a bizarre turnaround, this week Michigan arts advocacy group
ArtServe is awarding Engler a special award for his service to
the arts. Detroit Free Press 04/24/01
Tuesday April 24
HEADS
ARE ROLLING: Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez has launched
a campaign to free Venezuela from what he calls a "rancid oligarchy."
And the first victim of this "cultural revolution is Sofía
Imber. "Imber, 76, an art critic, founded the Caracas Museum
of Contemporary Art in 1971 in a garage and made it into one Latin
America's most admired arts institutions." The
New York Times 04/23/01 (one-time registration
required for access)
SOME
HELP FOR THE STATES: "The Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds,
a leading supporter of arts and cultural programs, is giving state
arts agencies $9.6 million tobroaden interest in the arts. The
initiative, which the New York-based foundation plans to announce
today, will help the agencies rethink the way they operate."
Washington Post 04/24/01
NO,
AUSTRALIA LOVES THE ARTS: Last week a report was released
that said audiences for the arts in Australia are declining. But
a survey of major arts organizations contradicts the report's
finding. Indeed, audiences are growing... Sydney
Morning Herald 04/23/01
Monday April 23
STILL
NO SPACE: San Francisco arts groups have been losing their
spaces in the past year as rents - fueled by the dotcom boom -
went through the roof. So now that the dotcoms have crashed, has
the space crunch eased? Not at all. "Buildings are vacating,
true, but the offices they offer are of little use to arts groups
and bands needing space outfitted for performance and rehearsal
purposes." And even if they were - who could afford the rents?
San Francisco Chronicle 04/22/01
THE 3 STOOGES
AS ART. NO, REALLY: A California artist makes drawings of
The Three Stooges, and sells them on T-shirts and lithographs.
Heirs to the Stooges' estates have charged - so far successfully
- that they should control the image because it's merchandise.
The artist is asking the state's Supreme Court to rule that it's
art. Los Angeles Times 04/23/01
Sunday April 22
BOSTON
T1 PARTY: Perhaps it's still a sign of its immaturity as an
artform that art created in a digital medium is all lumped together
as "digital art." After all, digital includes music,
computer and video art. The biggest digital art festival opens
in Boston, home to one of the largest communities of digital artists.
Boston Globe 04/21/01
- TECHNO-ART
NOTHING NEW: The uneasy embrace between art and technology
is hardly a recent phenomenon. Almost since the industrial revolution
first made machinery a part of everyday life, artists have struggled
to incorporate the latest innovations into their work, with
varying degrees of success. The
New York Times 04/22/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
A
TRANSFORMATIVE PROJECT? Dallas, never a city known for its
ground-breaking architecture, is in the early planning stages
for a massive new Center for the Performing Arts. The project
would have as its centerpiece a 2,400-seat opera house, and is
expected to cost some $250 million. Many obstacles have yet to
be overcome, but expectations are high that the center would transform
Dallas's Arts District into a cultural strip rivalling those of
cities like Philadelphia and Chicago. Dallas
Morning News 04/22/01
NEW
ARTS MUSEUM: Britain's Tate Museum plans to open a library
for all the arts. The new facility will showcase previously unseen
papers and sketches from leading figures from the past century."
The Guardian (UK) 04/21/01
BACKPEDALING
FURIOUSLY: "School children in South Africa's Gauteng
Province - which encompasses Johannesburg - will continue to read
[the works of] Shakespeare despite criticism that they are racist
or sexist." BBC 04/22/01
Friday April 20
ARTS
DECLINE: A new report says Aussies are deserting the arts.
"Live theatre was the biggest loser, with only 41 per cent
attending compared to 49 per cent previously. Musicals, ballet
and contemporary dance, which all recorded increases in 1999,
fell in 2000. Only 37 per cent attended musicals, 18 per cent
classical music recitals, 11 per cent saw the ballet and 9 per
cent a contemporary dance. Even arthouse cinema attendance fell
5 per cent to 27 per cent." The
Age (Melbourne) 04/20/01
REBOUNDING
RUDY: Every year New York mayor Rudy Giuliani proposes big
cuts in funding culture in the city. Every year the city council
proposes restoring those cuts. But this year "the council's
preliminary budget response also included a novel addition: a
proposal to create 'cultural zones' for promoting economic development
in each of the city's five boroughs. Backstage
04/19/01
INSTANT
MESSAGE/INSTANT ART: "Artists often function as new media's
shock troops. They adopt new technology early, and then find uses
for it that the technologists never dreamt of. Now, SMS messaging
- one of the crudest and most popular forms of new media - is
finding its way into the artists' canon. And that's not all: ring
tones and even the vibrating alerts are all being picked apart
by artists keen to comment on society's latest craze." The
Guardian (UK) 04/19/01
Thursday April 19
AFRICAN
ART STRUGGLES: For all its triumphs since the end of apartheid,
South Africa is still a country in transition, and no aspect of
society can be completely independent of the national political
vibe. Artists are particularly affected: since most governmental
energy is expended trying to keep the country from boiling over,
art is a secondary concern, leading to a tightly-knit community
of artists determined to create significant works. Boston
Globe 04/19/01
Wednesday April 18
OF
ART AND POLITICS: In Australia, "once there was a bedrock,
bipartisan tradition of support for free expression in the arts
- cultural incubation at arm's length. But that notion has been
undermined in the culture wars that have swirled around politics
for the past decade." Now, those who make decisions about
the direction of arts are increasingly beholden to political interests.
