Creativity And The Working City "The return of cities can only be explained in the context of the rise of the creative age – a long wave of change affecting every sector of the economy, in which competitiveness and wealth have become increasingly determined by the capacity for innovation and creativity. The contrast with the industrial age could not be sharper..." Demos 05/20/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 11:40 pm
Are We Coming Apart? Samuel Huntington argues that "if peoples and countries with similar cultures (that is, values, traditions, religions) are coming together, then countries made up of different cultures are in danger of coming apart. He argues in 'Who Are We?' that multiculturalism, diversity and bilingualism in the United States are strengthening racial, ethnic and other 'subnational identities' at the expense of an overarching national identity, while global business ties, global communications and global concerns (about matters like the environment and women's rights) are increasingly promoting 'transnational' identities among American elites. As a result, Mr. Huntington suggests, the United States is not only undergoing a profound identity crisis, but it may eventually find its very existence threatened." The New York Times 05/28/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 11:36 pm
Saatchi Fire In Perspective Eric Gibson isn't ready to declare the Saatchi warehouse fire a disaster for art. "Art disasters normally have a visceral impact. Such incidents as the looting of the Baghdad Museum last year and the ravaging of Florence's art treasures by floods in 1966 set the mind reeling at the thought of pieces of man's cultural patrimony permanently lost or damaged. This time, though, I was strangely unmoved. It's not that I think incinerating art is a good thing. It's just that the work of these artists--as of all contemporary artists--is too new and untested to have acquired the cultural heft that makes it seem an indispensable part of one's existence. I regret the fire happened, but I can't quite see it as a body blow to civilization. Listen to the wailing that followed the conflagration, however, and you'd think the world had come to an end." OpinionJournal.com 05/28/04
Posted: 05/28/2004 10:20 am
WWII Memorial - Love To Hate? "The new National World War II Memorial in Washington DC is the latest memorial that critics love to hate. It is built in a monumental style that makes many people uncomfortable in this age of irony and ambiguity. It somehow manages to come off as both self-important and self-conscious. It treads on the hallowed National Mall. And yet, it is neither thoughtless nor bombastic, as some have argued." Philadelphia Inquirer 05/28/04
Posted: 05/28/2004 7:32 am
Artist Pension Fund Forming A company in New York has started a pension fund for artists. "The fund, called the Artist Pension Trust, is designed to offer some retirement security for a fairly select group of up-and-coming visual artists now in their 20s and 30s. Instead of investing money, artists will contribute their own artwork to a trust. The artwork will be held for a number of years, then sold, with the proceeds going into the trust, from which artists will draw their pensions." San Francisco Chronicle 05/28/04
Posted: 05/28/2004 6:41 am
How Mass MOCA Changed A Town Mass MOCA has been open five years. And the contemporary art center far away from the cities has changed its host town. "Once a sleepy, economically depressed mill town, with the state's highest unemployment rate and lowest downtown occupancy rate, North Adams has changed. According to state government figures, unemployment has declined to less than 6 percent from more than 18 percent in the late 1980's. A study conducted by the museum shows that the storefront occupancy rate, which was below 30 percent in the mid-1990's, now stands at 75 percent. In the last five years eight restaurants have opened in North Adams. About 120,000 people a year visit Mass MOCA, the center says." The New York Times 05/28/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 11:31 pm
Bacon Painting Too Expensive - Likely To Leave UK "A major work by Francis Bacon seems fated to leave the UK after the Tate reluctantly decided yesterday that it could not afford even to contemplate the £9.5m price tag." The Guardian (UK) 05/28/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 10:23 pm
Art Gallery Of Ontario Woos Back Patrons "The falling-out between the Art Gallery of Ontario and its longtime benefactors Joey and Toby Tanenbaum has ended, as the gallery announced Wednesday that Joey Tanenbaum will immediately rejoin its board of trustees." CBC 05/27/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 9:45 pm
