Ideas

Why Government Is Bailing Out Of The Arts In America state governments are getting out of the arts business. State after state is slashing arts funding. Why now? ArtsJournal editor Douglas McLennan suggests that in trying to recover from the culture wars of the early 1990s, arts leaders may have unintentionally pursued an endgame strategy. "As the current arts-funding crisis suggests?the survival strategy might have topped itself out and ultimately killed public arts funding." Newsweek 05/29/03
Posted: 05/29/2003 7:28 pm

Visual Arts

Examining The Turner Prize Shortlist "All this year's artists are extremely well-known, and in their 30s or early 40s. Sir Nicholas Serota, Tate director and chairman of the judges, conceded: 'This is not a Turner Prize devoted to the newest of the new or the youngest of the young'. The artists were chosen from 150 names, nominated by members of the public and the jury, of which 25 were seriously debated. Sir Nicholas described it as 'a wonderful, strong, diverse shortlist'."
The Guardian (UK) 05/30/03
Posted: 05/30/2003 6:43 am

Penn Lawyers Ask Barnes To Amend Its Request To Move To Philly Pennsylvania Attorney General Mike Fisher has asked the Barnes Foundation to change its petition requesting that the Barnes be allowed to move to Philadelphia. Among the requrested changes are "a ban on selling any of the art that is on display in the Barnes gallery, and the preservation of founder Albert C. Barnes' arrangements of the artwork in unique ensembles." Philadelphia Inquirer 05/29/03
Posted: 05/29/2003 11:10 pm

What's The Alternative? "Ask the current generation of emerging artists what an 'alternative space' is, and you?ll likely get a vague response. Associated with the 1970s and the experimental art and installations of that period, such venues are no longer as much of an 'alternative' to commercial galleries in the content or opportunities they provide." New York Sun 05/29/03
Posted: 05/29/2003 10:40 pm

Cincinnati's New "Titillating" Architectural Experience The Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati is the "first major American art museum designed by a woman. It is also the first major American commission completed by the London-based Zaha Hadid, one of the profession's most precocious talents. But the best reason to fall in love with the building is its seductive pull." Los Angeles Times 05/19/03
Posted: 05/29/2003 8:41 pm

Music

Strathmore Gets A Boost A $100 million concert hall going up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. is 40 percent complete, but money has been an issue even during construction. But this week, $4.85 million in new pledges came in from wealthy supporters of the new hall, getting organizers close to their funding goal. The Music Center at Strathmore, when complete, will host a variety of musical ensembles, including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Washington Post 05/31/03
Posted: 05/31/2003 8:20 am

Touring Expensive But Not Expendable Major orchestral tours, such as the one just completed by the San Francisco Symphony, are massively complicated and expensive affairs, involving the transport of over a hundred individuals, instruments, and other equipment. Halls must be booked, tickets must be sold or their cost made up, and hotel rooms must meet the exacting standards of the musicians' contract. Says critic Joshua Kosman, "You might think a project like that would be expendable, especially in these lean financial times. You'd be wrong." San Francisco Chronicle 05/31/03
Posted: 05/31/2003 8:15 am

San Antonio Cuts Staff, Prepares For Chapter 11 "Unable to meet Friday's payroll for musicians and staff, the San Antonio Symphony has laid off nonessential office workers and may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors next week." The move comes less than a month after the SAS cut short its season to save money and allow its board a chance to attempt to keep the organization afloat. Prior to the shutdown, symphony musicians had agreed to be paid late, or not at all, for several weeks in an effort to rally the community around the embattled ensemble. San Antonio Express-News 05/31/03
Posted: 05/31/2003 8:12 am

Warland Singers To Disband "The Dale Warland Singers, a bedrock of Twin Cities culture for three decades and regarded among America's most influential choirs, will no longer perform after the group's namesake steps down as director following the 2003-04 season. Dale Warland, 71, told his singers Thursday night he is leaving the group, which he formed in 1972, to concentrate on teaching and guest-conducting opportunities around the country and spend more time with family. The singers, who had long braced themselves for Warland's inevitable departure, were stunned to learn the choir is disbanding." Saint Paul Pioneer Press 05/31/03
Posted: 05/31/2003 8:09 am

