Category: issues

“A series of major arts and cultural building projects in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, designed by a half dozen architects with international reputations and costing half a billion dollars, hits its zenith this month with two grand openings.”

“A decade of strong funding under Labour has transformed society, says their manifesto, Values and Vision: the Contribution of Culture. There has been an “explosion of creativity” said Hytner, artistic director of the National Theatre. Britons now engage with culture “to a degree undreamed of a decade ago”, according to Sir Nicholas, director of the Tate. Seven of Britain’s top 10 attractions are museums or galleries; 85% of foreign tourists visit for our museums; 66% of the population attended at least one cultural event in the past 12 months.”

The National Ballet of Canada and the Canadian Opera Company will soon be sharing a new home. “Based on the experience of the almost three decades it has taken to move two national companies from the 3,200-seat Hummingbird (formerly O’Keefe) Centre to a new home, the two companies’ relationship will continue to be as fraught as you’d expect between a robust, dynamic, operatic sort of character, flushed with pride because it has been the new building’s prime mover, and a cautious, delicate, balletic character, toeing its way onto someone else’s territory.”

“From painting, conceptual art and photography to video and music, the city’s artists now seem riveted not so much on border conflicts or a dream destination as on Tijuana itself: an experimental laboratory for people with hybrid identities and a growing global awareness.”

Seattle’s Capitol Hill Arts Center has sidestepped the traditional non-profit model to be a for-profit operation. But audiences haven’t shown up for the center’s theatre offerings, so CHAC is shutting them down. “Everything [we do] is really successful, except the theater season. If what we do is so important to the community, they have to come out. If the Seattle audience doesn’t recognize Seattle value, the value will have to migrate elsewhere.”

Ottawa’s National Arts center posts its first deficit in six years. “The year’s planned deficit of $891,720 was funded by surpluses accumulated during the past six consecutive years,” the statement says, adding that the NAC still retains an accumulated surplus of almost $355,000.”

We hear all the time about the arts being endangered. But maybe that’s not the reality… “Pop culture remains mass culture, of course, and people who consume entertainment with the help of electronics continue to outnumber those who prefer the real thing. But the doomsayers who expected the arts to be swept away in the “digital tsunami” of the past decade, as it’s been called, turn out to have been gratifyingly off the mark.”

Will American tourists refrain from going to Canada because of terrorism fears? Will Canadian arts ventures that depend on American tourists suffer this summer? “And thanks to the shrinking U.S. dollar, Canada is no longer the bargain it used to be. The result could be a summer of discontent for arts groups that flourish only when they draw large numbers of Americans, such as the Stratford and Shaw festivals.”

The Smithsonian Institution’s inspector general has resigned. “In the last 10 years, the number of positions in this office went down 30 percent while the federal appropriation has grown 70 percent,”

The British government has invested heavily in the arts in recent years. Now it’s time to go to the next level, writes Nicholas Serota. “We are confident we are attracting a growing audience, and can make a significant contribution to the success of the 2012 Olympics, when the eyes of the world will be on us. We want to show what the cultural sector has achieved in the past 10 years – and what it could achieve if the sort of investment it has received under this government is sustained. We want to get across our values, and our vision – and make sure they really are part of the government’s, and the country’s, core script.”