Category: issues

Monday September 30

ACCADEMIA UNDER ATTACK: From visas being denied to a clampdown on sharing of research, American academia “is suddenly finding itself a central target of new security laws and regulations. To some, the greater scrutiny is natural, given that universities are home to many foreign students and much potentially sensitive research. But as fall semester gets under way, university scientists worry that freedom of inquiry, open access, and internationalization – long valued in US higher education – are at risk.” Christian Science Monitor 09/29/02

FIXING THE VISA PROBLEM: As visa delays reult in cancellation of more and more arts events around America, some arts leaders propose a special category of visa to expedite artist entry. “Artists who have been here 15 times and been written up in every major paper – to all of a sudden start questioning their backgrounds is a little backward. I think having a separate category for artists is a practical step.” Los Angeles Times 09/30/02

• ANOTHER VISA DENIED – CONTEMPT FOR CULTURE? “Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian filmmaker who is widely considered one of the world’s greatest living directors, has been denied a visa to enter the United States. Kiarostami had been invited to attend the New York Film Festival, where his new movie Ten will premiere on Sunday, and then to lecture at Harvard and at Ohio University. To many people working in the arts, both in the U.S. and abroad, the decision will inevitably be seen as symbolizing the Bush administration’s perceived disdain for cultural affairs and the left-leaning elite groups concerned with them.” Salon 09/27/02

VILAR ON PHILANTHROPY: Earlier this month Alberto Vilar gave a speech on arts philanthropy: “From my experience, the biggest single negative force in philanthropy is bad journalism. I attribute the press’s negativism partly to a misunderstanding that has a cultural and historical basis, in the very nature of private philanthropy. Journalists in Europe have been culturally raised to believe that supporting the arts is the express responsibility of government. Hence, many unfounded charges arise because of this, namely, that the private patron will interfere artistically. When you think about it, this accusation actually insults the recipients of donor gifts.” The transcript of the entire speech is found here. La Scena Musicale 09/29/02

Sunday September 29

ART OF SCIENCE: Many artists of all sorts are making arts about science these days. Why? “Stories about scientists doing science offer the chance to understand the seemingly impossible-to-understand, if only vicariously. Just as a certain kind of true-adventure story allows the armchair explorer to travel to the ends of the earth and test the limits of human physical endurance, so dramatic narratives involving the scientific process invite us to live inside the minds that are trying to scale the heights of intellectual achievement.” The New York Times 09/29/02

Friday September 27

COPYRIGHT CHALLENGE: The US Supreme Court is about to hear arguments challenging the constitutionality of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which was enacted in 1998 with strong support from Hollywood’s politically powerful studios. The law extended the length of copyrights for an additional 20 years (or more in certain cases) and gave new protections to corporations that own copyrights. Opponents – which include dozens of the nation’s leading law professors, several library groups, 17 prominent economists, and a coalition of both liberal and conservative political action groups – say it serves no legitimate public purpose, violates the clear intentions of our nation’s founders regarding copyrights and is unconstitutional.” San Francisco Chronicle 09/26/02

AMERICA’S VISA MESS: The American government’s visa policies are so bogged down and eratic, performing arts organizations are having to cancel planned performances with foreign artists. “It’s not as if you can hand people a handbook. These security procedures change from day to day. It’s a huge issue for people in our field. There is an international meeting of world-music people in Germany next month and this will be the number-one topic of discussion.” Philadelphia Inquirer 09/26/02

DAVIS’ NEW CULTURAL CENTER: Davis, California gets a new cultural center “The $57 million center features a beautiful 1,800-seat theater that can accommodate everything from opera and dance to symphony concerts, rock shows and films.” San Francisco Chronicle 09/26/02

THE BUSINESS CASE FOR PIRACY: Does fighting piracy of intellectual property make good business sense? Maybe not. “The argument for allowing piracy boils down to two words: network effects. Without a critical mass of users, most software products tend to wither and die. Conversely, the more users a software product acquires, particularly a consumer-oriented software product, the more valuable it becomes.” Salon 09/26/02

Thursday September 26

THE TICKETMASTER TWO-STEP: Anyone who has ever purchased concert or sports passes from juggernaut ticket-broker Ticketmaster is familiar with the company’s policy of charging exorbitant fees for ‘handling’ and ‘processing.’ But what happens when a concert is cancelled and Ticketmaster has to issue refunds? It turns out that all those extra fees are non-refundable, assuring that the broker turns a sizable profit even as promoters eat their costs and customers take it in the shorts. Denver Post 09/26/02

CELL PHONICIDE: New York’s city council debates a ban on using cellphones at public performances. Supporters of the legislation says that “if patrons knew that they could be ejected or have to pay a fine or have to think about going through the humiliation of dealing with that, it would at least limit the number of people that continue to do it.” The New York Times 09/25/02

Wednesday September 25

GOVERNOR GENERAL AWARDS: Canada has announced the winners of this year’s Governor General Awards for the performing arts. “Six Canadians received the honour yesterday, including the National Ballet of Canada’s Karen Kain, the jazz great Phil Nimmons, and the Guess Who, this country’s first home-grown rock band to win international acclaim.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/25/02

Tuesday September 24

BANKERS ON BOARD: As times get tougher for arts organizations, boards of directors are taking a more interventionalist attitude. In Sydney, Zurich and London recently, the artistic sides have been sacked by the boardroom overseers. “What boards around the world seem to want now is more predictable balance-sheets. Even if it sometimes means compromising that less definable commodity: artistic enterprise.” Financial Times 09/23/02

CLEANING UP DODGE: A Republican party “Leadership Council” in Texas is on a cultural crusade. So far it has succeeded in getting a plaster fig leaf added to a replica of a statue of David, remove some art from an Italian restaurant, “persuaded commissioners to use an Internet filter to screen computers at the library for pornography and to put plaques reading ‘In God We Trust’ in county libraries.” Houston Chronicle 09/24/02

BUILT-IN DEFICIT? The Ordway Center, St. Paul Minnesota’s largest performing arts venue, has racked up another deficit – not a large one, but the latest in a string of cash shortfalls that have characterized most of the hall’s 18 years. Is a deficit built into the place? “These customary deficits must be fixed. The consistency of these deficits over the life of the Ordway is startling. You just can’t do business like this.” The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis) 09/24/02

• TURNING IT AROUND: The Ordway has a new man in charge. “His name is David Galligan, and as the new president and CEO of St. Paul’s most visible cultural address, he’ll be a key player in the city’s plans for a continuing artistic renaissance. At the Ordway, he’ll wrangle a troublesome budget of $15 million, referee a cantankerous group of resident arts organizations and try to reconcile the building’s historic mission as a home for local arts groups with its more recent role as a producer and presenter of entertainments.” St. Paul Pioneer Press 09/22/02