Toting Up The Saatchi Fire Loss "A warehouse fire in Leyton, east London, is estimated to have sent £50m of modern art up in smoke. More than 100 pieces owned by art mogul Charles Saatchi were among those inside. It said the fire appeared to have started in a separate building in the warehouse complex, some distance from the art storage unit." BBC 05/27/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 9:38 pm
- Artists To Sue Storage Company "Artists and collectors are preparing to sue Momart, the art storage company, for negligence after the warehouse fire in which hundreds of works were destroyed." The Telegraph (UK) 05/27/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 9:36 pm
Is Painting Back In Good Graces? "In the past two decades, cutting-edge galleries and museums have focused on everything but painting. The halls were chockablock with installations, photo-based work, conceptual art, new media, and digital and video art. But a fundamental shift has taken place. Suddenly painting is allowed to exist again." Christian Sciene Monitor 05/28/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 6:56 pm
sponsor
Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative: Discover the power of mentoring. Launched in 2002, the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative programme pairs gifted young artists with renowned artists in their fields, for a year of one-on-one mentoring. The mentors for the Second Cycle are Sir Peter Hall, David Hockney, Mario Vargas Llosa, Mira Nair, Jessye Norman and Saburo Teshigawara. The Second Year of Mentoring begins in May 2004. http://www.rolexmentorprotege.com/
sponsor
Is Censorship Killing Music? "Many countries around the world, including the US, censor music in various ways, according to the Free Muse organisation, which advocates free musical expression around the globe. Censorship is particularly severe in a number of developing countries, where music can have a big impact on those who hear it, they say." BBC 05/28/04
Posted: 05/28/2004 7:45 am
Kessler Departing American Music Center Richard Kessler is stepping down as director of the American Music Center. "Kessler is widely credited within the industry for refocusing the AMC at a crucial time in its history and securing the financial foundation needed to support the organization's mission. When he came on board in 1997, the AMC employed only three staff members and was faced with a record deficit. His first budget was approximately $1 million; this grew to almost $5 million in 2002. This year, following six straight years of surplus budgets, the Center has a staff of 14, a $300,000-plus cash reserve, and an endowment of over $3 million." NewMusicBox 05/26/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 11:54 pm
John Paul: America Must Fight Against Becoming "Soulless" Pope John Paul II is concerned that America is turning into a "soulless" nation. "To fight this, the pontiff argued, the U.S. church must study contemporary culture to find a way to appeal to youths. He made his remarks to bishops from Indianapolis, Chicago and Milwaukee who were making a periodic visit to the Vatican. The American church 'is called to respond to the profound religious needs and aspirations of a society increasingly in danger of forgetting its spiritual roots and yielding to a purely materialistic and soulless vision of the world'." Boston Globe 05/28/04
Posted: 05/28/2004 9:26 am
Getting Culture On The Agenda In Canadian Election Canadian arts advocates are trying to make sure some consideration of arts policy is included in the country's national election next month. "While organizations like the Heritage Canada Foundation and Friends of Canadian Broadcasting say they know the issue of culture won't make or break an election campaign, their tactics are designed to ensure it becomes part of the general political debate." CBC 05/28/04
Posted: 05/28/2004 7:52 am
NY Arts Groups Protest City Funding Cuts New York City arts groups are protesting mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to slash city arts funding. "We are sending a distress signal to the mayor and the City Council that if the budget is adopted at this level, it would become the fourth year in a row that the city's cultural institutions have been seriously underfunded. Instead of helping the city to rebound, the proposed cuts risk severely imperiling the fiscal health of our city's most cherished cultural treasures." Backstage 05/27/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 9:56 pm
A Really Big Show Producers are billing an Ulster-Scots epic "On Eagle's Wing," being staged in Belfast, as the biggest theatrical production in the world. The show "has a distinctly international flavour with a 100-strong cast and crew, as well as a choir of 300 and an orchestra. Featuring West End star Peter Corry and Scotland's Alyth McCormack, the musical traces the journey of the Scots-Irish to the US and examines their influence on American music and culture. More than 400 costumes will be worn during the show which is set on a three-storey, 4,800 sq ft stage, using one of the largest light sets ever constructed." BBC 05/28/04
