Category: issues

New Jersey arts groups are certainly happy Governor James McGreevey is reconsidering eliminating state arts funding. Instead, the cut might be 50 percent. But this isn’t good enough some say. “The chop would actually represent a 60% slice over two years, since the State Legislature cut the arts budget by 10% last session. A 60% cut will cause a lot of damage to cultural institutions in the state in an already difficult economy. ‘We feel we are a solution to economic problems because we generate a lot of money for the state of New Jersey. We continue to be puzzled by the governor’s decisions to slash our funds when we’re a billion-dollar industry to the state.”

CanWest, which owns 11 big-city newspapers and 16 TV stations across Canada, is hiring a new team of national arts journalists to be based around the country. The team will be used on TV and in print, and the company says it wants to create some stars. But “the creation of the arts team has CanWest’s current arts editors, reporters and reviewers worried. They fear that the company’s long-term plan is to reduce local reporting and criticism and that, over time, coverage of film festivals, concerts and events will diminish.” CanWest’s track record on arts coverage is terrible; when it acquired the National Post two years ago, it dismantled the paper’s first-rate arts and culture section. “CanWest continues to treat its newspaper customers as though they were buying dog food — bigger box, less food. What do the dogs know?”

The World Affairs Council of Philadelphia has seen a big spike in attendance for its programs as tensions over George Bush’s war with Iraq have heated up. But corporations, “which contribute a third of the council’s budget through sponsorships and memberships, are paying about half what they once did to sponsor events. Some are not sponsoring them at all” prefering not to be associated with such a controversial topic.

Cleaners have removed most of the paint on the Sydney Opera house. On Tuesday, anti-war protesters painted “No War” in large red letters on the side of the top peak of the opera house. “The cleaners, from graffiti removal company Techni-Clean, initially used five to six litres of a special white wax to cover the paint, stopping it from drying. Yesterday they blasted off the wax – and the pavement paint underneath – with high-pressure hot water hoses.”

Maryland arts groups were looking forward to a modest increase in state arts funding. But that increase could turn out to be cuts of five to 17 percent if the legislature doesn’t go along with Gov Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s proposal to “legalize slot machines at the state’s racetracks and use tax money generated by them as a revenue source.”

When one of the Dixie Chicks said last week she was ashamed of George Bush, the blowback was immediate. “Country stations nationwide, responding to listeners, banned the group from their airwaves. One, in Portland, Ore., was encouraging listeners to burn Dixie Chicks concert tickets in public. By early this week, airplay for the group’s latest hit (ironically named “Travelin’ Soldier”) was travelin’ speedily downward. What to make of all this? The press is suggesting that the general public is finally ‘fed up’ with the nattering nabobs of negativism known as artists. In fact, this is a story that could only have happened in the country music world. That’s because country music is the embodiment of patriotism.”

Arts management is a vicious circle, writes Rupert Christiansen. Here’s the way it goes: “Some ambitious romantic, out of touch with audience taste and budgetary actuality, leads the accounts to the brink of financial catastrophe and plug-pulling threats from the subsidising bodies. The board panics and appoints someone with experience of the ‘real world’ of business or industry. He or she imports a management consultancy. A lot of paper-pushing, a lot of bellowing, a lot of sacking ensues. Morale among the creators and curators is decimated, and the quality of the art plummets.” It doesn’t have to be this way…

Two protesters climbed to the top of the Sydney Opera House and painted “No War” in giant red letters Tuesday. “The graffiti on the highest sail of the ornate building made a mockery of the supposed increase in security at two of Australia’s most readily identifiable landmarks, the opera house and nearby Sydney Harbour Bridge.”

Instruction in the arts is shrinking in Britain as the school calendar gets more crowded. “More than 80 per cent of UK headteachers say they battle to find time to schedule arts lessons, while almost 90 per cent of teachers worry that the sidelining of arts is affecting their students’ ability to think imaginatively. According to the survey of 695 primary, secondary and sixth-form teachers, two-thirds believe the reduction in arts teaching will be detrimental to the fabric of the country, resulting in a diminished creative industry and fewer artists.”

In Colorado, where the state arts budget has been slashed 55 percent, “the arts community has spent much time and oxygen organizing a proactive response to the systematic dismantling of the state’s arts council, which has annoyed members of the joint budget committee less than if a fly were to land in their soup. Artists yell indignantly about the shame of Colorado falling into 50th place in state arts funding without having the slightest notion that those who think of the arts as an entitlement wear that stat – not to mention that ubiquitous button – like a badge of honor. What we have here is a failure not only to communicate, but to educate.”