Sunday September 22

PERSONAL SEAT LICENSES, ANYONE? Sports franchises long ago learned that ticket sales are simply not dependable enough to serve as your organization’s major source of income, and moved towards sponsorship deals, ‘seat licenses,’ and luxury box rentals as primary revenue streams. But arts groups continue to struggle annually with the problem of how to get enough butts in the seats to keep the bottom line at bay. Worse, there seems to be a dramatic nationwide move towards spur-of-the-moment ticket buying which is eroding subscription sales and putting tremendous pressure on marketing departments. Accordingly, many arts organizations are reinventing the way they sell tickets, with shorter subscriptions and deeper discounts for patrons. Boston Globe 09/22/02

CENSORSHIP OR PUBLIC GOOD? The debate over the explicit French film Fat Girl has made its way into the Canadian courts, and Ontario’s law governing allowable censorship of ‘objectionable material’ hangs in the balance. The plaintiffs “will argue that the Ontario board misapplied the Theatres Act legislation and that the act itself is an infringement on the right to freedom of expression guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. If Martin’s constitutional challenge is successful — something the Ontario government will do all in its power to prevent — it will have major ramifications on the sundry classification/review/censor boards across the country.” The Globe & Mail (first item) 09/21/02

LEHRER TO GET LINCOLN CENTER GIG: “Peter M. Lehrer, a construction executive, is expected to be named chairman of Lincoln Center’s ambitious redevelopment project next week. As chairman of the Lincoln Center Constituent Development Project Inc., Mr. Lehrer will oversee the extensive plans to improve the center’s halls and public spaces, a $1.2 billion project that in its early stages was complicated by in-fighting among the center’s constituents. Mr. Lehrer, 60, a co-founder of the large New York construction management firm Lehrer McGovern, replaces Marshall Rose, a real estate executive who stepped down in October, several months earlier than had been expected.” The New York Times 09/21/02

Friday September 20

HOW/WHY/WHAT WE LEARN: What do we expect of our universities? “Up to the middle of the last century, we asked higher education to provide basic and professional education for young people, to discover and preserve the knowledge of the past, and, especially in the sciences, to create new knowledge. We thought of knowledge, however, in a unitary fashion, and did not distinguish as sharply as we do today between the practical and useless kinds Knowledge grew slowly and incrementally, and we were mostly content to leave its creation to university academics and industrial laboratories. But all of that has changed.” Chronicle of Higher Education 09/16/02

MICHIGAN ARTS FUNDING SURVIVES: While many state arts agencies have taken big cuts – Massachusetts cut its arts budget by 60 percent, and states like Colorado and California also took huge hits – Michigan’s state arts council has escaped largely intact despite a sluggish economy. The state just awarded $22.6 million in grants, a drop of $1 million, or 4 percent, compared with last year. Detroit Free Press 09/14/02

Thursday September 19

MORE VISA WOES: Another American arts event marred by visa problems. The World Festival of Sacred Music in Los Angeles has lost a couple of its top attractions because artists weren’t able to get their visas on time. “We got a head start, got all the papers in line, but at this point it doesn’t matter when the artists are trying to travel from nations identified as trouble spots.” Los Angeles Times 09/18/02

BUSH SIGNS BILL TO EXPAND KENNEDY CENTER: President Bush signs a bill authorizing expansion of the Kennedy Center. The new “open pedestrian plaza, stretching east from the center toward the State Department, would accommodate two new buildings under the center’s plan. One would be a museum devoted to the history of the performing arts; the other would contain rehearsal halls and offices.” Now the Kennedy Center must raise the $250 million needed to build the project. Washington Post 09/19/02

FRANCE FALLS BEHIND: A report getting great attention in France documents the poor state of the visual arts in France. “The report confirmed what was already widely known: the French art scene has largely lost the influence which it enjoyed during the first half of the twentieth century. Worse, it is flagging fast compared with Germany, and even England.” Along with numbers to show the decline, comes some speculation on reasons French art doesn’t travel, including the irea that French art is “too intellectual to be rated beyond the French border.” The Art Newspaper 09/15/02

Wednesday September 18

SURVEY – ARTISTS HURT BY 9/11: A survey of New York artists says artists have had a tough time since 9/11. “According the survey, four out of five artists have suffered a loss of income since last September, with the average loss in individual income being 46 percent. As a result, artists are increasingly forced to dip into their savings and to increase their debt load; 60 percent of survey respondents reported taking on more debt in the last year.” The New York Times 09/17/02

Tuesday September 17

NOW HERE’S AN ARTS POLICY (NOT): London mayor Ken Livingston – like many politicians these days – wants to be a player in the arts industry (after all, it’s non-polluting and makes money). But politicians have such a wide definition of culture as to make the word almost meaningless, write Norman Lebrecht. “The best a city can do for culture is to foster a climate where it can speak freely and reach millions. That requires a vibrant press (unlike New York, where debate is monop olised by the Times), a modicum of prosperity and a reliable transport system – unlike London, where many of us miss the first half of shows through getting stuck in the Tube or the traffic.” London Evening Standard 09/17/02

THE HITLER INDUSTRY: Why all the recent fascination with Hitler? “A rash of projects featuring the dictator are currently in the works, from theater to television, film, and merchandise all featuring the Nazi dictator. Critics are skeptical as to how the onslaught of media attention can educate without employing morbid titillation, creating a villain anti-hero or humanizing a murderer: “Hitler today is a thriving, world-wide industry and it is interesting, as well as disturbing, to note that there have been far more books, movies and TV programs produced about Hitler than Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill… ” The Age (Melbourne) 09/17/02

Monday September 16

VISA DELAYS IMPACT AMERICAN ARTS ORGANIZATIONS: US visa delays for foreign artists trying to get into the United States has disrupted the programs of many arts organizations and presenters in the past year. Now foreign artists who are members of American companies are having difficulty getting back into the country. “A coalition of national arts groups, led by the American Arts Alliance, has been talking to the Immigration and Naturalization Service since July about speeding up paperwork processing for visa petitions. They say they fear that the delays may deter international artists from participating in American arts productions, changing what one arts administrator called ‘the color of our culture’.” The News & Observer (Raleigh NC) 09/15/02

Sunday September 15

NEW DIRECTIONS IN BEANTOWN: Being an arts administrator in 2002 is a study in contradiction. On the one hand, the U.S. is in an economic slump, and conventional wisdom dictates that the arts must ride out such fiscal messes with hands folded in lap and mouth shut. But at the same time, many American cities are going through distinctive revitilizations in all kinds of ways, and any proponent of the arts would be foolish to sit on the sidelines while funding is doled out to sports, transit, and neighborhood programs. In Boston, three new arrivals are leading the charge to redefine the way the city’s arts organizations operate amidst various political and moneyed interests. Boston Globe 09/15/02

• DAMN THE TORPEDOES: It’s not just the traditional centers of the American arts world which are continuing to expand despite a national economic downturn. In Kansas City, arts administrators have refused to panic, and the result is a surprisingly progressive scene. “At the moment, the big local arts groups say they are financially stable, although in some cases their endowments have been whittled by the stock market decline that begin in the spring of 2000 and has wiped out more than $7 trillion in investments.” Kansas City Star 09/15/02

