Category: issues

“It’s not just about spotting talent, it’s about spotting what might strike a chord with people.” Ten prominent British star-spotters talk about what it takes to make it big…

“That learning makes up a small part of college life today is widely acknowledged. The question remains: What is going on the rest of the time?’

The Edinburgh Festival has lost its attractions as the Fringe has taken over, writes Rupert Christiansen. “Edinburgh has lost its dourness, dignity and mystique, surrendering its soul to swish boutiques and decadent youth. The Festival has, meanwhile, sprawled and spawned like some tentacular creature of the deep. The “official” selection of opera, ballet, classical concerts and foreign drama now makes up only a small element in an anarchic 24-hour carnival of performance that also embraces film, television and literature. In terms of both audience numbers and creative energy, the carnival is now Edinburgh’s motivating cultural force, leaving the International Festival marginalised.”

Richmond, Virginia mayor Douglas Wilder wants the foundation charged with building a new performing arts center in his city to drop their plans and renovate an existing facility. Doing so would “eliminate a new music hall, community playhouse and jazz club that are envisioned by the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation. Wilder said he is tired of waiting for foundation officials to respond to his concerns that they can’t raise the money to pay for the $112 million project. He said he is also concerned that the foundation may have misused the $7.6 million of city funds it has received so far.”

Last year all seven members of the Menlo Park, California Arts Commission quit when the city decided to repeal its percent-for-art ordinance. Now a proposa; to reinstate the commission has drawn hesitation from the mayor. “Personally, I would love to see a huge number of commissions. But the amount of staff time devoted to a commission can be quite intense. If we reinstate the Arts Commission, we have to ask ourselves what it would displace.”

Unemployed Australian artists complain that they’re discriminated against by government unemployment programs because they’re artists. “The fundamental problem was that there was no box to tick that said ‘I am an artist’. So right from the outset people were made to feel invisible.”

“A global network of human rights museums is urging the International Freedom Center to downplay America in its exhibits and programs at Ground Zero. The outrageous request is the latest controversy to torment the Freedom Center, whose leaders have tried to dispel the perception that it would be a home for America bashers.” Earlier this month the Freedom Center was told to give assurances that exhibits would glorify America.

So the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience warns of what should go in the Freedom Center at Ground Zero? “The coalition’s annual report… certifies that 9/11 families were right to warn that the Freedom Center was being taken over by bash-America propagandists. It also shows, again, that Gov. Pataki had no clue what he was doing in giving the Freedom Center and a second cultural group, the Drawing Center, a franchise at Ground Zero.”

Minnesota’s state legislators “gutted arts funding” in 2003. Dominic Papatola writes that with the State meeting to consider funding for stadiums, they shouldn’t forget about restoring some of that arts money. “Yes, a bundle of money got tossed at the Guthrie and Children’s theaters. But cuts to the Minnesota State Arts Board — which serves individual artists, arts organizations and school kids from Moorhead to Ely to Rochester — cost the agency a third of its budget and two-fifths of its staff. Don’t forget that states and municipalities across the country are returning to the arts-funding table.”

Why does some art stick around, touted as great, while other art – maybe just as good or better, even – sinks into oblivion? “Who makes the rules? Who manages the reputations of artists? Who decides what gets taken from the past, and what just stays there?”