Category: issues

“After 15 years of soul-searching, France has decided to create a Museum of Immigration. Why now? For generations, France successfully absorbed waves of Poles, Russians, Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese — and remained French. Then over the past 30 years millions of migrants flooded in from the third world, and it was France that changed. A Museum of Immigration is a fairly typical French response, one financed by the government and intended by politicians and bureaucrats to address a social problem through culture. Yet while willing to open a museum, France’s cultural elite continue to resist embracing the creative energy represented by French artists, writers and performers of African, Arab and Asian descent.”

Arts groups in Nashville were stunned this week to discover that their annual funding from the area’s Metro Arts Commission had been slashed by tens of thousands of dollars. The cuts are partly due to an overall shortage of available funds, but also to the use of “an extensive checklist of performance ratings” for each group receiving funds.

The war on copyright piracy is looking increasingly like the war on drugs – a few stalwart enforcers desperately trying to hold back an unstoppable global wave of illegal activity. And the battles aren’t just in courtrooms and online: “Recently, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry helped set up a raid on a notorious market near Mexico City called Tepito – using 1500 armed officers. There was a four-hour long battle with racketeers before arrests were made.”

“The [U.S. Senate] heard strong opposition from the technology industry on Thursday about a bill that would hold tech companies responsible for creating devices that could be used to pirate digital content. But Sens. Orrin Hatch and Patrick Leahy, the sponsors of the bill, are determined to move forward with the legislation.” The bill, which has been widely ridiculed for oversimplifying the problem of piracy to the point that devices like Apple’s iPod could be made illegal, is being heavily backed by Hollywood studios and the music industry. Those industries, incidentally, have contributed $380,000 to the campaigns of Hatch and Leahy since 1999.

When Bruce Taub looks at art, he sees dollar signs. And his new investment company is hoping that other high-rolling investors will see it that way, too, and diversify their personal portfolios to include works his company invests in. “The company will establish a series of art funds for clients looking to diversify their existing portfolios. The funds will buy art, both privately and at auction, that their consultants think is undervalued.” Investors won’t actually get to take the art home with them, since the fund would own the works. Instead, they’ll reap the financial rewards (if any) when and if the works are resold.

If you’re a classical music aficionado living in Korea, you’d better be prepared to dig deep for concert tickets. A recent tour performance by the Vienna Philharmonic featured an average ticket price of $214, and a show featuring the La Scala orchestra wasn’t far behind. In fact, the cost of seeing a concert in Korea is considerably higher than the cost of the same concert with the same ensemble in Europe. Promoters say that the discrepancy is due to a lack of government subsidy and corporate support for the arts.

“Not since the height of the Vietnam War have so many actors, writers, artists, and musicians mobilized politically during an election year — the vast majority of them against Bush. It’s not just the usual liberal Hollywoodites, either, like Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, and Rob Reiner. Artists of every type are speaking out, from the hip-hoppers involved in impresario Russell Simmons’ nonpartisan voter-registration drive to literary lions such as novelists Joyce Carol Oates and Jonathan Franzen to respected visual artists such as Matthew Barney and Cecily Brown.”

Begun last month, the Medici project “aims to exhume 49 bodies of the Medici family and reconstruct the dynasty’s genetic make-up and their real family tree.” Explorers of one Medici burial site have discovered a secret crypt that contains the bodies of seven children and one adult. “Though the tombs had been seriously damaged by the flood of 1966, the remains of a nine-year-old boy are still in good condition. Expertly embalmed, he wears red clothes and a small crown. We could have found the illegitimate children of Grand Duke Cosimo I.”

Canada’s arts community is cheering the appointment of Liza Frulla as the country’s new Heritage Minister. Sho has – unlike the previous arts minister – a demonstrated interest in the arts. “The professional clout is there; the personal interest is there — a reference to Frulla’s own description of herself as a ‘culture vulture’ and her eclectic background as, for example, the first female reporter ever to be allowed into the Montreal Canadiens’ dressing room, the first woman of Italian heritage to be elected to the Quebec National Assembly, and later, the host of a popular Radio-Canada TV show called Liza.”

Last summer maajor French festivals were disrupted or canceled due to protests by labor unions. After worries about a repeat this summer, the festivals are underway in peace. “With the festival season now well under way, is it safe to assume the issue has gone away? Not entirely. This is a truce, rather than peace.”