Category: issues

Great Britain is in the midst of an election cycle, with Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair fighting desperately for a third term as the opposition Tories seek to prove to the nation that they deserve another shot. And yet, as the campaign winds down, there has been not a single significant mention of the position of the arts in British culture. The sad truth is that, while British art and culture is thriving like never before, and while the UK has a long tradition of government support, the country lags far behind its European brethren in the establishment of a stable cultural identity which can be used as political capital.

Nine of ten respondents to a survey in California believe that arts should be a mandatory subject in public schools. “Arts education has been on the decline in public schools for decades because funding has not kept pace with the rising cost of services. The emphasis on language and math instruction has made subjects such as music susceptible to reduction or elimination. Private fundraising has enabled restoration of programs in some, but not all, public schools.”

“The Virginia Performing Arts Foundation is acknowledging for the first time that it won’t meet a July 1 deadline to raise $93 million for a performing-arts center in downtown Richmond. It’s also no longer hoping to open one of its key attractions – a music hall on East Broad Street – by the target date of 2007.”

Britain’s cultural institutions have to take a stronger stand to resist attacks on culture says a prominent theatre manager. “When something from outside comes to threaten the existence of a particular piece of work, what is the function of the arts council? Its remit to protect the arts comes into profile.”

Seattle’s Experience Music Project pop music conference is compellingly interesting, writes Robert Cristgau. “The short explanation is that EMP isn’t exclusively academic—of the 180 presenters this year, only 84 ID’d themselves that way, including many grad students and wearers of multiple hats. Nor were all the nonacademics journalists; we heard from several alt bizzers and quite a few artists, literary and performance as well as musical. Big tent is a fantasy often invoked and seldom achieved in cultural studies circles. But beyond the boldness, imagination, and actually existing openness, EMP’s tent is so roomy for one simple reason: money.

Congress has passed a law that allows companies to “sanitize” (read: take out) parts of movies they don’t like. “The implications are dramatic: If sanitizers can alter a creative work without the permission of the author, will they be able to redo the Bible? Shakespeare? What, in short, does intellectual property mean anymore?”

Technology holds a big place in our imagination these days. And artists are looking at the intersections of tech and art. “The Cyberarts Festival’s 70 exhibitions combine computer technology with dance, poetry, music and digital images. Many of them, like Imaging Place, use satellite pictures and the global positioning system to examine the effects of location on memory and thinking.”

South African playwright/actor John Kani says the arts need more respect. “What the Government underestimates is the role that the arts can play in building and healing a nation, and in giving young people in particular a holistic sense of what a human being can be. Australia, with a little more experience than us in this thing called ‘democracy’, hopefully treats the arts with a bit more respect.”

“A study of both parents of primary school children and women who have been involved in domestic abuse claims than those who grew up reading fairy tales are likely to be more submissive as adults. Susan Darker-Smith, a graduate student who wrote the academic paper, said she found many abuse victims identified with characters in famous children’s literature and claimed the stories provide “templates” of dominated women.”

The Children’s Museum in San Diego has made a number real estate trades in its history, hoping to take advantage of rising prices to leverage itself into the facility and location of its dreams. Now the museum finds itself $7 million short of its goal and is struggling to raise the amount…