Next Stop For Louisville May Be Bankruptcy The musicians of the Louisville Orchestra have rejected a management proposal which included wage cuts and a shorter season, and the orchestra says it may file for bankruptcy as early as next week. "The orchestra has approximately $1.3 million in bank debt, with $800,000 of that past due and the balance due early next week," according to its board chairman, who also points out that the ensemble's staff and conductors have taken a 10% pay cut, which is larger than that being asked of the musicians. The musicians claim that they have made many concessions over the last decade in an effort to help the organization financially. Louisville Courier-Journal 05/30/03
Posted: 05/31/2003 7:45 am

• A Potential Windfall, But With A Catch "The Fund for the Arts has committed $900,000 in special support to the financially strapped Louisville Orchestra over the next two years, but only if the orchestra produces a balanced budget for that period. The orchestra continues to say it can't balance the budget without substantial concessions from its musicians." Louisville Courier-Journal 05/29/03
  Posted: 05/31/2003 7:44 am

Arts Issues

Killing Florida Arts Funding Florida takes a slice-o-matic to its state arts budget. "The Florida Legislature approved a budget that slices annual cash for the state's arts facilities from $29 million to $8.7 million." Tampa Tribune 05/29/03
Posted: 05/29/2003 11:07 pm

Is There Really A Harlem Renaissance? "In the past few years, fueled by a real-estate boom and the $300 million budget of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ), a community-development organization, the arts as well as the neighborhood have been revived in Harlem. 'Harlem is the new Greenwich Village. People are rediscovering it. It is what I remember the Village being in the '70s - a little edgy with an element of danger, but exciting, full of life and soul'." Christian Science Monitor 05/29/03
Posted: 05/29/2003 10:34 pm

The Closing Of The American Mind (Round II, College Edition) The culture wars are raging on college campuses. "The left has been attempting to brainwash students for years, and it's only now, it seems, that the intolerant tide is flowing both ways. Students are facing off, left and right, along the ideological divide, declaring hard and fast the prejudices of their respective political extremes. This, it appears, is how so many of them are leaving school: not eager idealists, fertilized with learning and rife with critical thinking, but blinkered ideologues and hardened partisans, indoctrinated in conflict, deaf to inquiry, groomed and ripe for politicking." Los Angeles Times 05/29/03
Posted: 05/29/2003 7:26 pm

Kaiser's Prescription For Bad Times: Do More The Kennedy Center's Michael Kaiser says that in hard times arts organizations need to do more, not less. "When an organization has a little bit of a problem, it is the first reaction of the board and staff that tends to make the problem worse. Their natural reaction is to pull in and say, 'We have to do less.' Organizations get into a vicious cycle. They cut back a little bit on art and marketing. They get a little bit less revenue the next year, and they cut back a little more. And they have less. They have less, they have less, they have less." Chicago Tribune 05/29/03
Posted: 05/29/2003 5:25 am

People

Gideon Toeplitz: The Exit Interview Gideon Toeplitz departed as managing director of the struggling Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra this weekend, and he is not terribly optimistic about the future of the PSO or the industry in general. "I'm concerned that the industry is looking for executives who are primarily fund-raisers and marketers. I'm concerned about that because the passion for music and the knowledge of music is, at best, secondary, or may not be there at all." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 05/31/03
Posted: 05/31/2003 8:05 am

History-Making Ballerina Dies "Janet Collins, prima ballerina of the Metropolitan Opera House in the early 1950's and one of a very few black women to become prominent in American classical ballet, died on Wednesday in Fort Worth. She was 86." Critic John Martin once wrote of her, "She is not self-absorbed, but is dancing completely and wholesouledly for an audience. On the other hand, there is no air of showing off about it, no coyness or coquetry, but only an apparent desire to establish and maintain a communicative contact." The New York Times 05/31/03
Posted: 05/31/2003 8:02 am

