Category: issues

The province of Ontario is having budget problems like governments everywhere. But the new budget for culture is going up. “Estimates for the 2004-05 fiscal year, released this week, show that the Ontario government’s cultural program will involve expenditures of close to $150-million. That’s an increase of almost 7 per cent over last year, and the first substantive hike in culture funding in more than five years.”

A new RAND study on US state arts agencies criticizes them for “failing to be forward-thinking in their visions and politically astute in their operations, and for failing to become financially insulated from the vagaries of the economy and state budgeting.” But Jonathan Katz, CEO of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, takes issue with some of the report’s findings.

Do you want to attend a theater, music, or sporting event, but just can’t tear yourself away from your thrill-a-minute life trading stocks? StubHub, a web site that turns ticket brokerage into something akin to an eBay auction held in the trading pit of a stock exchange, is here to help you…

A government investigation has been launched into London ticket brokers who are allegedly charging exorbitant fees for West End productions. The investigation will look into whether such brokers are “distorting the market” and possibly even working with event organizers to cheat the public.

“The long-awaited, much-troubled Miami-Dade Performing Arts Center will cost about $411 million — $67 million more than originally planned. And the higher price tag leaves unfunded $27.4 million in phones, security systems, furniture and preopening operating costs. The center also will be 20 months late, with completion set for May 2006.”

Debate on a new budget for the National Endowment for the Arts is beginning in the US House of Representatives. Initial consideration will be on a bill to keep NEA funding at the same level as this year.

Canadian artists are increasingly perturbed that the country’s political parties aren’t articulating any serious positions on culture in the current national election. “A constellation of Canadian stars came out Wednesday to warn that the country faces cultural integration with the United States and that the nation’s political leaders are not being clear enough during the current election campaign on where they stand on the issues.”

The phrase “dumbing down” has long been a catch-all term used by arts aficionados to take potshots at any organization daring to try to update their programming for modern audiences. More often than not, the changes aren’t dumbing anything down, merely acknowledging that the line between high culture and pop has blurred significantly in the last century, and that the average American’s frame of reference is defined not by symphonies and plays, but by rock albums and TV shows. At the National Performing Arts Convention in Pittsburgh, arts groups have been sharing ideas for embracing 21st-century culture without alienating their base or losing their souls.

Times are tough for corporate real estate brokers operating in Center City Philadelphia. But one area of the city’s urban core which had been considered dead and worthless fifteen years ago has been reborn in the eyes of private companies looking for an attractive place to locate their headquarters. South Broad Street, which was rechristened the Avenue of the Arts under former mayor (now PA governor) Ed Rendell, has flourished since becoming home to the Kimmel Center (home of the Philadelphia Orchestra) and multiple theaters. In fact, at the end of 2003, the Avenue of the Arts had an office vacancy rate of only 5%, compared to nearly 13% citywide.

The case of the chemical-hoarding art professor gets serious today, as a grand jury begins hearing testimony to determine whether charges should be brought against Steven Kurtz under the U.S. Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act. Kurtz’s friends and colleagues remain incredulous that the government is even remotely suspicious of him, since he has a long history of using agricultural chemicals in his work.