Category: issues

“While it used to be enough to just list a contributor’s name in a program book or on a wall plaque, donors expect a little more gratitude. Local arts groups are now offering donors and members gourmet dinners, complimentary tickets, cocktail parties, discounts on merchandise, subscriptions to magazines, valet parking, priority seating, and even all the cookies and coffee you can consume during an intermission.”

“With the Getty’s big endowment, it is thus particularly important that the board be able to exercise sound, independent oversight over whoever is chosen as the next president. There were major questions surrounding the board during Mr. Munitz’s term as president–that he had recommended as board members individuals too closely tied to him through past business dealings–and so there was not the effective oversight that is especially necessary in an organization as wealthy as the Getty.”

England’s minister of culture has a warning for Arts Council England. “The record sums of public investment we have made in the arts have not led to a higher profile for the arts in the public’s mind. The body must be ‘more than a passive cash machine, doling out money to a familiar roll call of organisations and individuals.”

Suddenly the meaning of free speech and where its boundaries are have become an issue. The issue is being played out in cartoons and on American college campuses…

The Creative Scotland Awards are six years old, but £250,000 worth of winning projects have yet to be finished. “With less than a month to go before this year’s awards are announced, the revelation has caused outrage among Scotland’s artistic community, who complain that the awards are an indulgence and are not properly monitored.”

At a time when the economics of the arts world seem particularly challenging, there’s a category of arts worker who is doing quite well. The artistic directors and upper management of arts organizations are scoring huge salaries, while the rank and file artists are getting squeezed.

Hurricane Katrina dealt a devastating blow to New Orleans’ four major theatres, and while the rebuilding effort has made progress in some areas, the 85-year-old Orpheum Theatre may be a total loss. “Floodwater filled the theater’s 20-foot basement, wiping out all the electrical and mechanical equipment stored there, and rose to more than a foot in the performance hall. The Orpheum’s original oak floors swelled and buckled and likely cannot be salvaged. The stage, which sat under water for weeks, will also have to be replaced.” Making matters worse, the Orpheum had no flood insurance.

Portland is frequently cited as a city on the rise, with a vibrant urban core and a young and growing population. But for the city’s arts groups, the mythical “big time” frequently seems a distant dream. “After four precarious seasons at the ‘majors’ — the Oregon Symphony, Portland Opera, Portland Center Stage and Oregon Ballet Theatre — donations rose for the fiscal year ending in June. Ticket sales, however, fell behind. Talk about a mixed message. Donors seem to be saying, we’ll give you more money, but we won’t go to more concerts… It’s possible that these old-fashioned institutions that rely on audiences driving downtown to sit in formal halls can’t adapt to a digital age. Maybe they’re doomed to live in perpetual crisis.”

At the heart of Muslim outrage over the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammed has been the generally unchallenged contention that any visual depiction of the prophet is banned under Islamic law. But the ban may not be as clear-cut as many seem to think. “Although rare in the 1,400 years of Islamic art, visual representations of Muhammad were acceptable in certain periods. Today, his likenesses grace collections around the world,” and religious scholars say that “there is nothing in the Quran that forbids imagery.”

“Flemming Rose, the Danish editor whose decision to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad helped provoke weeks of fury in the Muslim world, said in an interview on Friday that he was leaving his newspaper on indefinite vacation.” Rose stands by his decision to publish the cartoons, but says that the stress of being blamed for international riots and anti-European protests led him to step away.