Category: issues

“At the start of the 20th century, there were a mere dozen or so classifications of mental disorder. By the end of the century, the official Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders had defined around 380. One objection to the idea of the insane artist is its glamorisation of what, for most psychiatric patients, is simply excruciating illness. Another is that no single entity called ‘madness’ exists at all.”

Britain’s new culture minister says the battle for access to the arts has been won. “When I was cultural adviser at No 10 a decade ago people talked about access and excellence. Some people thought that access was dumbing down, that the government wanted all orchestras to be playing symphonic versions of REM, and there was a genuine debate. Coming back 10 years on, people are saying to me we can take all that for granted now, it’s in the bloodstream of British arts. I think that’s true.”

“The government reports that in 1950, the average American had $8,306 in personal disposable income — the money to spend as he wished after taxes. In 2006, the inflation-adjusted figure had ballooned more than threefold to $27,755. This turbo-charged purchasing power has in large part fueled the rise of the consumer society. Average Americans are more interested in products because more products are within their reach.”

Twenty years ago Tampa opened a new performing arts center. “Today, TBPAC is one of the country’s most successful presenters, with more than 600, 000 patrons attending nearly 3, 750 events a year. It regularly ranks among the top-grossing venues of its size. But the center had a rocky beginning, going through two chief executives in five years, and accumulating more than a $2-million operating deficit.”

“Several major newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times and Minneapolis Star-Tribune, no longer have full-time classical music critics. And regional movie critics, like stand-alone newspaper book sections, are fast becoming an endangered species. What’s going on? The answer is painfully simple. Newspaper circulation is declining, driven downward by the rise of the new Web-based media, and many papers are trimming their staffs to make ends meet. Whenever times get tough at an American newspaper, fine-arts coverage gets thrown off the back of the sled first — and that’s what’s happening now.”

“Copyright groups have hailed a Belgian court decision making an Internet service provider responsible for illegal file-sharing on its network as a European first that could help the music industry.”

“What’s altruistic about giving more money to a wealthy institution of higher education? Harvard’s endowment is nearly $30 billion. Yet alumni and others gave the institution $595 million in 2006, which amounts to a fifth of its annual budget. Why do alumni give? The cynics will like the answer provided by a new study by Jonathan Meer of Stanford and Harvey S. Rosen of Princeton. It offers persuasive evidence that some alumni give to their schools in the hope of raising the chance of admission for their children.”

“How and why the Edinburgh Festival came into being is one of the more curious stories of 20th-century British history, one in which good luck has equal billing with good judgement. But the Festival’s many imitators are proof that Rudolf Bing and Henry Harvey Wood were on to something when they met for lunch in London’s Hanover Square one day in December 1944.”

The vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Alison Richard, has warned that the UK is in danger of losing its standing as a world leader for university education within a decade.

The term “heritage” is greatly overused in the UK. It’s come to mean all sorts of things. “Generally, we use it to imply something that belongs to the nation. But does it apply to Old Master paintings like the magnificent set of Poussins currently on loan to the National Gallery?”