San Francisco is facing a $300 million budget deficit, and its mayor, “in an effort to achieve greater efficiency, has proposed merging San Francisco’s nationally recognized Grants for the Arts with the San Francisco Arts Commission. Managerially, the merger might seem to make sense, but the unintended consequences could be dramatic.”
Blog
Should The BBC Be Privatized?
As the BBC begins the process of applying to have its charter renewed, critics go on the attack, suggesting the public broadcaster be privatized. “I can’t see any justification for what the BBC does which can’t be equally well done in the commercial world. Why force anybody to pay £121? What you are forcing people to do is to pay – by threat of jail – for a view of life that people can get in the commercial world.”
The Coming Art Market Crash?
Depending on who you ask, the number of contemporary art collectors has doubled, tripled or even quintupled in the past decade, and many are betting on unknown artists, hoping to cash in on the next big thing. The market is being bid up as collectors try to guess who will be hot in the future. But with ten times the players there were during the art bubble of the 80s, are we in for even a bigger crash this time around?
Gioia To Silicon Valley: Where’s The Art?
NEA chairman Dana Gioia goes to Silicon Valley and says the area has been a miracle of creativity but that that inspiration has yet to be translated into art. “You’ve had an economic renaissance but haven’t created the visual legacies of that. Florence at the height of the renaissance was smaller than Palo Alto but look what it left behind.”
Beverly Hills To Get New Arts Center
The Annenberg Foundation has announced plans for a cultural center for Beverly Hills. Wallis Annenberg, the “daughter of Walter H. Annenberg, the philanthropist, art collector and communications mogul, who died in 2002, said the center would include a 500-seat theater, a 150-seat studio theater, a rehearsal hall, classrooms and a sculpture garden. The overall project, costing $30 million, is expected to be completed in late 2007.”
The Artists Move In, The Artists Move Out
Artists in the Brooklyn neighborhood known as DUMBO are relocating as they get priced out of their lofts. Nothing new about this kind of gentrification – except the speed at which it’s happening. “Five years ago, when I first came here, there were no city services, no trash pickup, and it was completely dark and desolate.”
And This Week’s No. 1 Download Is…
Demonstrating the impact downloaded music has had, a new chart of best-selling downloaded music is being launched. “The new chart will register the sale of tracks from websites run by HMV, Coca-Cola and Microsoft’s MSN and will be broadcast on BBC Radio 1. Separately, mobile phone operator T-Mobile announced plans to turn handsets into personal stereos, downloading songs at about £1.50 each.”
Scottish Opera Performers Stage Closing Night Protest
On the last night of Scottish Opera’s production of La Boheme, the company’s performers staged a protest at the end, unveiling “T-shirts bearing the words: ‘No Chorus? No Opera? No way!’ The protest, which involved the 34 members of the chorus whose jobs are to be axed, as well as technical staff, principal singers, and the orchestra, was then greeted with a lengthy standing ovation.”
Acocella: NYCB’s Legend Out Of Focus
Joan Acocella sizes up New York City Ballet’s Balanchine celebration: “Once the smoke cleared from the altars, it was obvious that the one tribute City Ballet owes Balanchine, that of dancing his ballets competently, is not being paid. What was true at the company’s previous Balanchine festival, in 1993 (the tenth anniversary of his death), is no less true today. The company can still perform well, at times brilliantly, in Balanchine’s story ballets and character ballets, pieces where the dancers have a drama or at least a theme to latch onto. What they cannot manage is his pure-dance ballets—that is, the ballets that were the focus of his career and his chief contribution to twentieth-century art.”
In Praise Of Internet Radio
Internet radio is “the best thing to happen to radio” in some time. “The best part about these services is that they don’t confine you to one genre. On broadcast radio, you tune in to a country station on the radio dial for country tunes, and that’s pretty much all you’ll get. But with some of the webcasting services, you can specify your musical taste and favorite artists, and the software will automatically mix up playlists for you.”