Category: issues

The Pew Charitable Trusts is changing its legal status and will become a public charity. “Pew would no longer be subject to a number of other legal and tax restrictions on private foundations, including self-dealing laws, restrictions on outside business holdings, and restrictions on making grants to government officials and individuals, to name a few. To maintain its status as a charity, Pew will have to raise outside money beyond the endowments of its trusts, which it has shown it can do for a number of Philadelphia civic projects, including the Barnes Foundation and the Independence Visitor Center.”

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s foundation has handed out $12.45 million in grants to cultural and public service groups in the Pacific Northwest. At least $2 million of the money is earmarked specifically for arts groups in the Seattle area, and will be dispensed not only to the city’s largest arts and music groups, but to many fringe organizations as well.

Latinos are now the largest ethnic minority in the US, and they’re having a big influence on mainstream culture. “There are now more than 35 million Latinos in the US. In the last year, Spanish has become the most popular foreign language in American high schools and universities.”

For years, arts supporters have used a mathematical formula to estimate the economic impact of theaters, orchestras, and art galleries on a given area. Trouble is, the formula’s accuracy is arguable at best, and many have stopped taking it seriously. Now, a pair of Canadian researchers is proposing a new way of measuring arts impact, without confusing it with cultural tourism. “What the study suggests is the possibility of actually identifying a predictable pattern of development around arts facilities — the researchers can already say specialty retailers follow restaurants, which follow the arts — that would take the guesswork out of government plans to use the arts as a tool of urban regeneration.”

“In an unusual experiment in sponsorship Rolex has funded an initiative through which five leading artists take a young tyro talent under their wing for a year. As a wealthy foundation with no shareholders to please Rolex has been serious with its cash and time – the cost of the project comfortably topped $1m (£594,000).”

Hawai’i is more than just another state in the U.S. Its geographic isolation from the rest of the country means that its population is quite insular and, despite the heavy tourist trade, relatively unchanging. These unique qualities make Hawai’i a charming place to live, but are posing a grave danger for the state’s arts groups, many of which are in severe financial turmoil, and in need of public support. “Years of financial austerity measures have helped the major arts and cultural organizations survive, but administrators say innovative solutions are needed to cope with a confluence of negative local and national trends.”

Miami’s new $344 million performing arts center has been beset by delays and cost overruns. “Center officials recently moved the expected opening date to early 2006, over 16 months behind what was originally hoped for. Meanwhile, cost overruns that accrue from design changes, material shortages or flawed work will eventually have to be covered by someone — either the county or the contractors.”

Construction delays and budget overruns are only part of the problem facing Miami’s new performing arts center. How will the facility find money to stay open once it debuts? “At this point $15.2 million a year in expenses has been identified but only $12.5 million in revenue, leaving a $2.7 million yearly deficit. With the collapse of the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, the PAC is left with only four resident companies. They’re scheduled to fill only 125 nights a year of the combined total of 730 nights available in the PAC’s two biggest performance halls. That’s less than 20 percent.

The ranks of working arts critics are shrinking. “In their increasingly desperate efforts to attract younger readers, newspapers are jettisoning huge swaths of fine- and performing-arts coverage in favor of stuff that they think will pull in those coveted eyes. How to better cover movies, celebrities, reality TV, pop music and the dating scene? Those were the subjects that dominated workshops and conversations at a September meeting of the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, which I attended. They’re making a mistake – and I’d like to believe it’s not wishful thinking on my part.”

After “more than a decade of dreaming and planning, having the dreams fall through, regrouping and planning again,” a new $52.7 million, 1,500-seat downtown theater for Chicago’s mid-size performing arts groups is almost ready to open. There are some worries, though: “With costs of approximately $4,000 a day, it is far more expensive than the theaters previously used by many of its dozen founding members. With 1,500 seats, it is also larger, and groups may find themselves lost on the larger stage or have trouble filling the extra seats.”