Sydney Morning Herald 04/18/01
POLITICAL
INSULT AS AN ART FORM: To judge from the new edition of the
Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations, political discourse
in the past decade has been just one insult after another. Not
surprisingly, perhaps, the British do it with more panache than
the Americans, as in a reference to one of Tony Blair's aides:
"Peter isn't the Prince of Darkness - though he may be Lady
Macbeth." The
Guardian 04/16/01
Tuesday April 17
THE
PULITZERS: The Pulitzer Prizes were awarded yesterday in journalism
and the arts. Winners included John Corigliano (Music, for his
Symphony #2), Michael Chabon (Fiction, for his novel The Amazing
Adventures of Kavalier & Clay), and David Auburn (Drama, for
his play Proof.) Click
here for the complete winner's list. Washington
Post 04/17/01
SANTA
FE STYLE: Santa Fe New Mexico is a small town out in the middle
of the desert. But it's always attracted an artistic crowd. The
opening of several new arts facilities in recent years has contributed
to a thriving cultural life. The New
York Times 04/17/01 (one-time
registrationrequired for access)
ARTISTS
PLEA: Hundreds of Canadian artists, writers, actors and filmmakers
have signed a personal appeal to Prime Minister Jean Chretien
asking him to defend the rights of political activists at the
Summit of the Americas in Quebec City next week. CBC
04/17/01
TWO
WORDS - DUCT TAPE: It is a problem as old as the hills: what
to do about those rude, clueless audience members who decide to
ruin the day of everyone around them by talking through a performance?
A critic whose blistering reaction to one such miscreant once
wound up as a New Yorker story has some suggestions. National
Post (from the Philadelphia Inquirer) 04/17/01
Monday April 16
POP
GOES THE WEASEL: The US Congress has been pressuring the National
Endowment for the Humanities to pursue more study of popular culture.
"In the process, it is neglecting its core goal of the past
35 years: to support fundamental research, preserve scholarly
materials and the sources that document the American past, and
support educators who teach the humanities." Christian
Science Monitor 04/16/01
FALLING
BEHIND: Arguably, Toronto is Canada's cultural capital. But
the city has stagnated in recent years. "Almost every U.S.
city of any consequence has been making dramatic and expensive
improvements to its cultural amenities even while Toronto has
opted for retrenchment and inertness - counting too heavily on
a reputation for comparative cultural sophistication that now
seems shaky and outdated." Toronto
Star 04/15/01
- CULTURE
ENVY: You can't tell the players without a scorecard. Here's
what American cities have been investing in culture compared
to Toronto. Toronto Star
04/15/01
- ROADMAP:
What Toronto ought to do to pull out of its cultural dive.
Toronto Star 04/15/01
BYE
BYE DECENCY: Come next winter New York will have a new mayor.
Candidates say one of the first things they will drop is current
mayor Rudy Giuliani's art "decency panel." "Giuliani
has made the city the laughingstock in art capitals around the
world," says one candidate. New
York Post 04/16/01
Sunday April 15
CAPITAL
OF WHAT... Ten years ago Glasgow was named the EU's European
Capital of Culture. It worked, and Glasgow was transformed. Now
every city vies for the designation. But it's a dotty idea, writes
one critic. God help us. The Observer
(London) 04/15/01
Tuesday April 10
SMITHSONIAN
CUTS DEEP: The head of the Smithsonian Institution has announced
that five major divisions of the Washington, D.C.-based institution
will be eliminated in the next budget cycle, along with 200 jobs.
The cuts are seen as an effort to modernize the Smithsonian, and
to work within the cuts Congress has been making in its budget
over the last few years. Washington
Post 04/10/01
THE
MAN WHO MEASURES ARTS: David Throsby has authored several
pioneering arts economics studies in Australia since the 1970s.
He believes that "to concentrate only on those few artists
who work full time at their art misrepresents the arts economy.