Posted: 05/28/2004 7:47 am
A New Broadway Tune The show tunes making the most noise during Broadway awards season are of a different variety than those your mama loved to hum. And these new songs are changing the theatre around them. "The desire for familiarity, for hit songs or pseudo-hit songs, can override narrative coherence without anyone's caring very much. The New York Times 05/28/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 11:28 pm
Playwright Who Championed Workers' Rights Planning Non-Union Production A prominent playwright and director who "developed his theater company as a part of the farmworkers' labor movement, is planning to open a non-union tour of his signature production in San Jose in August. Luis Valdez says the `tremendous irony' of staging non-union performances at the Center for Employment Training throws a spotlight on the cultural, financial and political challenges faced by regional arts groups." San Jose Mercury-News 05/27/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 11:13 pm
Seattle Book Festival Folds "Bookfest's board of directors has decided to discontinue Seattle's embattled fall festival of books and authors. The festival's office will close June 30, and its two remaining staff members will be let go. Many factors contributed to the festival's demise, but the final blow was the requirement to come up with the $220,000 needed to mount this year's festival, which would have been its 10th. Bookfest successfully eliminated its deficit -- as much as $60,000 -- during the last two years, but faced the prospect of going back into debt if it attempted to produce another edition of the festival." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 05/28/04
Posted: 05/28/2004 9:19 am
The Shrinking Newspaper (Literally) Circulation of broadsheet newspapers is shrinking. Some say readers are put off by the unwieldy size of the pages, so some newspapers are reinventing in smaller formats. "At Britain's Independent, total circulation has risen by about 15% from last year thanks to its small edition. This month it dropped its broadsheet edition altogether. As many as 30 papers from around the world are thinking about doing something similar." Can the key to circulation health really be that simple? The Economist 05/27/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 11:22 pm
Children's Author Pleads Guilty To Abusing Children Prolific children's book author William Mayne recently confessed to having sexually abused little girls who came to visit him. "Will anyone, having read such details, want to read stories by Mayne again? Or want their children to read them? Even if they are innocent as can be, his stories for younger readers, about a bobbed, big-eyed seven-year-old called Netta, can hardly escape being contaminated by the interest we now understand he took in eight-year-olds. Then again, a book cannot be judged by its author." The Guardian (UK) 05/27/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 10:14 pm
Rowling: Flattered By Fan Fiction JK Rowling has given her blessing to the flourishing genre of web fan fiction that uses her characters in new stories. "Thousands of fans have written their own stories based on the world of Harry Potter, which are published on the net. The release of the third Potter movie is expected to boost the already hugely-popular fan fiction phenomenon." BBC 05/27/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 9:26 pm
Big 5 Recording Companies Regroup The world's five largest recording companies are taking different approaches to dealing with their changing business models. "Five companies -- Universal Music Group, EMI Group PLC, BMG, Sony and Warner -- sell more than 80 percent of the industry's music. Universal is the largest, capturing about 26 percent of the market so far this year, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks music sales. BMG and Sony are second and fourth, respectively; a merger would make them No. 1, with more than 30 percent of the market. Warner sits in third place, with about 15 percent, and EMI trails all, at about 11 percent." Washington Post 05/28/04
Posted: 05/28/2004 9:07 am
Online Movie Critics In The Fast Lane A growing number of online movie critics is having more influence on young movie fans than traditional critics. "Simply, broadband is beating out the newstand when it comes to finding a quick recommendation on a new release - especially because some websites post critiques earlier than print reviewers, often sidestepping embargoes set by the studios. But the freedom of the Web to print anything - no formal credentials or editor required - has set off a debate over whether the proliferation of online reviewers has strengthened the overall state of film criticism or weakened it." Christian Science Monitor 05/28/04
Posted: 05/27/2004 6:52 pm