ART VS. EMERIL: In Britain, television is finally beginning to head down the lowbrow path blazed by American networks, with the consequence that the arts have all but lost any place on the airwaves. Where once there were three BBC programs dealing with literature, there are now none; where ‘arts’ programs once dealt with issues of classical music and architecture, today’s editions are little more than Entertainment Tonight-style fluff. So what has replaced high culture on the TV schedule? Why, cooking shows of course – just highbrow enough to suck in the disenfranchised arts crowd, and just lowbrow enough to appeal to the mass market in a way that, say, a debate over the Booker prize does not. The Guardian (UK) 09/14/02

Friday September 13

POOR COUNTRIES SHOULDN’T BE BOUND BY COPYRIGHT: A new study, released this week, says that “poor places should avoid committing themselves to rich-world systems of intellectual property rights protection unless such systems are beneficial to their needs.” Rich countries would argue that that is an invitation to piracy. But the report points out that “for most of the 19th century, America provided no copyright protection for foreign authors, arguing that it needed the freedom to copy in order to educate the new nation. Similarly, parts of Europe built their industrial bases by copying the inventions of others, a model which was also followed after the second world war by both South Korea and Taiwan. Today, developing countries do not have the luxury to take their time over IPR.” The Economist 09/13/02

THE PRICE OF ART: Wonder what people earn? The Fort Worth Star-Telegram did a survey of local professionals, including leaders of its arts institutions. While a museum director makes $200,000 and the local opera director $100,000, a principal dancer with the Dallas Fort Worth Ballet takes home $22,000. Fort Worth Star-Telegram 09/12/02

ENGORGED MISTAKE? China’s giant $24 billion Three Gorges dam is about 70 percent complete. “Almost 650,000 people have been moved, some 140,000 of them to other regions of China.” But there have been widespread reports of corruption on the project, and “environmentalists, scientists and archaeologists call the dam an expensive mistake. They say it will wreck the local environment, destroy cultural relics and be an economic drain.” The project is supposed to begin producing power next year. Yahoo! (AP) 09/10/02

Thursday September 12

COLORADO CRUNCH TIME: Colorado Governor Bill Owens swore he would cut the state’s budget across the board, but arts advocates say that this is no time for the guv to eliminate nearly 40% of the state arts board’s budget. Colorado already ranks 46th out 50 states in the U.S. in per capita arts funding, and the cuts would drop the state to 50th, unthinkable for a state with a major (and arts-intensive) metropolitan area such as Denver. Already, Denver-area arts groups are preparing to make drastic cuts in operations, and possibly to shut down altogether. Denver Post 09/12/02

COMMON ART, COMMON LANGUAGE? An Italian scholar claims to have deciphered 30,000-year-old rock drawings and says that “since there are so many visual similarities among prehistoric rock art around the world, it’s likely that a kind of ‘primordial mother language,’ existed as Homo sapiens were getting under way ‘from which all the spoken languages developed’.” Discovery 09/11/02

Wednesday September 11

COMFORT FOOD OR LACK OF IDEAS? Critics and artists seem lately to be focusing on the past. Is it a wave of nostalgia? A search for the comfortably familiar? A turn to conservatism? Some say “audiences are hungering for cultural comfort food in a post-9/11 world. But some cultural critics argue that the trend is symptomatic of a deeper problem: today’s commercial artists have a shallowly cynical view of the world, which drives critics to tout the aesthetic ambitions of the past.” The New York Times 09/11/02

WHAT ART CAN DO: What’s a rational response to something like 9/11? Perhaps art. The urge to want to do something, to not feel useless, to mount a creative response in the face of something so hard to understand… ArtsJournal.com 09/11/02

Tuesday September 10

HAND-ME-DOWN ART: There has been a rash of plagiarism this year, with several high-profile cases in books and music. “But what happens when the plagiarism is inadvertent? Maybe it’s impossible to come up with anything wholly new. That’s the quandary of the postmodern age: In culture, as in matters of the environment, we have to recycle. Certainly it pays to do so.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/10/02

MIAMI DELAY: Miami’s new performing arts center, scheduled to open in the fall of 2004, might have its opening delayed by a year. The project is facing construction delays, and rather than rushing to meet the opening deadline, officials want to take their time. “We want to take time and be fully prepared for the opening. We saw what happened in Philadelphia when the Kimmel Center [for the Performing Arts] opening was rushed to completion. There were a lot of unfavorable reactions that might have been avoided.” Miami Herald 09/07/02

APOLLO PULLS BACK: Harlem’s Apollo Theatre has been enjoying a revival in recent years. The theatre hoped to capitalize on that with plans for a big performing arts complex expansion. But late last week the theatre canceled the plans, and the head of the theatre’s foundation resigned. “Executives of the Apollo Theater Foundation cited the poor economic climate as the reason for delaying the plan, which was still in the early stages. Instead, they said, they would concentrate on a renovation of the theater, which is already under way.” The New York Times 09/10/02

BUILD IT AND WHO WILL COME? After years of dreaming, Chicago is building a new 1,500-seat theatre downtown for the city’s mid-size arts groups. “The 1,500-seat underground theatre now under construction—designed by Thomas Beeby as part of Millennium Park and scheduled to open in November 2003—should fulfill many dreams. Yet, just at this moment of triumph, some insiders are starting to ask, Who exactly is going to use this theatre?” Chicago Magazine 09/09/02

Monday September 9

ENTRY DENIED (OR UNREASONABLY DELAYED): Getting international artists into the US with proper visas has become chaotic and unpredictable. The average wait for a visa is four months, and US presenters can’t count on their artists being able to show up to perform. “A combination of broad-brush regulation and bureaucratic insensitivity has caught many artists and impresarios in a net that was supposed to block out terrorists.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 09/09/02

SCOTS DEBATE ARTS FUNDING: Should funding of culture be one of the Scottish government’s central functions? As the country debates the issue, a new survey asks Scots about their support for funding. It finds that “82 per cent said central government should support the arts, while 96 per cent said cultural activities gave them personal pleasure. The arts enriched the quality of life according to 83 per cent of respondents and a similar proportion said they represented good value for money.” The Scotsman 09/09/02

Sunday September 8

SACRAMENTO SLASH: “California Arts Council officials say the state’s new budget, sealed Thursday with Gov. Gray Davis’ signature, means their agency’s support for artists and arts organizations statewide will drop roughly 40%–from $28 million last year to $16.4 million in the 2002-03 fiscal year… However, the state’s spending plan shelters the largest single recipient of California Arts Council money, the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, which for the last few years has been getting $2 million in state money to support its “tools for tolerance” education program.” Los Angeles Times 09/07/02

SEEKING A FULL PLATE: In 1997, Minnesota introduced a special “Critical Habitat” license plate. For an additional $30, residents get a designer plate for their cars, and the state’s Department of Natural Resources gets the extra cash for its various projects around the state. The program has been wildly successful, with well over a million dollars going to the DNR every year from the plates. So why not try it with the arts? “Let’s say that just 1 percent of the 3.3 million Minnesotans who saw an arts event last year purchased a Critical Arts license plate, and that they renewed that plate annually. That would represent almost a million dollars in new state money every year for the arts. All without raising taxes a nickel.” Saint Paul Pioneer Press 09/08/02

