Category: issues

While the number of 20-34 year-olds decreased in America through the 1990s, Portland, Oregon saw a gain of 45,000 young people in that demographic. The infux has helped transform the city. “The result has been a cultural flowering for the Rose City. Young visual artists, Web designers, filmmakers and animators, musicians, media specialists and entrepreneurs are starting a new generation of companies, organizations and events, not to mention clubs, lounges, coffeehouses and restaurants. What has lured this active, inventive age group to Portland?”

Largely overlooked when Ruth Lilly gave $100 million to Poetry magazine a few weeks ago was another one of her gifts – $86 million to the arts advocacy group Americans for the Arts. There’s been much speculation about what Poetry might or might not do with the money. But how about Americans for the Arts?

Judges who don’t read the books they’re pronouncing on, movie critics who don’t see the films they’re writing about… it’s the new form of criticism, writes Alex Beam. “I am partaking in a hot new reviewing trend: Abstinence-Based Criticism (A-BC). At the key moment of critical engagement, just say no. Resist the temptation! Why read the book, see the movie, or, for that matter, eat the food? I can do it from here!”

The etymology of the phrase “the arts” is fascinating. ” ‘The arts’ has also become one of those irritating modern pieties, like ‘community’, ‘compassion’ or ‘ excellence’, which have people crossing themselves. All too often, ‘supporting the arts’ is little more than a badge of gentility. It doesn’t imply a real discriminating passion for music, painting or the theatre, let alone any sense of how they might inform your life or change society. It doesn’t even imply paying a fair price for the work of an artist. It is simply part of the cement in the thin wall that separates the respectable from the barbaric.”

“Coming soon: A big-brained summit featuring some of the world’s foremost scientists, artists, businesspeople, media figures, writers and all-around cultural visionaries… It’s the Toronto International Marshall McLuhan Festival of the Future,” and it’s being launched by the man behind the very successful Toronto International Film Festival. A skeptic might point out that Toronto already has an “ideas” festival, a 4-year-old gathering known as ideaCity, but McLuhan organizers say their event will be broader in scope.

Canadian researchers studying the effect of arts education on overall learning in students, discover that “the 10- to 12-year-olds who spent three years in the Learning Through the Arts program scored as many as 11 percentile points higher on standardized math tests than their peers in the study’s control schools. ‘It certainly makes us wonder why there isn’t more arts in the classroom. Many people assume that the arts somehow detract from the learning of other subjects, but this study shows that that isn’t the case’.”

Singapore has a new $343 million performing arts complex. But more than just theatres, The Esplanade — Theaters on the Bay is an architectural statement the city hopes will define it architecturally in the manner of the Eiffel Tower or the Sydney Opera House in their respective cities. “Along with an 2,000-seat theater, the Esplanade boasts what is perhaps one of the world’s most acoustically meticulous concert halls. Besides, who could forget a building that is so, well, prickly?”

A group of English artists travels to China and discovers the business of culture is big business there. “Britain now is as insular as I’ve ever known it. It is not as vibrant or as young feeling as somewhere like Beijing. It is going to be an interesting century for them and for us. But one thing is for sure, if anywhere gets left behind, it won’t be Beijing.”

“In an unconventional scheme to bring opera and ballet to the masses,” the Royal Opera House plans to set up giant open-air screens in locations around Britain to show live ballet and opera performances direct from the Opera House.

Fulton County, which is Atlanta’s biggest arts funder, has proposed a $1 million cut in the arts budget next year. “The arts council’s annual budget is $5.7 million; $3.4 million of that is granted to about 100 arts groups through the county’s contracts for services program. The rest of the money goes to operate the county’s school programs and five neighborhood arts centers.”