Category: issues

Sir Christopher Frayling has some new ideas as he takes over as chairman of the British Arts Council. “Eighty per cent of the cash we give out goes to regularly funded organisations and a quarter of these take almost 90 per cent of the grants. Many of them have been on our books since 1947, and are receiving money in the same proportion. Too many people see the Arts Council as a cashpoint machine with a complicated pin number. We have got to be more than that. A lot of the most interesting developments in the arts are inter- disciplinary. So we could be looking at new categories for funding”.

The city of Berlin has a huge budget deficit and proposes to slash arts funding. Berlin Philharmonic music director Simon Rattle protests, describing the situation as “catastrophic” and “cultural dismantling” in an interview with the weekly Der Spiegel magazine. Sir Simon, who took over the orchestra two years ago, told the magazine: “I can see the hopeless situation of the city, but on the other hand, this cultural dismantling is an incredible shame for Berlin.”

U.S. government officials are recommending that Congress amend the nation’s copyright law to hold companies which “rely on copyright infringement to make a profit” liable for the actions of consumers who use their products. The new regulations, which are aimed squarely at file-trading enablers such as Kazaa and Grokster, are very controversial, with privacy advocates insisting that previous Supreme Court rulings prohibit such wide-ranging prohibitions.

“The annual number of academic and cultural exchanges has dropped from 45,000 in 1995 to 29,000 in 2001. This means that far fewer American artists, including performing artists, are being given chances to ply their crafts on foreign soil. The study presumes that those figures have decreased even further in recent years.

San Antonio’s Cultural Arts Board is under fire for the way in which it doles out money to the city’s cultural organizations. Critics charge that the process does not allow for input from local artists, and that applicants are treated as if they are signing up for the welfare roles, rather than as organizations which contribute significantly to the community in exchange for public dollars. The cash-strapped San Antonio Symphony, which is preparing to relaunch itself after emerging from bankruptcy, even chose to bypass the Arts Board completely, preferring to appeal directly to the mayor and the city council for funds. Board members concede that changes are needed.

A new sponsorship deal between UBS, an international wealth management firm, and the Utah Symphony Orchestra is getting some attention in the music industry. Under the deal, UBS will contribute over $1 million to the orchestra, in exchange for which the company’s logo will be featured prominently in program books and orchestra advertising, and will also receive special recognition at four concerts in the 2004-05 season. It’s a more blatant marketing strategy than many orchestras have been comfortable with, but with corporate support ever more important for the survival of the industry, the deal may be a harbinger.

Now an ambitious plan for a kind of cultural Olympics. The World Culture Open is considered by its organizers to be “a combination of the Olympics and the Nobel Peace Prize to encourage and provide money for arts groups that emphasize cultural understanding, something they feel neither the United Nations nor other international groups do in a comprehensive way.”

“Art dealers are typically cautious not to offend their clientele by taking strong positions on controversial topics. This year, however, the rules have changed. Dealers and artists in New York have become visibly politicised and have been actively raising funds and campaigning for Democratic candidate John Kerry in the run up to the US presidential election on 2 November.”

As it’s become more difficult for international students to get entry into the United States to go to school, the number of students applying to US schools has dramatically declined. “U.S. graduate schools this year saw a 28% decline in applications from international students and an 18% drop in admissions, a finding that some experts say threatens higher education’s ability to maintain its reputation for offering high-quality programs.”

National Endowment for the Arts chairman Dana Gioia has spent the last year building political support for his agency, one politician at a time. “Conservative support for the agency is among the little-noticed political developments of this election year. In January President Bush asked Congress to increase the endowment’s budget by $18 million for the 2005 fiscal year, the highest percentage increase in a quarter-century.”