Thursday September 5

THE HEAVY SCOTTISH FOG: This summer’s Edinburgh Fringe was a roaring success. “But art in Edinburgh is a flimsy frock, shucked off on the first of September for sensible tweeds. There will be no more frippery for the next 11 months. When the festival started in 1947, it was hoped that its light would spread around the year and across the nation – a dream that, for half a century, edged rosily towards realisation.” But in the past five years, Scottish arts institutions have fallen apart – and there appears no easy cure. London Evening Standard 09/04/02

PROCEEDING WITH CAUTION: A new performing arts center set to debut in St. Louis next year is going ahead with plans to open on schedule, despite increasing evidence that the money to operate the PAC may not be there. The project, which is on the campus of the University of Missouri at St. Louis, has been known to be in trouble for some time, and consultants have determined that the center will not be able to pay for its own upkeep on a year-to-year basis. The university is hoping that the state government will bail it out to the tune of $1 million a year in operating costs, but there is no indication that the legislature will cooperate. Saint Louis Post Dispatch 09/02/02

Wednesday September 4

ARTISTIC REMOVE: What should be art’s role in remembering 9/11? “Even at the slight remove of a year, we can begin to sense that white- hot mix cooling, settling and taking on deeper colors. If we need journalists to write the first draft of history and historians to interpret and polish, artists are the ones who come along in time to read the story back to us with hues and shades we never quite apprehended.” San Francisco Chronicle 09/04/02

POET TO LEAD GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION: The Guggenheim Foundation has named poet Edward Hirsch as its new president. Guggenheim fellowships, handed out by the foundation, are one of the American art world’s great prizes for artists, scholars and scientists. “This year it awarded $6,750,000 to 184 winners, selected from more than 2,800 applicants.” Hirsch’s appointment is said to be a departure: “I can’t think of any other time when a widely celebrated poet or novelist has taken on this kind of foundation position. It is an important moment in American cultural history.” The New York Times 09/03/02

Tuesday September 3

THE WORLD’S NEW ART CAPITALS: “Driven out by the high rents of cities like Paris and London, and aided by technology and the growing ease of travel, more artists and thinkers are congregating in smaller, far-flung communities around the world. In recent years new kinds of creative laboratories have emerged—in small university towns like Austin, Texas, and Antwerp, Belgium, in the impoverished neighborhoods of Marseilles, France, and Gateshead, England.” Newsweek 09/02/02

• THE NEW JET SET: Here’s where the really hot art is being made – in Tijuana. And Austin. And Kabul. The world’s eight new arts Meccas… Newsweek 09/02/02
• IN THE COMPANY OF KABUL (HEADY STUFF!): Newcastle-Gateshead, in Northern England gets a boost from the Newsweek mention as it bids to become European capital of culture in 2008. “Civic leaders are delighted at joining other ‘funky towns’ on a list which might be described by outsiders as surprising, not to say eccentric.” The Guardian (UK) 09/03/02

LANGUAGE OF ART – NOT BUSINESS: Why must the arts be such a business? Because we treat them that way? “”The language of government policy towards the arts does not recognise their special nature, but treats them as if they were no different from any other economic sector. It is no accident that museums, galleries and theatres are rolled up by government ministers into the one economic/industrial category – ‘the creative industries’. At a single stroke, the one word, the single idea that might have given the arts a distinctive right to exist – ‘creativity’ – has been taken away, democratised (or popularised), generalised to the point of meaninglessness, and awarded to anyone who can string two words or two lines together.” Here’s a list of Commandments to bring art back from the brink of commerce. Spiked 08/29/02

MINORITY OPINION: Should critics belonging to a minority group be expected to have a special response or affinity to art from their “home” culture? “It’s an old dilemma: Minority journalists have long faced pressure to show their loyalty to their ethnic group more than to their profession.” Los Angeles Times 09/01/02

Sunday September 1

ART VS. PROFIT: When exactly did it become an incontrovertible truth that arts organizations should be run like for-profit businesses? Certainly no one would argue that a dose of fiscal sanity and even occasional conservatism is no bad thing in the service of art, but recently, there seems to be a general assumption that art should pay its own way or hit the road. And that, says Peter Dobrin, is a dangerous philosophy. “Marketing teams are now part of the artistic planning process from the inception of an idea, weighing in on whether repertoire will win audiences. No surprise that programming has grown conservative. The spirit of daring at the Opera Company of Philadelphia can’t be heard amid the din of a march from Carmen.” Philadelphia Inquirer 09/01/02

EVERYWHERE YOU WANT TO BE: The stringent post-9/11 restrictions on international travel by foreigners wishing to enter the U.S. have taken their toll on this summer’s biggest arts and music festivals. Dancers from the Bolshoi Ballet, a renowned pianist from Georgia (the country, not the state,) and a popular Celtic folk band were denied visas and had to cancel U.S. performances for reasons which the government declines to explain. Festival administrators are furious, but they appear to have little recourse against a security system which borders on the threatening for anyone who questions its methods. Andante (AP) 08/31/02

Friday August 30

PRECARIOUS PROMOTION: This year’s Edinburgh Festival featured a late-night series of top performers, with tickets going for £5. It was a big success at attracting new audiences. But the experiment won’t be repeated because of the cost. So how do you get people to try the arts? “In Britain – in Scotland – we live in a society where classical music and the arts in general are not an integral part of our lives. They are an add-on, seen by the bulk of our people and our politicians as an over-expensive luxury, and one that most people don’t want. That fact is rooted in our education system. It’s not that the government devalues the arts – to say so might suggest the possibility of a presumption on their part of value in the first instance.” The Herald (Glasgow) 08/30/02

EMPTY WORDS: Last week the head of the Scottish Arts Council spoke a lot of good words about supporting the arts, increasing funding, and making Scotland a place where the arts flourish. But it was all a smokescreen, writes Keith Bruce. Even a cursory glance at what the Council is doing shows a profound lack of ideas and originality. And then there are those funding cuts… The Herald (Glasgow) 08/30/02

Thursday August 29

ENTRY DENIED: American arts festivals have had a bad time this summer getting international artists into the country to perform. Visas have been denied, and entry refused for numerous artists, leaving arts organizations scrambling to find replacement performers at the last minute for top artists who have been denied entry. “I think it must be the worst summer for festivals in decades, if not the worst ever. There is some irony in shutting down the arts at a time when we should be encouraging international cultural exchanges with the long view of understanding other countries.” Denver Post 08/29/02

BUSINESS AS USUAL: Has art and popular culture changed since 9/11? “You think about the atmosphere in the immediate aftermath. It was a chorus of voices declaring, ‘Irony is dead,’ ‘We’ll never laugh again,’ ‘No one is ever going to want to see another violent action movie.’ Well, all those forecasts proved to be wrong.” Dallas Morning News 08/28/02

• FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE? So where are the great works of art capturing the essence of 9/11? “for whatever reason, nothing has appeared in the flood of books, films, songs, and other works about the attacks like Guernica, Picasso’s anguished masterpiece painted in response to the ruinous bombing of a village in his native Spain during civil war in the late 1930s.” Businessweek 08/28/02