Fogel's (Too) Grand Retirement Party Henry Fogel has been the president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for nearly two decades, so one might expect the orchestra to put together a good-sized celebration on the occasion of his departure. But John van Rhein thinks that the tribute was a bit much, especially given the CSO's current fiscal state: "Fogel, lest we forget, is the orchestra's president, not its music director. I don't recall Georg Solti being crowned with half as many laurel wreaths when he stepped down in 1991. At last report, Fogel was leaving his successor a $4-$5 million deficit, accumulated under his watch. Good thing the champagne was in plastic glasses." Chicago Tribune 05/31/03
Posted: 05/31/2003 7:55 am

Salam Pax Gets A Print Gig The blogger known as Salam Pax, who writes a wildly popular weblog from his home in a suburb of Baghdad, has been given a biweekly column by The Guardian, a London-based daily newspaper. "Salam Pax became a cyber celebrity after his pointed and often humorous accounts of everyday life in Baghdad began circulating on the Internet. His diary mocked both Saddam Hussein's repressive regime -- he called the Iraqi leaders 'freaks' -- and the U.S. claims of 'liberating' Iraq." Wired 05/30/03
Posted: 05/31/2003 7:32 am

Theatre

Pasadena Shakeseare Takes A Break The Pasadena Shakespeare Company is closing up shop for awhile. "In the last week things finally came to a head where I realized that unless something really changes in the near future there is no way the money is going to be there to get through the rest of the year," Backstage 05/29/03
Posted: 05/29/2003 11:02 pm

NEA Shakespeare Tour - A Good Idea? NEA chairman Dana Gioia's most visible initiative so far is a plan to tour Shakespeare around America. The plan would be "the largest theatrical tour of Shakespeare in American history. Indeed, no fewer than six American theatre companies would be funded to bring forth the Bard in over 100 small and midsized communities in every state. Yet not everyone in the regional theatre scene appears pleased with Gioia's plans, and they're speaking out." Backstage 05/29/03
Posted: 05/29/2003 10:45 pm

Publishing

WHo Is The Enemy of Literacy? "When the enemy of literacy is imagined to be television or comic books, one can rightfully feel impatient with the kind of pro-book aphorism found on a tasseled bookmark. But what if the enemy is fire, or incendiary shells, or Nazism?  In 'Library: An Unquiet History, Matthew Battles shows that the history of libraries is the history of the destruction of books." New York Sun 05/29/03
Posted: 05/29/2003 10:27 pm

Media

Turner: Proposed Media Consolidation Rules Will Harm Diversity CNN's Ted Turner argues against media consolidation, as proposed by the FCC. "It's hard to compete when your suppliers are owned by your competitors. We bought MGM, and we later sold Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner, because we had little choice. The big were getting bigger. The small were disappearing. We had to gain access to programming to survive. Many other independent media companies were swallowed up for the same reason - because they didn't have everything they needed under their own roof, and their competitors did. The climate after Monday's expected FCC decision will encourage even more consolidation and be even more inhospitable to smaller businesses." Washington Post 05/30/03
Posted: 05/30/2003 7:08 am

Thai Film Without History "Though the last few seasons have witnessed unprecedented international circulation and acclaim for Thai cinema, Thai films have not traditionally been stamped for export. Indeed, though film production in Thailand reached an all-time high of more than 200 features a year in the mid-70s, most of them were made with a kind of haplessly self-engendered expiration date: shot without synchronised sound on 16mm colour reversal stock, there was never an original negative to hold on to, let alone archive. Thai Film Archive director Dome Sukwong today suggests that 75% of all Thai films ever made are already lost; no wonder a comprehensive history of Thai cinema - in Thai or any other language - has yet to be written." The Guardian (UK) 05/30/03
Posted: 05/30/2003 6:53 am