Category: issues

Art is always looking for taboos to break. And the curious convergence of this summer is assassination. Presidential assassination. “Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins may be closing, but next month, I’m Gonna Kill the President!, a satirical play by the pseudonymous Hieronymous Bang, reopens at a top-secret downtown location. Jonathan Demme has remade The Manchurian Candidate, and Niels Mueller’s drama The Assassination of Richard Nixon, starring Sean Penn, is based on the true story of a salesman who attempts to murder the president. And although the novel won’t be released until August 24 (the eve of the Republican convention), Nicholson Baker’s Checkpoint has already caused a stir: One character ruminates at great length on his desire to assassinate George W. Bush.”

Ground was broken thios week for a new performing arts center on the site of the original Woodstock Music Festival. “When completed in 2006, the $63 million center, christened the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, will be the first permanent structure to be erected on the site. It will feature a 4,800-person indoor seating theater that can hold another 12,000 spectators on the lawn.”

Under George Bush’s No Child Left Behind initiative, “arts education was listed as a core subject for the first time in federal law. But reports released over the past several months have documented that arts classes are getting squeezed out because the law doesn’t require that students be tested for proficiency in art, music, dance or drama. Many people also see arts classes as ‘academic frills,’ so they often are the first ones eliminated when school districts run short of money.”

In Russia “a group of artists is being charged with ‘inciting religious hatred’ for lampooning religious ideology in a controversial exhibit. For the defendants, who face up to five years in prison if convicted, official reaction to the ‘Caution: Religion’ show, held at Moscow’s Andrei Sakharov Museum last year, suggests the return of Soviet-style control – where dissent is quashed and policemen stand in for art critics. In place of the former Communist Party, they say, the Russian Orthodox Church is fast becoming the Kremlin’s chief guardian of ideological purity.”

Southern California’s Orange County Performing Arts Center, which “recently issued $180 million in bonds to ensure that an expansion is built on time despite lagging fundraising, announced Thursday that it had raised a record amount of money to support its operations in the last year. The seemingly contradictory news reflects the continued softness in high-end donations that have plagued arts groups nationwide in recent years.”

As U.S. TV and radio broadcasters continue to tread an unusually cautious route through the latest “obscenity” minefield laid out by politicians and the FCC, the impact such crackdowns can have on popular culture is beginning to be assessed. No big media company wants to be made an example of for crossing the Puritanical line being toed by FCC chairman Michael Powell, but at the same time, no one seems to be terribly clear where that line is.

“Nothing says more about the moment we are in than a report from the Chronicle of Philanthropy that said in fiscal year ’02, charitable giving in this country fell 1.2 percent overall to all causes. Charitable giving to arts and culture fell 26.5 percent in the same year. And as a result, we are facing a moment of unprecedented stress and urgency.”

Saudi Arabia says it will undertake a “massive restructuring of the Kingdom’s cultural and antiquities sector,” making it the “cornerstone” of the national tourism policy. “We are not alone in this (focus on cultural tourism). According to the World Tourism Organization, all nations are embracing the increasing interest among world travelers in learning and experiencing other cultures. Cultural tourism today is one of the largest and fastest growing forms of tourism.”

The city of Berkeley, California has decided to make a major new commitment to the arts. “Affecting thousands of artists and 130 nonprofit organizations, the plan restructures Berkeley’s arts policy, setting a goal of eventually doubling arts grants and improving local artists’ chances of winning further grants.”

A program designed to bring private investment to the arts in northwest England seems to be having a real impact. “Companies in the region have pumped £500,202 into arts projects under the Arts & Business New Partners scheme, up from £107,840 in the 2002/3 financial year. And Arts & Business North West, the not-for-profit organisation which runs the project and offers to match business contributions, itself invested £277,061, compared to just £80,670 a year ago.”