FREEZE-DRIED: How do you save artwork and manuscripts that have been submerged in the Czech and German floods? First you freeze them. “Defunct freezer facilities have been reopened across the country and ice-cream sellers have stoically offered up their vans to allow storage of the hundreds of thousands of items that have fallen foul of the flood, whose stench-ridden waters, heavy with heating oil, sewage, thick mud and more besides, surged into the basements, ground and first floors of many of the city’s cultural institutions earlier this month. Nationwide appeals have been made for vacuum chambers, freeze dryers, blotting paper and even boxes. The flood has done more damage to the city than the Nazi and Soviet invasions combined, say old Praguers.” The Guardian (UK) 08/29/02

MAY THE FORCE BE IN YOU: Australia’s census-takers are perplexed that on last year’s census, “0.37 percent of the nation’s population of 19 million, or 70,509 people, had written ‘Jedi’ or a related response to an optional question about their faith when the head count was taken last August.” As Star Wars fans know, “Jedi is a mystical faith followed by some of the central characters in the Star Wars films. The prank began early last year when Star Wars fans circulated an e-mail across Australia saying the government would be forced to recognize Jedi as an official religion if at least 10,000 people named it on the census.” CNN.com 08/28/02

Wednesday August 28

THE INTERNET TICKET SCAM: Some internet ticket-buyers for opera, theatre and ballet shows are being scammed by high tech thieves. “The thieves copy official Web sites of premier venues to almost every detail, including theatre layouts and restaurant information, and constantly update shows. The crucial difference is the scam site has its own credit card booking set-up, so your money goes directly into their account.” Sydney Morning Herald 08/28/02

Tuesday August 27

MASSACHUSETTS CUTS: The Massachusetts Cultural Council has begun cutting programs and staff after seeing its budget cut from $19.1 million to $7.3 million by the state legislature. The arts agency has “cut 11 staff positions and developed a plan to eliminate several of its 12 granting programs for cultural groups.” Boston Herald 08/27/02

THE PROGRAM BOOK PROBLEM: When Performing Arts, publishers of program books for arts groups in the Bay Area, went out of business this summer, it told some clients but didn’t tell others (such as San Francisco Opera). “That left arts groups scrambling for programs for fall shows. As a result, the unforeseen cost for arts group to publish programs could go as high as $60,000 for the coming season.” San Jose Mercury-News 08/27/02

Monday August 26

RAISED PROFILE: The Kennedy Center has long had a high profile. But it has generally been more of a presenter for local residents than a cultural destination for out-of-towners. That may be changing. When Michael Kaiser became president of the Kennedy Center, with its $125 million annual budget, he set a goal of making “the 31-year-old center a cultural destination for people from all over the world rather than merely a place for local residents, and to accomplish this by staging its own productions rather than presenting someone else’s.” The New York Times 08/26/02

CLAP TRAP: Does applause mean anything anymore? In some cities, any performance, no matter how mediocre, is greeted with a standing ovation. In other cities, applause is never more than polite. There was a time when making a terrific noise after a well-executed performance was a sign of an audience’s engagement. Is it anymore? Toronto Star 08/25/02

Sunday August 25

A DOWNTURN – WORSE THINGS AHEAD? It’s been a bad year for SIlicon Valley arts groups. San Jose was at the center of the dotcom boom, and since the the economy went bust, the arts are suffering. The San Jose Symphony went out of business, the fledgling Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley racked up a $2.4 million deficit and almost went under, the San Jose Repertory Theatre pulled a $500,000 shortfall. The San Jose Museum has had to cut back. Most arts groups are in survival mode and cutting back. Some predict it will get worse: “I don’t think last year was the problem. I think this coming year is going to be the problem.” San Jose Mercury News 08/24/02

SLASH AND BURN: Massachusetts’ cuts in its state arts funding of 62 percent from $19.1 million to $7.3 million is “one of the deepest cuts in the country, according to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.” What are the consequences? State arts officials don’t know specifics yet, but “Massachusetts will likely feel its cultural and economic muscles atrophy.” Boston Globe 08/22/02

LETTING DOWN THE SIDE IN EDINBURGH: Scotland’s arts are set up to be orderly, traditional and unchallenging. So what to make of the Edinburgh Fringe? It hardly fits the national character. “Our arts are meant to be unembarrassing, organised and neat – preferably with a beneficial effect on tourism and tweed. They should come only from nice people and should produce a not-unpleasant kind of somnolence. Which means that all these bloody enthusiasts tramping across Edinburgh, subsidising nudity, quality independent films, social comment, intellectual activity and cheap laughs at George Bush’s expense are letting the side down completely.” The Guardian (UK) 08/24/02

Friday August 23

SHRINKING ENDOWMENTS: The shrinking stock market has reduced the value of foundation endowments. “Nine of the 10 largest private foundations’ assets, in the first half of this year, fell by a cumulative $8.3 billion. And that was before the market took a steep dive this summer.” That’s leading some foundations to consider reducing their grants to the arts. ALSO: many arts groups’ endowments have also gone down, reducing the support that can be drawn from them. Backstage 08/22/02

Thursday August 22

ALL OUT WAR: The US government is preparing an assault on digital file traders. “Washington lawmakers have been crafting bills that would give the entertainment industry the go-ahead to identify individual users, disrupt file-trading services and prosecute anyone suspected of digital piracy. The fear and loathing focused at the file-trading community is reminiscent of 1990, just before the Secret Service and the FBI conducted raids in order to smash the loosely affiliated hacker organizations around the country.” Wired 08/22/02

Wednesday August 21

THE COMMERCIAL NONPROFIT: Cleveland’s Playhouse Square, with 10,000 seats, is America’s second-largest performing arts center, after Manhattan’s Lincoln Center. “But it’s also a rare case of a flourishing nonprofit arts foundation that earns its own keep – taking just a smidgen of government aid and private donations.” The secret? The theaters are part of a complex of “nontheater assets, including a hotel and office buildings. The entire package is valued at $124 million, with only $54 million in debt.” The commercial properties help to “pay for the arts and help revitalize a grimy section of the city.” Yahoo! (Forbes) 08/19/02

BROADENING EDINBURGH: The Edinburgh Festival, in contrast with the Fringe Festival, is predictable – catering to a very specific demographic. What would it take to revitalize what is arguably already a pretty terrific festival? Some fresh new venues would help. “It desperately needs to develop a space, a cave, a warehouse, a Roundhouse, a Glasgow Tramway, a Bouffes du Nord – a place that can compete with Fringe venues such as the Pleasance on an equal footing and programme more variously and spontaneously.” The Telegraph (UK) 08/21/02

AFTERBURNERS: It’s almost time for the Burning Man, that annual orgy of art interaction in the Nevade desert. But San Francisco Burners, want to continue the festivities for a few days when they return home.Finding a place to do so is proving difficult. “Between increased police scrutiny, more sound-sensitive neighbors and the difficulty of finding a place cavernous enough to exhibit say, a 40-foot Spanish galleon, fire artists, a forest of 12-foot sculptures and a band or two, many Burners are frustrated at not being able to fully express themselves in their hometown.” San Francisco Chronicle 08/20/02

