Category: issues

The New England town of Peterborough has challenged the MacDowell Colony’s status as a tax-exempt, charitable institution, arguing that “MacDowell did not ‘provide a charitable purpose to the general public,’ as required by New Hampshire law. Initially, Peterborough asked MacDowell for a relatively modest payment in lieu of taxes, known as PILOT in nonprofit jargon, to pay for services such as fire and police protection.” But MacDowell has decided to fight the town on the issue…

Why do people seem so interested in the misfortunes of celebrities? “The beast of gossip loves this moment best: Befuddlement. News it didn’t already know. That is the very freshest meat. Those are the reactions you want in the express checkout line. (Unless of course you live in the world where the first question is Who, followed by a very disdainful Why? That world exists. That world has Hezbollah, the end of oil reserves and the trade deficit. That world has a special loathing for celebrities and anyone who would familiarize himself with their divorces.)”

The Getty Trust has elected Louise Bryson as chairman of the board. “We’ve had some lapses in oversight, and as a member of the board I would acknowledge that,” Bryson said Tuesday. A member of the Getty board since 1998, she was elected chairwoman during a Saturday morning trustee conference call.

“The Internet allows artists to create and distribute projects outside the entertainment mainstream, if only as a means of one day securing a place within it. There is concern, however, that this self-empowerment could become more costly or disappear altogether if legislation now under consideration in Congress does not safeguard high-quality Internet access at affordable prices.”

If a new poll is accurate, Americans know much more about pop trivia than they do about the news, civics or classic literature. One example: “About 77 per cent of Americans can name at least two of the dwarfs from the fairy tale Snow White, but only about 24 per cent can name two U.S. Supreme Court justices.”

“As Miami’s cultural community continues to grow and with boomtown rents continuously on the rise, artists and presenters are having a difficult time finding the right space or, in some cases, any space at all to show their work.”

“By bringing major artists from a number of countries and disciplines together for a summer of shared projects on the UCLA campus, the Asia Pacific Performance Exchange, which began in 1995 and concluded its latest edition over the weekend, can develop potent new fusions of international music or dance. But the final two showcase programs of APPEX 2006 demonstrated one peculiarity of this blueprint. They suggested that the process leading to a performance could be richer and more memorable than the performance itself.”

“All in all, it’s been a rotten tomato of a summer for America’s embattled film critics. ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ broke box-office records left and right, despite a yowling chorus of negative reviews. M. Night Shyamalan cast Bob Balaban as a persnickety film critic in ‘Lady in the Water,’ then gleefully killed him off, allowing a snarling jackal-like creature to do the dirty deed. … To add insult to injury, studios have released a record number of films this year without any press screenings….” But the demotion of the critic is simply a reflection of the era, Patrick Goldstein writes.

Istanbul has a new modern art museum and a brilliant new mega-shopping mall. “Its ‘building as landscape’ and sensuous curves tick boxes for architectural fashion, knocking spots off any mall built in Turkey or, indeed, in Britain, and an example of the boom in ‘experiential malls’ in America and the Far East, where quality of the experience counts as much as what’s sold inside.”

Arts groups are rethinking what goes in their program books. “As arts groups fight to maintain and renew their audiences, they’ve realized that any opportunity to capture the viewer’s interest and engage them must be fully exploited. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is taking the power of the printed word even further: It has entered into an agreement with the publishing house John Wiley & Sons to publish 15 co-branded books designed to bring attention to the performing arts.”