Category: issues

“When Columbia announced its plans to build a much-needed new campus in a corner of Harlem called Manhattanville, it saw a gritty neighborhood of auto-repair shops, tenements and small manufacturers that would probably pose little obstacle to its ambitions. Columbia says that the project will advance a vital public interest and help revitalize parts of Upper Manhattan. Yet the university has met remarkable resistance. One man’s urban improvement, it seems, is another man’s urban debacle.”

Six major Toronto arts organizations take their case for added funding for building projects to the federal finance minister. “The institutions, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Conservatory of Music and the Royal Ontario Museum, are looking for a $49-million investment from the Harper Conservatives to help them complete various building projects.”

Steven Tepper and Bill Ivey argue that a rift in America’s culture is opening up between those who can access ever more sophisticated cultural offerings and those who are slaves to the WalMart CD choices.

For arts groups in search of leadership, times are changing, and increasingly, a thorough knowledge of the art involved is not always a prerequisite for the job. “More typically, organizations seem to be looking for a do-it-all type — a fundraiser, a visionary, a seasoned manager and a respected scholar in the field. Increasingly, though, fiscal responsibility is a major part of the job.”

“Whatever the economic and regulatory reasons to revise immigration laws, you know there has to be a fair amount of xenophobia lurking about. At the very least, parts of the establishment are threatened by ethnic minorities’ being not so minor these days… Theoretically, great art would be created no matter what. But would our ears have the proper conditioning to perceive it were we not surrounded by immigrants, legal and otherwise, in our everyday lives?”

This week, New York’s Juilliard School will send another several hundred young musicians, dancers, and actors out into the real world, armed with talent, a diploma, and some of the best training available anywhere on Earth. But pedigree doesn’t count for much in the hyper-competitive world of performing arts these days, and the reality is that, even for the cream of the crop, the road from Juilliard to a job can be a long, difficult one.

The notoriously violent world of video games doesn’t have many taboos anymore, or much of a sense of decorum about who and/or what gets blown away by the “hero.” But even so, an online game based directly on the Columbine High School shootings has been sparking outrage across the country. “Armed with a Tec-9 semiautomatic, the player can move from the cafeteria, down the hallways, up the stairs, then to the library. The player decides whether to kill. In the end, players learn there’s really no way to win.”

Two years after a ballot initiative which would have raised millions for the arts through a property-tax increase went down to defeat, Cleveland-area cultural leaders are preparing to try again. “[Cuyahoga] County’s three commissioners have expressed varying degrees of support for a proposed 30-cent-per-pack hike in the cigarette tax. The additional tax would create a pool of about $20 million annually. The money would be used to provide matching funds to Cuyahoga County-based, not-for-profit arts and cultural organizations for operating expenses.” The plan would still need to gain voter approval in November.

National Endowment for the Arts chairman Dana Gioia says the agency has left its sometimes controversial past behind. “Some of artists the NEA supported in the late 1980s and 1990s prompted conservatives to try to destroy the agency. Its detractors argued it was funding art that was obscene and offensive. Its budget was cut by 40 percent. Today, it is far less controversial and there is little public criticism of its offerings, which include Shakespeare, poetry and opera.”

“The art world’s increasing reliance on the private sector for funding creates a series of challenges. First, rich companies tend to be interested only in the best-known brands. Second, if not handled carefully, sponsorship can leave galleries open to accu-sations of kowtowing to commercial interests.”