SYDNEY’S NEW OPERA HOUSE BOSS: The Sydney Opera House is about ready to announce its new director. “The shortlist is believed to include the founder of World Orchestras, Tim Walker, and the acting chief executive of the Opera House, Judith Isherwood.” Sydney Morning Herald 08/21/02

Tuesday August 20

WANTED – CAVE DWELLERS (IT’S FOR ART): Some 150 people have applied to live in a cave for two days as part of an English public art project “which aims to recreate the 18th century fashion, fuelled in part by the poets Alexander Pope and Thomas Gray, for landowners to have a hermit living in some picturesque corner of their estates.
‘We want to explore the nature of solitude and whether that has any resonance to anyone in the 21st century. Within what looks like a bit of fun, people will consider ideas that go back to Rousseau and Pope. It’s a philosophical critique of the world in which we live’.” The Guardian (UK) 08/20/02

Monday August 19

GET ME A COP: Why make a law to ban cell phones in theatres? Because asking nicely hasn’t worked. “The warnings might as well have been in Esperanto, because inevitably, at some point during the first act, a cellphone goes off with its incessant beeps, or worse, with a tinkling rendition of Take Me Out to the Ball Game or the 1812 Overture. Heads are turned in the general direction of the sound, and the tsk-tsks start to drown out the ringing. Sometimes the culprits sheepishly dig deep into their purses, but often the cannier boobs do nothing and look around at their neighbors, just as annoyed as if they were the offender, a strategy no doubt also used when flatulance is the issue.” Hartford Courant 08/18/02

Sunday August 18

A PASSING GENERATION: Ann Landers, Pauline Kael, Mike Royko…a generation of older voices of authority are falling away. “As a group, they personified what one academic calls a media culture of ‘companionship’ versus the current one of confrontation. Part of the advantage these old-school communicators enjoyed in building longevity was a more stable, paternalistic, homogenous structure of media ownership. Just as the old Hollywood studios created brand identity by locking their biggest stars into exclusive multiyear contracts, so other media established continuity by cultivating what was once a relatively limited pool of recognizable names and voices.” Los Angeles Times 08/12/02

SERIAL WINNER: The success of an arts company is not so much dependent on ticket sales as it is on subscription sales. Single ticket buyers do not a successful company make. The father of the subscription package evangelizes: “There is no arts boom, only a subscription boom. Remember, you’re not selling Tupperware. We are colourful, we are glamorous, we are the performing arts! Describe your play on the cover, offer discounts, use such enticements that you can already hear somebody crying, `Martha, where’s my chequebook?'” Toronto Star 08/17/02

CALL-BLOCKING: A proposed law to prohibit cell phones in New York theatres stands a good chance of passing, with city councilors looking likely to pass the law. But cell phone companies are upset. “Members of the cell-phone industry who oppose the bill out of commercial interests and principle expressed incredulity that the bill has been met with this much fanfare.” Wired 08/17/02

Friday August 16

SAVING ART FROM THE WATER: Prague and Dresden are under water and cultural treasures in both cities have been indanger from the water. But it looks like most have been saved. “It looks like we’ve been lucky. We had a lot of warning that the water was coming, so that stuff was moved to higher ground.” BBC 08/16/02

A BAN ON CELL PHONES? A New York councilman has introduced a bill to ban cell phones from public places. “New Yorkers are sick and tired of people on their cell phones in the middle of a play or a movie. It’s distracting, it’s annoying, and as a public nuisance, it should be against the law.” Wired 08/15/02

• Previously: CELLICIDE: Lawmakers in New York and Toronto are considering a ban of cell phones in public performance spaces such as concert halls. “I think there would be an enormous amount of support for banning cell phones in public performances and galleries.” But “how do you enforce the trend among the younger cell phone-savvy generation to share the moment with their loved ones at rock concerts?” Toronto Star 08/15/02

GOING FOR THE ARTS: The Los Angeles School District was going to build a new downtown high school. But, with the encouragement of billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, the district has decided to spend $20 million more and build a school of the arts. “We believe that the arts are a powerful tool for learning. We are proud to play a role in establishing a school of excellence in a community that has endured so many broken promises.” Los Angeles Daily News 08/15/02

UNARTABLE? There is a problem with art about 9/11. “Played to audiences who know what you’re going to say next – and are unable to react naturally if you say anything different – art about that calendar-stopping catastrophe will always struggle to do the two things that are the justification of creative imagination: to expose and to provoke. If there’s a definite problem with art about the event, there may also now be a potential difficulty with art after the event.” The Guardian (UK) 08/16/02

Thursday August 15

CONTEXT OF COMPLAINT (AND PRAISE): Being a critic is much more than reciting a list of observations. “Criticism, in our world, ought to have one purpose: to serve as a catalyst for democratic dialogue. It should not be a mere catalog of opinions. It might express dissatisfaction with the general state of intellectual affairs, or it might gather forces behind an idea or aesthetic mood. But it should always evaluate. That makes politics an essential component. In some fashion, every work of art is an expression of a political stand in society.” Chronicle of Higher Education 08/09/02

CELLICIDE: Lawmakers in New York and Toronto are considering a ban of cell phones in public performance spaces such as concert halls. “I think there would be an enormous amount of support for banning cell phones in public performances and galleries.” But “how do you enforce the trend among the younger cell phone-savvy generation to share the moment with their loved ones at rock concerts?” Toronto Star 08/15/02

PINNING DOWN THE BEAUTY THING: There is beauty in science, certainly. But “is there a science of beauty? Are there equations behind the most beautiful works of art? The consensus has been that this is a hopeless quest… The Age (Melbourne) 08/15/02

Wednesday August 14

CLONING NEW YORK: Over the past several years New York City has been putting together “an immensely detailed, three-dimensional, interactive, constantly updated map of New York City. The digital NYCMap captures the five boroughs down to the square foot, incorporating everything from skyscraper viewing platforms and building floorplans to subway and sewer tubes and ancient faults in the schist below.” How much of the city’s DNA could be collected? Could you even clone it and rebuild elsewhere if some catastrophe were to occur? Village Voice 08/13/02

THE ZEN OF BEING WRONG: Critical writing is not an absolute, suggests Terry Teachout. And critics ought to have enough confidence to change their minds and admit it. “I don’t mean to say that critics should be wishy-washy, but we should also remember that strong emotions sometimes masquerade as their opposite. I also think the world of art would be a better place if we critics made a point of eating crow from time to time.” OpinionJournal 08/14/02

REBRANDING POLAND: Poland is trying to spruce up its image. So it’s doing what any good corporation does these days – attack it as a marketing challenge. It hired the country’s largest ad agency to come up with a new logo. “The year-long effort has produced a playful new emblem, unveiled in Warsaw at the end of July, which its creators hope will vanquish age-old stereotypes and effectively relaunch Poland’s image.” The Poland account execs reprotedly even consulted a Buddhist monk for help in defining the country’s new-look logo. Financial Times 08/13/02

