Category: issues

“These days, for all the outside adoration and all its innate strengths, Italy seems not to love itself. The word here is “malessere,” or malaise, and it implies a collective funk – economic, political and social – summed up in a recent poll: Italians, despite their claim to have mastered the art of living, report themselves the least happy people in Western Europe.”

“It is undeniable that yesterday’s sudden and overwhelming generosity towards the arts sector – described by the beaming Premier as an 11-item initiative ‘to ignite Western Australian arts and culture’ – is a watershed in the state’s history.”

The Art Gallery of Western Australia has secured $10 million of public funds to buy art, a 40-fold increase in its acquisition budget, under Premier Alan Carpenter’s government plan to enliven the state’s cultural scene.

Harvard has announced a plan to cut tuition costs for students whose families earn less than $180,000 a year. The plan ensures that “family contributions to students’ costs will not exceed 10 percent of family income in a given year. Harvard is also eliminating all loans from aid packages and eliminating home equity in calculations of family wealth.”

“Yale University on Tuesday launched its free, online archive of popular undergraduate courses — including not only syllabi, problem sets and course materials, but videos and audio files of the lectures themselves.”

The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists says reform is badly needed. “A large number of Canadian musicians, however, do not support ACTRA’s position and are concerned that industry bodies are not speaking in their interests.”

Twenty-five arts journalists have been chosen for this year’s NEA Theatre Criticism Institute as the University of Southern California…

What is the role of disability arts in the nation’s cultural life?

European cultural institutions “have launched a major initiative to lobby European governments to ease visa and work permits for musicians from developing countries. They cite the visa restrictions and cynicism at European consulates as factors that are causing promoters huge losses and undue frustration to all concerned.”

The Irish Arts Council has been given a 3% increase in its annual grant, bringing its state funding for next year to €82 million – a real-terms cut and well short of the €100 million it had been seeking.