Category: issues

Artists are increasingly using other artists’ art as the raw materials for their own work. While artists have always drawn inspiration from other work, “the difference now is that artists — professionals and amateurs alike — are taking existing works and messing with their content and expression to create something new. If you want a name for the phenomenon, you could look at its insistence on the rights of the individual and call it democratic art, or focus on its wholesale limb-splicing and call it FrankenArt, in a nod to Mary Shelley’s science-fiction horror story.”

New York governor George Pataki has had difficulty finding a leading fundraiser to head the effort to raise $600 million for a memorial and cultural buildings at the World Trade Center site. “Mr. Pataki’s inability so far to find a leader for the campaign has contributed to a delay in deciding which cultural organizations will occupy the site

A US Congressional sub-committee is working on a bill to amend and declaw the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. “Called the Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act, the amendments are backed by librarians, liberal consumer groups and some technology firms. But they’re bitterly opposed by the entertainment industry, including Hollywood, major record labels and the Business Software Alliance.”

“The chair of Nova Scotia’s Arts and Culture Partnership Council has resigned, claiming that the purpose behind the newly established group was simply to placate the arts sector and to allow the government to make major arts-funding decisions without any consultation. In March 2002, the Nova Scotia government shut down the provincial arts council, which was responsible for distributing up to $1.2 million in grant money to the arts community annually. At the end of the year, the province announced it was creating a similar agency but one that would be more financially accountable.”

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed his $46.9 billion executive budget. The Department of Cultural Affairs would get $104.03 million. That’s $10 million more than the mayor had proposed in January for his FY05 preliminary budget; but it’s $15.7 million less than cultural funding for the present fiscal year.

The mayor of St. Paul has responded to a study which showed the city’s arts groups stuck in a cycle of deficits by proposing a new annual infusion of cash into the arts scene. Mayor Randy Kelly’s proposal, which was crafted in consultation with several arts leaders, calls for a $25 million bump in annual support for St. Paul’s cultural sector, including $6.5 million in new public subsidies. St. Paul arts groups have been struggling in comparison wth those across the Mississippi River in larger, more cosmopolitan Minneapolis.

A new umbrella organization backed by many of Glasgow’s high-profile arts organizations has been created to attract audiences to cultural events in the city. Glasgow Grows Audiences (GGA) is funded in large part by the Scottish Arts Council, and “will act as a marketing organisation for the theatres, galleries and companies based in the city.” GGA’s first project will be to undertake extensive audience research to determine where the city’s residents are spending their entertainment dollars.

San Francisco’s new mayor recently announced that the city’s arts grant program would be taking a 25% hit in his new budget, infuriating arts supporters. But Gavin Newsom insists that he loves the arts, and plans for them to be a major part of his administration’s goals for the city. The mayor got together for a meeting with 200 area artists last week, with author Dave Eggers moderating the discussion.

French officials plan to meet with angry arts workers, who are planning to protest at the Cannes Film Festival and could disrupt France’s summer arts festivals again this summer. “The event’s organizers are due today to meet unions representing 60,000 to 100,000 part-time actors and technicians who plan protests against cuts in their welfare benefits.”

A new report says that Massachusetts cultural groups pump more than a billion dollars a year into the economy. But the “cultural sector is losing its luster as a tourist destination, and it is in danger of losing ground as a cultural hub as well. Theaters and historic homes are crumbling, and vital museums and arts centers are struggling to pay for basic repairs, maintenance, and expansion planned, the report found. Yet Massachusetts is one of the few culture-rich regions of the country that provides no steady support for capital improvements.”