MOB MENTALITY: There’s plenty of bad behavior at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. But it’s coming from the audience, not the performers. “A quick call around my colleagues opened the floodgates of outrage: the man who hummed during the opera; the woman whose mobile phone went off three times in the first half hour, and who then turned it on to vibrate whereupon it beat out a samba rhythm on the floorboards; the parents with the screaming children who didn’t tell them to shut up for an hour. If you are reading, miscreants, hang your heads in shame.” The Times (UK) 08/14/02

Tuesday August 13

THE WAR ON CONSUMERS? The giant recording and movie industries seem to believe that one of America’s biggest priorities ought to be protecting their hold on their respective industries. So what if protecting the status quo may not be in the public’s best interests? “We have the “War on Drugs” and the “War on AIDS” and the “War on Terror” – does this mean we’ll see the “War on File Sharing” as the next great American undertaking with the same effect as these other “Wars” over the years?” The Register 08/12/02

GOING BACK TO HARLEM: “If the Apollo Theater once seemed a down-on-its-luck old music hall that already had seen its brightest days, now it’s shaping up to be a catalyst for a new cultural and touristic rejuvenation in Harlem. This follows on the development spark lit a few years ago that’s already brought new businesses, shopping centers and diverse, more moneyed residents.” Washington Post 08/13/02

Monday August 12

HELP FOR NY ARTISTS: A recovery fund to aid New York artists and arts organizations affected by 9/11 has paid out $4.6 million to 352 Artists and 135 Arts Groups. “The fund received 590 applications from individuals and 191 from organizations. The grants were capped at $10,000 for artists and small businesses and at $50,000 for nonprofit arts organizations. The average grant for individuals was $5,500; for organizations $20,000.” The New York Times 08/12/02

CRITICAL SANDTRAPS: Ah, it’s all so predictable, most arts criticism is. Is it true that most critical writing can be reduced to a couple handfuls of easy formulas? Critic Philip Kennicott offers the top ten most-abused traps for a critic. Washington Post 08/11/02

COME ON, WE’RE REALLY SMART: Are we dumber than ever? “It has been the refrain, for five years and more, of both serious intellectual commentators, normally from the Left, and various uneasy bedfellows from the why-oh-why brigade on the Right, all lined up in a dolorous puddle wringing damp hands at the vacuousness of cultural life in Britain today: the mindless game shows, the action flicks, the moron’s music, the obsession with celebrity trivia, the sham and hype and glitter, the inability to name the prime minister before Margaret Thatcher, let alone the six wives of Henry VIII.” But “we are no dumber, collectively, than we have ever been. We are, in fact, smarter. We have more access to more information than ever before, and we scream for it, and we are starting to scream, too, for quality.” The Observer (UK) 08/11/02

Friday August 9

ART OF BUSINESS: “We like to believe that the best and most interesting artists, even popular artists, make the stories and pictures and music they do because they need to make them, not just because they think they can earn a buck.” And yet, art is big business, and it is naive to believe that business doesn’t dictate much of what an artist does… Public Arts (WCPN) 08/06/02 

Thursday August 8

THE NEW ART? “The terrorist attacks of 9/11 have brought upon us all a realization that conceptual art, incomprehensible ‘l.a.n.g.u.a.g.e p.o.e.t.r.y’, avant-garde performance art, plotless fiction, tuneless music, and inhuman postmodern architecture are not going to be able to deal with the real evil of the world. Only in the great artistic traditions of humankind will we find adequate means of expression. The new movement in the arts, as if it anticipated the need for them, has been busy recovering those traditions. Who are the new classicists?” NewKlassical 08/06/02

L.A. HOLDS ON TO THE ARTS: “The Los Angeles County Arts Commission, largely shielded from county government’s budget crunch, has earmarked $2.27 million in grants for nonprofit cultural groups in 2002-03, a figure just shy of last year’s $2.35 million… The commission’s largest grant went to the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, which will receive $107,730. The orchestra is one of 44 grant-recipient groups with annual budgets over $800,000.” Los Angeles Times 08/08/02

Wednesday August 7

MAKING A SCENE: “People in the arts business are forever talking about ‘scenes,’ as in fashion scene, jazz scene, or gay scene. But it took a sociologist, York University’s Alan Blum, to stop and meditate about what a ‘scene’ really is. As part of the university’s five-year study of urban culture, Culture of Cities, Blum analyzed the idea of a scene in Public magazine last year. It was a revelation for me, once I learned to enjoy the rich, corrugated phrase-making of academic sociology. You know you’re far down this road when locutions like ‘the libidinal circuits of intoxicated sociality’ begin to have the sea-green rhythm of poetry.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 08/07/02

CENSOR’S SENTENCE: “One of Turkey’s most famous film actresses, Lale Mansur, could face a 15-year prison sentence because of her outspoken views on the country’s censorship laws. Mansur, who was Istanbul State Opera’s longest-serving prima ballerina before taking up acting, has already received a suspended five-year sentence under Turkey’s anti-terrorism laws. She now faces new trials, along with several other artists, relating to the publication of books by banned authors.” BBC 08/07/02

Tuesday August 6

THAT WAS BEAUTIFUL: “What is beauty in art and how do we receive and comprehend it? How does it register in a culture that has grown increasingly ironic and skeptical about the images and visions it creates? We tend to believe that the things we find beautiful – a piece of music, a mountain landscape at dawn, Tiger Woods’ golf swing – have an intrinsic worth, an inner, if unmeasurable, verity. We also reserve a pretty healthy measure of distance, a wary, irony-laced mistrust of things that seem too ravishing on the surface.” San Francisco Chronicle 08/06/02

Monday August 5

LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU: “In the future, when anthropologists study the last 100 years, they may refer to it as the Entertainment Era, a time when distraction and diversion reigned supreme. Never before has Homo sapiens consumed such a vast array of cultural products or chased down vicarious experiences with such zealous abandon. The need to escape has never been so inescapable. Is this wired into our brains? Is it a consequence of cultural evolution? Is it a reaction to the demands of modern life?” Toronto Star 08/04/02

Sunday August 4

AND BY ‘STABILITY,’ WE MEAN ‘LOTS OF CASH’: Lincoln Center is the world’s largest performing arts complex, and with great size comes great financial difficulty. The center has been in nearly continuous upheaval for the better part of a decade, but a new president promise to bring stability. More than that, Reynold Levy, who in May became Lincoln Center’s fourth CEO in less than two years, is promising to raise $1 billion in the next decade to help stabilize the complex and fund a massive, and massively controversial, renovation. Andante (AP) 08/04/02

Friday August 2

MASSACHUSETTS CUTS ARTS SPENDING 62 PERCENT: Despite the calls of thousands of arts supporters lobbying their state representatives, the Massachusetts state legislature cut the state’s arts budget from $19.1 million to $7.29 million for fiscal 2003, its lowest level since 1994. The 62 percent cut will wipe out whole categories of programming and funding. Boston Globe 08/02/02

