Category: issues

“Nonprofit arts groups, including museums, orchestras, theaters and dance companies, contributed $166.2 billion and 5.7 million jobs to the U.S. economy in 2005, according to an advocacy group urging more funding for the arts… The economic effect of these nonprofits grew by 24%, or 11% adjusted for inflation, between 2000 and 2005, according to the report.”

“The nonprofit segment of the arts industry is robust economically and attracting more people to its workforce, according to a new national survey. The nonprofit arts sector generates $166 billion in total U.S. economic activity, says a study being released today. ‘Arts & Economic Prosperity III’ was conducted by Americans for the Arts with data analysis provided by economists from Georgia Tech. ‘This shows the arts have bounced back from the slide after 9/11,’ said Randy Cohen, vice president of policy and research at Americans for the Arts.”

“Smoking and art — or at least artists — of all varieties have long made steamy bedfellows. That’s why, despite the widespread acceptance in this country that cigarettes are the devil’s own nostrils, the Motion Picture Assn. of America’s recent announcement that it would now ‘consider smoking as a factor’ when making its ratings decisions feels like yet another nail in the coffin of grown-up entertainment.”

Blogs and online video may have changed the media landscape, but Richard Schickel says that it would be a mistake to confuse user-generated opinions with professional arts criticism. “Criticism — and its humble cousin, reviewing — is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions of a book (or any other cultural object)… Opinion — thumbs up, thumbs down — is the least important aspect of reviewing.”

As public civility continues to decline, and audiences at concerts, plays, etc. become ever more disruptive and impervious to shushing, are arts groups running the risk that their biggest fans will choose an evening at home over the hassle of putting up with their fellow audience members? “It’s not that more people are talking during shows these days. It’s that those who do talk get more belligerent when asked to be quiet.”

The Minnesota Legislature has voted to put a constitutional amendment dedicating millions of dollars to the arts and outdoors conservation before the state’s voters. But the hunters, anglers, boaters and cultural advocates who’ve been pushing for the amendment haven’t been getting along terribly well, and still to be decided is the prickly issue of how the new funding would be divided up.

Madeleine Bunting says that artists have begun taking on the roles that increasingly cautious politicians are afraid to play. “As professional politics becomes ever more remote, the most fraught controversies of our time are migrating into art… Art can never do the messy business of politics – the negotiation and compromise. But politicians are now grappling with a new politics about how to change the way people behave in their private lives: how they eat, travel, shop, exercise, drink. And art can open minds and change hearts in a way that our politics is singularly failing to do.”

“A nonprofit group is challenging the copyrights and restrictions on images being sold by the Smithsonian. But instead of going to court, the group downloaded all 6,288 photos online and posted them Wednesday night on the free Internet site.”

“Africa’s best universities, the grand institutions that educated a revolutionary generation of nation builders and statesmen, doctors and engineers, writers and intellectuals, are collapsing… The decrepitude is forcing the best and brightest from countries across Africa to seek their education and fortunes abroad and depriving dozens of nations of the homegrown expertise that could lift millions out of poverty.”

Orlando, Florida’s Disney World theme park is donating $12.5m towards a new performing arts center in the city’s downtown. “The 1,800-seat acoustic hall inside the arts center will be named for the entertainment giant… Proponents of the performing-arts center have collected $67 million in pledges from various community organizations and individual donors since last fall.”