Category: issues

“I’ve never believed there is anything more than a coincidental relationship between madness and making art. For every self-mutilating van Gogh, there’s a sane, mild-mannered Matisse. Artistic creativity arises from a variety of fluid inner equations; the old image of artists producing masterpieces in some sort of possessed frenzy is far more common in movies than in life. In actuality, making art is a respite from inner demons. Sanity is necessary for the strategy, planning, and trial and error needed to bring a good artistic idea to fruition.”

Between the endless maze of automated phone menus and the do-it-yourself ticketing websites, you wouldn’t think that Ticketmaster and its fellow national ticket brokers would even need to employ human beings anymore. So why, exactly, does every ticket still come with a hefty “service fee” slapped on top of the admission price? “Tack-on fees are wrapped up in the larger world of live-entertainment deal-making, which gets particularly shady when it comes to concerts. The service charges are determined not just by Ticketmaster but also the promoter, venue and act, all of which can share in the revenues — and increasingly want to.”

Atlanta’s two largest arts organizations, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the High Museum of Art, have been slashing budgets and negotiating wage freezes in recent years, desperately working to balance their books. But the fiscal austerity apparently doesn’t extend to the executives in charge of the troubled arts groups: High Museum director Michael Shapiro’s salary has jumped $155,000 since 2000, and ASO President Allison Vulgamore’s pay has ballooned from $275,000 to $440,000 in the same period.

Atlanta’s arts scene is rapidly losing its middle class. Some organizations seem to be flush with cash, mounting hundred million dollar expansions and bolstering already-sizable endowment funds, while the city’s have-nots see their budgets shrink and donations dwindle.

“San Diego’s cultural tourism program – an aggressive effort to promote the arts community and its creativity as a tourist destination – isn’t quite what it used to be. About a year ago, the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau shut down its cultural tourism office, and its manager, Rick Prickett, moved to Hawaii… A city audit of ConVis’ finances took issue with bonuses, car allowances and how ConVis spent money on entertaining clients… Amid the controversy, the bureau’s budget was slashed by more than 20 percent and it was stripped of responsibility for marketing the San Diego Convention Center.”

When celebrities donate their abundant cash to charitable causes like tsunami relief, it’s usually assumed that they are calling attention to their own regular-guy generosity as much as genuinely trying to help out. But does the motivation even matter? “Is this charity-plus, a kind of righteous one-upmanship with public relations benefits? Or is it smart fund-raising, recognition that in a society saturated with pop culture even tragedy sells better with a name brand attached.”

Fort Worth’s Bass Performance Hall has taken a $750,000 deficit in 2002-2003 and balanced its books for the most recent season…

“Parents have always had a hard time drawing the line between hypocrisy and responsibility, and never more than at the present moment, when prurience and prudishness are both operating at high voltage. We’ve just ended a year in which the exposure of Janet Jackson’s breast on national television set off a gasp of horror in some quarters, amusement in others. Regulators have been clamping down on indecency with fines.”

Composer James MacMillan is on a crusade for Scottish culture. “The Scottish executive’s opposition to so-called elitist art is causing damage to Scotland’s reputation but also to its sense of itself. They have built a palace for themselves in the shape of the Scottish parliament at a cost of £440m – 10 times above the supposed price – yet they’re allowing Scottish Opera to go to the wall for a tiny amount. It represents a cultural vandalism that has to be challenged.”

“Depending on which way the arts community chooses to look at it, the 2010 Winter Olympic Games offer either a bonanza of riches or a bureaucratic nightmare. ArtsNow, an independent, non-profit society initiated by the British Columbia government, is now accepting applications for its $12-million cultural development fund, which must be dispersed by 2006… The goal, of course, is to leverage the Olympics into meaningful artistic legacies that will continue to flourish long after the event is over. But… the success of these initiatives will hinge heavily on how well various arts groups, communities and planning committees take advantage of the hard lessons learned from previous host cities.”