Category: issues

“An unprecedented report published yesterday by the Israeli government estimates the material damage caused to the Jewish people during the Holocaust at $230 billion to $320 billion. This estimate does not include reparations for the suffering of survivors, or for the murder of 6 million Jews. The report’s authors call on the government to remove obstacles to the process of restoring Jewish property, not only in Europe but in the U.S. and Israel as well.”

Any hope for a good project to rise on the site of the World Trade Center is now dead, writes Ada Louise Huxtable. “The death of the dream has come slowly, in bits and pieces, not as a sudden cataclysmic event. It has not been a casualty of the more obvious debate over whether the replacement of the lost 10 million square feet of commercial space demanded by the developer is an economic necessity or the defilement of the land where so many died. This has been a subtler, more insidious sabotage, through the progressive downgrading and evisceration of the cultural components of Daniel Libeskind’s competition-winning design.”

The proposed Kansas City performing arts center has hit a number of road blocks since its conception, and the latest is a proposal to move the whole project downtown. Fundraising has not been able to keep up with the PAC’s construction costs, and last fall, voters in the metro area rejected a bi-state tax which would have partially funded the center, leaving the board overseeing the project in a bit of a pickle. The proposal to move the PAC into the city’s downtown loop would mean the renovation of the Lyric Theatre, and the construction of a new concert hall beside it, a considerably less expensive undertaking than the original plan.

The new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, Illinois offers experience over history. “The blurring of history for the sake of entertainment may not be something new. After all, the village of New Salem, about a 20-minute drive from Springfield, was where Lincoln tended store and began his political career, but the town didn’t survive. So in the 1920’s and 30’s, it was “reconstructed”; it is an invented historical village. But the new museum, because of technological power alone, risks making invention seem like fact. It also enshrines a notion that the best way to know anything about politics and history is to understand personality, and even then only in a simplified fashion. Maybe it will lead to curiosity and further inquiry; maybe not.”

Australian arts are stagnant, writes Robyn Archer. “Is there still space in this world for the individual who is not at the top of the hierarchy? What, indeed, of the weirdo who simply wants to pursue the work, outside of the mainstream of fashion? Will it mean that such an artist is again destined for a lifetime of neglect, with the possibility of being rediscovered in a hundred years’ time?”

Denver is remaking itself “combining an old pragmatism with an intensifying progressive bent. Some longtime residents are worried the large flock of newcomers are reshaping Denver to resemble the coastal cities they left behind, while others celebrate the new push toward public transit and a vibrant downtown.”

The Sydney Dance Company and Australia’s symphony orchestras are underfunded and endangered. Now a popular swell of support is rising up, with Sydney’s leading radio host taking up the cause: “Are we cultural slobs, or are we prepared to step up to the plate and get behind our orchestras and the Sydney Dance Company, when we know their cultural worth and the level of community support that they enjoy? So let’s forget the debate. Provide the money, and get on with it.”

A member of the California state assmbly proposes a dedicated tax to support the arts. “The bill calls for imposing a 1% surcharge on arts and entertainment admissions — a dime for a $10 movie ticket, about 53 cents for admission to Disneyland or a buck for a $100 seat at the opera or a top arena-rock band. That would raise at least $23 million in annual guaranteed funding for the California Arts Council, the state’s main arm for fostering nonprofit arts organizations through annual grants. From a peak of more than $30 million four years ago, the Arts Council has seen its annual funding cut to just more than $3 million.”

A recent review of Australian orchestras was dumped on for its call for reductions. But the report also took to task some current government funding policies that work contrary to the interests of efficient arts funding. “The existing system is poor public policy because it encourages short-term, knee-jerk reactions rather than considered, long-term planning. It makes proper governance very difficult for the boards of the affected organisations, which find themselves in a constant state of siege. And it means that arts ministers are constantly put in a mendicant position in relation to their cabinet colleagues.”

Boston continues on its arts-building ways with a new plan to rennovate the old Paramount Theatre. “The $70 million Paramount Center project would redevelop the Theater District landmark and two neighboring properties to provide two theaters, rehearsal rooms, student residences, and restaurant space.”