It's bigger and more complex than that. Almost all artists are
part-timers, a situation as true in Europe and America as it is
in Australia. On this theoretical basis he set out to map and
measure the arts in Australia over the past two or three decades."
Sydney Morning Herald 04/10/01
LOSING
ARTISTIC CAPITAL: Ottawa is losing its artists at an alarming
rate. Canada's capitol city spends far less on the arts than the
country's other major cities, and its sparse facilities are often
in disrepair. A new report sounds the alarm. Ottawa
Citizen 04/10/01
Monday April 9
CONDUCTOR
MARISS JANSONS is pessimistic. "I feel that the world is going
in the wrong direction. Although the material side of life may
be getting better, we are neglecting the spiritual side, including
art and music. Political leaders should regard it as an obligation
to introduce young people to the arts. Instead, they talk about
the subject as a luxury or entertainment - take it or leave it."
Financial Times 04/09/01
Sunday April 8
PERFORMANCE
PAY: Germany is attempting to improve the quality of teaching
in its universities and plans to peg teachers' pay to performance.
"This means that in future, professors will receive a bonus
in addition to their basic salary only if their research, scholarship
and teaching are judged to warrant it."
But will the plan have the intended effect? Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 04/07/01
Friday April 6
WIN THE BATTLE LOSE THE
WAR? Things have been rather quiet on the culture wars front.
Does that mean, after a decade or more of turmoil the culture
wars are over? "While the current calm may be real, it's
only a temporary phenomenon. If anything, the cultural battle
lines will only grow starker in years to come."
The New Republic 04/05/01
Thursday April 5
INSTITUTIONAL
INDECENCY: New York mayor Rudy Giuliani names a 20-member
"decency commission to evaluate art the city funds. Giuliani
says: "It is certainly appropriate for this advisory group to
take a look at what standards, if any, should be applied, (given
that) the city of New York currently provides $115 million in
annual operating funding to cultural institutions." The
New York Times 04/05/01 (one-times
registration required)
- PAGING
MAYOR GIULIANI: A painting of the Virgin Mary clad in a
floral bikini is sparking outrage in New Mexico. Catholic activists
are furious at the work, which is part of an exhibit at Santa
Fe's Museum of International Folk Art. BBC
04/05/01
- DON'T
LOOK FOR THEM IN BROOKLYN: America's First and Second Ladies
made a much-ballyhooed trip to an art museum last week, and
the site appeared to have been carefully chosen to minimize
any potential controversy, particularly in light of Mrs. Cheney's
lifelong crusade against what she calls "indecent art."
Chicago Tribune 04/05/01
ENDOWMENTS
ON THE HOT SEAT: It is a peculiarity of the U.S. system of
subsidizing the arts that, every so often, the heads of the two
major federal endowment funds are called to Capitol Hill to justify
their existence. This year, the process is even more delicate
than usual: the NEA and NEH have made forward progress since their
budgets were slashed to near-nonexistent levels in the early 1990s,
but with a Republican in the White House, everyone is treading
softly. Washington Post 04/05/01
Wednesday April 4
CANADA'S
INFERIORITY COMPLEX: The debate continues over the state of
Canadian arts, and whether a huge population is necessary to be
a major player on a global scale: "Pick any art form. Opera,
for example. There are filthy rich U.S. opera companies producing
a new work every year, while Canada summons its national wealth
for a decade to do the same thing in one city. And of course there
are superb works of art created by Americans. But have you noticed
how few they are compared with the storm sewer of costly ca-ca
gushing therefrom?" The Globe
& Mail (Toronto) 04/04/01
Tuesday April 3
ADELAIDE
MAKEOVER: Peter Sellars says he's going to "reinvent"
2002's Adelaide Festival. "I've explained to the board that this
will be the smallest festival that they have ever produced, but
the most expensive two years that they will have ever lived through."
Sydney Morning Herald 04/03/01
- BEHIND
ANOTHER SELLARBRATION: He's America's oldest enfant terrible.
Peter Sellars is directing the next edition of Australia's Adelaide
Festival, and has already changed its focus from being the traditional
international potpourri to one concentrating on Aussie artists.
But before getting too excited about Sellars' plans it might
be instructive for Adelaidians to take a look at his track record...
The Idler 07/17/00
Monday April 2
BETWEEN
TASTE AND MONEY: Are art and commerce incompatible? Despite
claims to the contrary, Hollywood seems to think so. But the art/commerce
connection was not always thus... Reason
04/02/01
Sunday April 1
ARTS
AND THE US CONGRESS: New chairmen of American Congressional
committees responsible for funding the arts may not have much
track record on arts issues, but lobbying groups are hopeful.
Backstage 03/28/01
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