Following the narrow passage of a referendum dedicating $60m to the renovation of Denver’s Boettcher Concert Hall, hall officials are going ahead with plans to raise an additional $55m in private donations. The renovation could begin in May 2009.
Category: issues
Changeability – A Good Trait For Critics?
“Critics are also expected to deliver pronouncements that are valid for all time, which makes a nonsense of the complex relationship any of us has to the art in our midst. For myself, I stand by my opinions, even as I stand by the right for them to change, as our lives do.”
Denver Arts Vote Too Close To Call
Denver voters approved a raft of tax increases yesterday, but a measure that would raise $90m to renovate Boettcher Concert Hall, home of the Colorado Symphony, remains too close to call.
Our Leaders As Artists
Critics might dismiss Winston Churchill’s paintings as amateurish, but Churchill was only one of many leaders who have had artistic impulses…
Protesting Media Images Of Blacks
“The rallies are taking place as civil rights leaders, cultural critics and others use the moment to debate how to represent the diversity of black life while minimizing offensive words and images. A big issue is the distinction between standards and censorship.”
America’s Brain Investment Is In Decline
“From 2001 to 2004 corporate funding of basic research in American universities declined in each consecutive year–the longest period of contraction since data collection began. The likeliest reason for this worrisome trend is that many companies are tired of haggling over intellectual property rights–and in a world of globalized R&D, they no longer have to.”
America’s Hispanic Revolution
“The US is currently in the grip of a demographic change the like of which has not been seen since the 19th century. A mass immigration is taking place that dwarfs the flow of Irish, Germans, Jews and Italians that, 100 years ago, saw America rise to a superpower. That change has had a huge impact on what it means to be American. From politics to the economy, sport and the arts, the US is changing.”
UK Schools – Lots Of Money, Little Progress
“According to the Primary Review researchers, kids are no better at reading now than they were in the 1950s. This is despite the £500m the government has spent on introducing its national literacy strategy.”
Redefining The Quintessential American Worker
It’s the “newest pop culture archetype: the reluctant, ironic hero plucked from the endless aisles of the big-box store.” And why not? The big box stores “are replacing the office cubicle as the quintessential workplace.”
What Happened To Serious Newspaper Arts Criticism
“It is, I suspect, difficult to the point of impossibility for the average reader under the age of forty to imagine a time when high-quality arts criticism could be found in most big-city newspapers. Yet a considerable number of the most significant collections of criticism published in the 20th century… consisted in large part of newspaper reviews. To read such books today is to marvel at the fact that their erudite contents were once deemed suitable for publication in general-circulation dailies.”