“The job held by veteran curator Michael Cunningham, a respected expert in Japanese and Korean art, has been eliminated by the Cleveland Museum of Art as part of its effort to balance its budget… The museum [has also] cut the jobs of four other members of the curatorial staff, all of whom were research or curatorial assistants. The museum, suffering from declines in the value of its endowment, is making the cuts to reduce expenses and trim its 2004 operating budget from $33 million to $29.7 million. A total of 37 jobs are being eliminated, a figure that includes the curatorial cuts, and 18 will remain unfilled.”
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How To Make Your Museum More Fun
Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art has a new young fan of its exhibits, although, truth be told, he was built for the purpose. ‘Charlie’ is “an unassuming robot-child with a sweet disposition, inquisitive eyes and a blue tricycle slung low to the ground… Stand and peruse the webs of multicolored and metallic paints in Jackson Pollock’s august 1949 drip-painting, ‘No. 1,’ and the little android with the prominent nose and the permanent grin might well pedal up silently behind you to join the fun. Then, with a twist of his head and a roll of his eyes he’s off, riding into another gallery to check out what might be going on.”
Hollywood Keeping Immigrant Stories At Arm’s Length
“When this nation of immigrants began flocking to the movies, they went to see stories about themselves. From 1905, when nickelodeons first appeared, to the end of the 1920s, when Hollywood began to create a star system, innumerable romances, comedies and melodramas featured immigrants and working-class laborers as their central characters… [But] in recent years, Hollywood has shied away from exploring the immigrant experience, in part because it’s become such a political hot potato, in part because well-heeled studio executives find it hard to identify with the subject.”
Hockey And Beethoven – Together At Last
What could be better than a brand spanking new concert hall with the latest in acoustical technology, built to host a chamber music festival previously housed in a high school gym? Well, how about that same concert hall, but with a hockey museum attached? “A centre in Parry Sound, Ontario, containing both the Bobby Orr Hall of Fame and an impressive concert hall for playing classical music is the latest in a list of strange compromises in Canadian culture.”
NY Phil Makes Its Colorado Debut
“To call the first in a series of New York Philharmonic summer residencies at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival a milestone in Colorado’s classical music history does not overstate the magnitude of the event.” The Phil has come to Colorado under a new agreement which, the festival hopes, will see it performing in Vail for decades to come. Kyle MacMillan reports that, despite some lackluster playing in the opening concert and the familiar acoustical problems associated with outdoor amphitheatres, New York’s legendary band is a stunning addition to the state’s cultural scene.
The Eggers Plan For World Domination Continues
“Nestled in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood, The McSweeney’s Store is a secretive enclave of extremely strange, random products. After the success of author Dave Eggers’ book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, the Forest Lake native launched his own publishing company, and with it, an eccentric flagship store. With items ranging from sanitary dental trays to magnetic powder dispensers, the store fascinates with the vast array of seemingly useless goods. And then, of course, there are the books.”
Is Hip-Hop Culture Destroying African-American Youth?
A new book accuses the hip-hop culture which is so dominant among African-Americans of “doing a better job of demeaning black people than the Ku Klux Klan ever did… [The author’s] main point is that by glorifying ‘gangsta’ and ‘playa’ lifestyles, most major label rap releases are stereotyping black Americans as sex-crazed simpletons prone to violence.” The book doesn’t argue against rap music in general, only against the “thug” image which drives the form in today’s corporate-dominated music industry. The book is winning slow and cautious support from some on the fringes of the hip-hop world, who claim that the form has been co-opted by gun-wielding thugs and pretend ‘pimps.’
Austin Arts Scene Drooping
Austin, Texas is frequently cited as the Lone Star State’s cultural oasis, a small city with a legendary music scene and more arts than it knows what to do with. But things are tough all over. Last year, “Austin Lyric Opera fired one of its founding members, the Austin Musical Theatre couldn’t afford to finish its season, and the city slashed arts funding by 33 percent across the board. With these uncontrollable events behind them, the need for adequate performing space persists along with a fierce competition for patrons’ dollars.”
When The Money Isn’t There
In Austin, arts supporters have been upset over the way the city allocates the funds it receives from the municipal hotel tax, which is earmarked for cultural activities. But the city insists that this year’s 30% cut in funding was necessary because of the slumping tourism industry. The city’s arts leaders are currently working on a series of economic impact studies, which they hope will convince civic officials that the arts are the type of investment that returns more money to the community than it takes out. But such studies tend to be difficult to quantify.
Portland Bucks The Trend
Nearly all of Portland’s major arts groups ran in the black in the fiscal year just concluded, despite the nationwide economic malaise which has seen so many orchestras, museums, and theatres in other cities struggle to stay above water. The Oregon Symphony is right on its budget target, Portland Opera outdid its own fundraising expectations, and several smaller performing arts groups also met or exceeded their budget goals. The key to Portland’s success seems to be agressive fundraising and sound management practices.