Category: issues

A collection of Sydney-based performing arts organizations have spent AUS$2 million building a new “ticketing hub” which will allow groups using the Sydney Opera House to consolidate their sales departments, sell more tickets online and fix long-standing problems. “Previously, the various organisations were using different ticketing platforms and the ticket inventory was split, leaving the process prone to the double-selling of seats.”

Americans for the Arts has pundit William Safire deliver its annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on the arts. “The surprise here is not that Safire, the self-proclaimed right-winger, has a mainstream view; rather it’s that large policy organizations, like Americans for the Arts, have gravitated so far away from the “left” position.”

Alec Baldwin lobbied Congress for arts funding on National Arts Advocacy Day. “If you told me back in 1996, we would have a Republican president and Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress, and the NEA would be flourishing and would be safe, it wouldn’t be possible,”

“We have a national affliction, and it’s called cacography – that means illegible handwriting. That’s why we’re a ‘Please print’ nation. Nobody says, ‘Please write in your lovely cursive handwriting’. At a time when the computer is king and toddlers type, some educators believe it’s even more imperative to teach a speedy handwriting technique that others can read.’

Canadian arts groups have won a court ruling that allows them to classify the artists they hire as contract workers rather than employees. The ruling will save the arts groups a lot of money. “Earlier Revenue Canada rulings had hit arts groups such as the Thunder Bay Symphony hard, demanding thousands of dollars in Employment Insurance and pension contributions that drove them near bankruptcy.”

This year’s Pulitzer Prize finalists for criticism? Tyler Green has the early word…

When arts groups go looking for funding, they traditionally look to local companies and individuals with deep pockets. But some huge global corporations have been getting into the arts funding game in a big way recently, partly as a way of showing their commitment to local communities even as they struggle against the perception of “big box” retailers as generic and lifeless.

When news broke in June 2003 that Liverpool had, perhaps to its own surprise, been names European Capital of Culture for 2008, “the city rejoiced: this would be the crowning glory in the renaissance of a faded seaport finally stirring after a long period of decline. Everyone was behind the project.” But as the date gets closer, preparations have stalled. What will the year actually mean?

The dispute between Yale University and the nation of Peru over antiquities from Machu Picchu is getting hot, and Peruvian authorities are quite serious about forcing Yale to return objects they claim were illegally looted. “This showdown over national patrimony, private property and academic inquiry comes as Alejandro Toledo, the first indigenous president of Peru, is scheduled Friday to meet with the Yale graduate who inhabits the White House.”

Prosecutors at the trial of former Getty curator Marion True and art dealer Robert Hecht have entered into evidence photos that they say prove their claim that the Getty was knowingly trafficking in stolen antiquities. “Prosecutors also called on Italy’s art theft police to explain the web that they say links the defendants to tomb robbers and unscrupulous dealers.”