Category: issues

“Surveys show that a high proportion of people aged 18 to 36 get most of their information about British politics from Have I Got News For You. In America, similar figures show that Jon Stewart’s topical comedy The Daily Show supplies a high percentage of 18 to 36-year-old Americans with their main news fix. Why is comedy taking up so much space in our culture? Why is it so present, so dominant? There are things that should matter more – but at the moment they just aren’t there.”

Cleveland voters are being asked to approve a new tax on cigarettes to fund the arts. Now an arts backer has filed a complaint requesting that “Philip Morris and Seman be found in violation of the Ohio Revised Code for attempting to influence the results of an election without identifying the group or person responsible for that attempt.”

“Not that long ago, universities played a very different role in the public imagination, and top academics seemed to glitter as they walked.”

“The operators of a (Seattle) museum that offers UFO exhibits, Bigfoot displays and ghost tours have filed a federal complaint against an Atlanta-based company that has opened an exhibit in downtown Seattle displaying 21 human cadavers and some 250 body parts. In a complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court, Charlette LeFevre and Philip Lipson, directors of the Seattle Museum of the Mysteries, accused Premier Exhibitions of violating the U.S. Anatomical Gift Act — which prohibits the sale of human tissue — by displaying dead Chinese citizens who did not give consent for their bodies to be publicly shown.”

Miami’s new Carnival Performing Arts Center is badly needed. But “it’s a shame a price tag variously quoted between $446 million and $518 million hasn’t bought better architecture. But no architectural practice has been more uneven than the 80-year-old Argentine-American’s, now called Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects.”

“This is a golden time for the arts in Britain; we have an embarrassment of riches on our hands. Barely a day seems to go by without news of another first night at the theatre, or the opening of another blockbuster exhibition, or the announcement of a great new season of concerts.”

“He transformed two old palazzos into the House of Cinema in the Villa Borghese and the House of Jazz near the Baths of Caracalla. He has been a staunch defender of Richard Meier’s ultramodern Ara Pacis Museum, which came under sharp criticism for being misplaced and ill-conceived after it opened to the public last spring. Then there is the Notte Bianca, an all-night cultural event in which Rome literally opens up its cultural treasures to guests and residents.”

The French parliament is debating whether to make it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide. But Turkish Nobel-winner Orhan Pamuk (who was put on trial for writing about the genocide) objects to the idea. “The French tradition of critical thinking influenced and taught me a lot. This decision, however, is a prohibition and didn’t suit the libertarian nature of the French tradition.”

“In some ways, the story of artists in DUMBO is a typical New York story: Artists move into a blighted –– or, in this case, largely empty –– neighborhood and lend it some glamour; then real estate values go up, and most of them are priced out. But in other ways, DUMBO has followed an unusual path, since such huge chunks of the neighborhood are owned by Mr. Walentas, who along with his wife takes a strong interest in art.”

Orange County just opened a big new concert hall. So things are good for the arts in Southern California, right? Not according to a new study. “Prices are up, attendance is down, fewer schoolkids are getting free exposure to the arts, and Orange County’s museums and performing arts presenters are not feeling terribly bullish about the immediate future, according to a study of the O.C. cultural landscape.”