Ada Louise Huxtable is a fan of the winning design for the World Trade Center site. “The design by Daniel Libeskind is not about death and destruction, as some have feared; it is an original and eventful reconstruction of the World Trade Center site that brings the architecture of the 21st century to New York, where it has been sadly and shamefully lacking. Even as we preserve that tragic pit and its sustaining wall, they will become the source of new life. But this will happen only if the spotlight stays relentlessly on the rebuilding process, and if we do not lose the urgent sense of necessity and inevitability that has brought us this far.”
Blog
Finalists For UK Museum Of The Year
Four English museums have been shortlisted for the first £100,000 Gulbenkian Prize for museum innovation. Finalists include London’s Natural History Museum and The Discovery Point in Dundee, the galleries of Justice in Nottingham and Rotherham’s Clifton Park Museum.
Debate On The Future Of English National Opera
The English Arts Council is meeting to discuss the fate of the troubled English National Opera. How much money will it take to save the company, which has been plagues by cutbacks, strikes and defections? “We are not going to give them any money as long as we think it is going to be bad money after good. What ENO must do is take their own destiny into their own hands.”
Getting It Together To Sell Music
Pretty much everyone agrees that digital copying of music isn’t going to stop any time soon. And there’s a growing consensus that the recording industry needs to “loosen up” if it wants to emerge with a viable business in the “rip, mix, burn” era. Finally tech companies and recording producers are getting together to explore nw ways of distributing and selling content.
Lower Price = More Ticket Buyers For Sydney Theatres
After dropping ticket prices for younger patrons, several Sydney theatre companies report record increases in ticket sales – as much as 400 percent at one theatre.
Watering Down The Broadway Product (And It Is Product)
Touring Broadway shows use scaled down sets, smaller casts and smaller orchestras. The lower budgets make the touring possible. But there are artistic compromises, and even though audiences will pay to see smaller versions of Broadway shows, it would be a mistake to think that Broadway itself could scale down and hold its allure. “What’s troubling about the settlement of the musicians’ strike is that the top level of Broadway entertainment and artistry, the brand-name level, has been subject to a watering down that may eventually inform the expectations of an audience.”
UK Teachers Fear Disappearing Arts Education Is Harming Students
Instruction in the arts is shrinking in Britain as the school calendar gets more crowded. “More than 80 per cent of UK headteachers say they battle to find time to schedule arts lessons, while almost 90 per cent of teachers worry that the sidelining of arts is affecting their students’ ability to think imaginatively. According to the survey of 695 primary, secondary and sixth-form teachers, two-thirds believe the reduction in arts teaching will be detrimental to the fabric of the country, resulting in a diminished creative industry and fewer artists.”
In Colorado – Arts Supporters Fail To Educate Legislators
In Colorado, where the state arts budget has been slashed 55 percent, “the arts community has spent much time and oxygen organizing a proactive response to the systematic dismantling of the state’s arts council, which has annoyed members of the joint budget committee less than if a fly were to land in their soup. Artists yell indignantly about the shame of Colorado falling into 50th place in state arts funding without having the slightest notion that those who think of the arts as an entitlement wear that stat – not to mention that ubiquitous button – like a badge of honor. What we have here is a failure not only to communicate, but to educate.”
Missouri Considers A State Of No Arts Funding
Missouri weighs the consequences of zeroing out state arts funding. “The possibility of a future without a Missouri state arts agency raises basic questions: Is there symbolic value in a state arts council beyond the money it distributes? And at a time when both the federal and state governments face mounting deficits, should tax money be spent on the arts, which some lawmakers view as a luxury?”
New Jersey May Restore Some Arts Funding
New Jersey Governor James McGreevey is reconsidering abolishing state arts funding. A spokesman for the governor’s office says that “a decision has been made to find the means to provide funding for arts communities across the state,” and that “it would not be unreasonable for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts to get back about half of the $18 million it lost.”