Category: issues

“What is the ‘appropriate action’ for a professor to take when confronted with controversial student artwork? (Such scandals as Yale’s, though of various degrees of salaciousness and reflecting various degrees of artistic merit, crop up like clockwork.) What are the ambiguities of an art professor’s obligations?”

The Ohio Arts Council’s 2008-09 biennium budget has been cut by 10 percent as part of Gov. Ted Strickland’s effort to address a projected shortfall in the state budget.

“Attendance at the Arvada Center plummeted to 54,870 in 2006-07, a decline of 30 percent in just two years. While revenue has remained mostly flat (thanks to a thriving children’s theater division), subscribers have fallen to 5,298 in the current season, down from 8,536 in 2003-04, a drop of 38 percent. And in that time, the operating budget has ballooned by 18 percent, to $3.2 million a year.”

“LACMA, OCPAC, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the Colburn School saw their rates leap from the 3% to 4% range through 2007 to highs in February and March as high as 11% for LACMA. Those rates have settled down this month: 3.67% to 4.11% during the last three weeks for the Colburn School’s $133 million in bonds and 4.22% to 5% for OCPAC’s $265 million.”

“Everyone who has tried posting books online has done it again. That’s a pretty good indicator it works. An artist’s enemy is obscurity, not piracy.”

“People who worry about the present state of criticism tend to fall into the trap of regarding it as a public service. The health of the arts, they say, depends on a robust and vigorous culture of criticism. I sympathise with the view and occasionally feel flattered by it. But I think it inflates the role of critics. In place of public edification, I believe criticism is better seen as a (potential) public pleasure. It sounds obvious, but a piece of criticism, in the first instance, has to be worth reading.”

“It’s all very well to ask big questions about the essence of creativity; pondering them can be valuable. But after a while, when it becomes evident that these questions lack answers, or are answerable only self-referentially, it all becomes a little tiresome. Especially given that artists themselves, in the case of creativity, rarely know how their original ideas arise. It’s all a big mystery.”

“Los Angeles County would increase arts and cultural spending 3.8% under a proposed $22-billion budget released this week, but the city of L.A.’s arts agency could be headed for a 6.1% cut.” It’s all part of the endless see-saw of arts funding in America’s second-largest city…

“The biggest problem in Britain, according to [some arts leaders,] is the single issue of cultural philanthropy… At a time when substantial public funding is required for the London 2012 Olympic Games, concerns have mounted subsidy for the arts – particularly in National Lottery ‘Grants for Arts’ money – will diminish.” Arts groups are looking to wealthy individuals to fill in the gaps.

Australia Council chief executive Kathy Keele said funding to artists and arts organisations would not be affected by the administrative budget cut from $19million annually to $17million in next month’s federal budget.