Category: issues

“An estimated £120 million is invested in arts organisations across England and Wales by authorities every year, providing one of the UK’s largest culture funding sources. Executive officer of the National Association of Local Government Arts Officers Sue Isherwood warned that, following a disappointing settlement of 1% above inflation in the comprehensive spending review, the provision may plummet nationwide.”

Miami’s trouble Carnival Performing Arts Center fired CEO Michael Hardy monday and hired Lawrence J. Wilker. “The change in leadership came as little surprise to members of the PAC Trust, some of whom had privately expressed displeasure with Hardy’s financial stewardship of the $473 million center, which is owned by Miami-Dade County.”

“Funeral processions are an essential element of New Orleans culture, and the impromptu variety in particular — honoring the passing of someone of distinction, especially a musician — are a time-honored tradition in neighborhoods like Tremé, which some consider the oldest black neighborhood in America.” But police have cracked down on the processions, amid charges they’re attacking New Orleans culture.

“Spain’s premier architect is now embroiled in an ugly row with his home town over the cause of recent flooding to the city’s colossal €332m (£230m) opera house, the Palau de les Arts. Torrential rain last week damaged the palace’s electrical and cooling systems, and left rehearsal areas and a side theatre inundated with mud and water… Valencian officials have pinned their hopes of boosting the city’s cultural profile on the Palau but the ship-like structure has been plagued with problems since it opened in 2005.”

“A photograph owned by Sir Elton John and seized from an exhibition as part of a child pornography inquiry has been judged not to be indecent… The image, by the US photographer Nan Goldin, is entitled Klara and Edda Belly-Dancing 1998 and features two young girls, one of whom was sitting down with her legs wide apart.”

“Ford’s Theatre, a melancholy landmark in downtown Washington for 140 years, is planning a multimillion-dollar expansion that will give visitors interested in history a more comprehensive look at President Abraham Lincoln.”

A Congressional panel suggested yesterday that the Library of Congress should look to private companies with proven cataloging systems to improve its own storage and retrieval systems. “In the past year, spot-checks have shown the library hasn’t been able to account for 10 to 17 percent of its books, monographs and bound periodicals.” But librarians say that their situation is different, and point out that the library is underfunded and doing its best with the resources available.

“San Diego’s cultural institutions operate on a very thin margin and a natural disaster can have devastating long-term effects. So far this week, San Diego County’s wildfires have forced many theaters, concert venues and museums to close their doors and cancel performances, but the real pinch will come later this week if evacuations, road closures and a heavy smoke layer continue to keep county residents holed up in their homes.”

“New Labour’s political outlook, reflected in its arts agenda, is rooted in a chronic insecurity about the public’s alienation from the political process and a nervousness of what we might get up to, unsupervised. The role of artists, according to this mindset, is to help government ‘connect’ and ‘engage’ with (or in other words, infiltrate) the lives of ordinary people.”

The organization and its new theatre do it right. Here are ten strategies other arts organizations should emulate.