ART WITHOUT THE GOVERNMENT? What would happen if government arts funding simply went away? A panel put together by the Australia Council debated the question this week. “Scenarios ranged from the rise of venture capitalists prepared to invest in the future income stream of artists to the ‘swallowing’of the arts by big business, undignified corporate tussles over naming rights and aggressive branding of artworks.” Sydney Morning Herald 08/02/02

Thursday August 1

THE FUTURE OF FAIR USE: “When Congress brought copyright law into the digital era, in 1998, some in academe were initially heartened by what they saw as compromises that, they hoped, would protect fair use for digital materials. Unfortunately, they were wrong. Recent actions by Congress and the federal courts – and many more all-too-common acts of cowardice by publishers, colleges, developers of search engines, and other concerned parties – have demonstrated that fair use, while not quite dead, is dying. And everyone who reads, writes, sings, does research, or teaches should be up in arms. The real question is why so few people are complaining.” Chronicle of Higher Education 07/29/02

STAYING AWAY: A combination of security concerns, semi-organized boycotts, and plain old fear are leaving Israel nearly devoid of visiting musicians, artists, and scholars. “Many artists have canceled appearances because of concerns about Palestinian suicide bombers who have attacked buses, hotels, restaurants and nightclubs… But many Israelis say that although security concerns are almost always the sole reason given for the cancellations, they believe many people are not coming because they oppose Israel’s actions in the conflict with Palestinians, but do not want to say so publicly.” Washington Post 07/30/02

MEXICO TAKES ON THE US: Mexican culture is flowing into the US. “Over the next two years, and perhaps for a good deal longer, major Mexican art shows will be at American museums almost without interruption. There will also be many smaller shows, along with presentations of Mexican music, theater and dance in modern as well as traditional forms. ‘People who appreciate the culture of a country begin to identify with that country. I think it has a beneficial influence on policy’.” The New York Times 08/01/02

Wednesday July 31

KENNEDY CENTER HONORS: This year’s Kennedy Center Honors have been announced. Chosen are Paul McCartney and Elizabeth Taylor, conductor James Levine, actor James Earl Jones and dancer and actress Chita Rivera. “Now in their 25th year, the Honors are presented by the nation’s performing arts center as a tribute to those who have distinguished themselves in the fields of music, dance, theater, film and television. The honors will be bestowed at a State Department dinner Dec. 7, followed the next night by a Kennedy Center gala.” Washington Post 07/31/02

TAKING ARTS ED FOR GRANTED? Arts education has become an issue treated with the reverence usually reserved for motherhood. Just try getting an arts grant these days without an educational component. But “in some respects, there’s surely too much of the arts in the curriculum today, not too little. Out of anxiety that the next generation doesn’t become totally Disneyfied or football-crazy, we risk over-selling ‘high culture’ to our children. Premature school outings to Tate Modern or Bankside Globe puts more 10-year-olds off Matisse or Shakespeare than turns them on. Far better to let them wander in later, out of their own curiosity – and far better to concentrate resources on low ticket prices and long opening hours.” The Telegraph (UK) 07/31/02

BEWARE OF LABELING: Should plays be rated like movies to warn of content that might be offensive to some viewers? Some are suggesting a return of the theatre censor Britain used to have. Bennedict Nightengale thinks not: “Theatregoers are usually pretty well informed, read reviews, ask questions — and, if they’re frightened by the prospect of Nicole Kidman elegantly divesting in The Blue Room, they give the play a miss. Actually, the job of a theatre vigilante would be virtually impossible, for plays change unpredictably in performance.” The Times 07/31/02

Tuesday July 30

MASSIVE CUTS IN MASSACHUSETTS: “The Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency that has been fighting proposed cuts for months, learned yesterday that it is likely to lose $12 million of its current $19 million budget. The 62 percent cut proposed by Acting Governor Jane Swift will mean cuts across the board in state money to artists, nonprofit institutions, and 335 local cultural councils… The cultural council is the largest source of state funds to the arts.” Boston Globe 07/30/02

ARGENTINA’S GREAT DEPRESSION: “As Argentina struggles to survive a four-year economic calamity that in statistical terms is now the equivalent of the Great Depression in the United States, the impact on the nation’s cultural life is felt in every way and at every level. Cultural producers are not only scrambling to try to do more with less, they are being forced to rethink the role, function and nature of culture in Argentine society.” The New York Times 07/30/02

SUMMER FEST: This summer there are a record number of arts festivals across America. There are “3,000, drawing an audience estimated at up to 130 million and accounting, by industry estimates, for close to $2 billion in spending. With the number of arts festivals nearly doubling, by some accounts, since the mid-90’s, the festivals have changed the ways Americans consume culture.” The New York Times 07/30/02

THE VISA PROBLEM: Getting visas for foreign artists to come into the US to perform has become tougher. Visas are delayed, or in some cases denied, “sometimes for reasons that are understandable and sometimes for reasons that seem arbitrary. Among the artists denied entry were 10 of the 28 members of an Iranian troupe that performed at Lincoln Center Festival 2002 this month, and most recently a Yugoslav pianist with a recording on EMI Classics to his credit and a recommendation from the conductor Christoph Eschenbach in his file.” The New York Times 07/30/02

Monday July 29

HACK ATTACK: A proposed new bill in the US Congress that would allow copyright holders to hack into the computers of file-traders, is a scary turn of events. Many “fear that approval of the bill could result in a multitude of clumsy and ill-conceived ‘hack’ attacks that could have widespread, system-damaging effects on both file traders and those who have never downloaded a single song from a file-trading server.” Wired 07/29/02

THE PRICE OF ART: America’s National Endowment for the Arts got a budget boost when Congress recently voted a $10 million raise. The NEA has become a non-issue for funding. “Now the endowments play it safe, mostly channeling money into museums, schools and other mainstream institutions that are more interested in fostering knowledge and appreciation of art and literature than in subsidizing individual artists and writers. This is progress, as it brings us considerably closer to a proper governmental relationship to art and literature in a representative democracy that stands for freedom of expression rather than state-sanctioned (and state-controlled) expression. But the question of subsidy just won’t go away.” Washington Post 07/29/02

Friday July 26

INVEST HERE: How curious that in tough economic times that governments propose cutting arts spending. Such spending isn’t a handout, it’s investment in a multi-billion-dollar industry. A study commissioned by Americans for the Arts quantifies the economic return – an investment of one dollar in the arts returns $8. “When governments consider reducing their support for the arts, as is the case with the proposed cut to the California Arts Council, they are not cutting frills. They are undercutting a nonprofit industry that is a cornerstone of tourism, economic development and the revitalization of many downtowns.” San Diego Union-Tribune 07/26/02

IDEA ECONOMY: The battle over intellectual property rights is heating up as one of the most important issues of the day. On one side are established industries seeking to protect their power bases. On the other side are those looking to build on existing ideas, processes and products. “One wonders – when we have copyright laws that provide protection for the life of the author or creator plus an additional 70 years – how much incentivizing (of other creative talent in the same field) is going on when that person has been dead and buried … for several decades.” Nando Times (AP) 07/26/02

Thursday July 25

OHIO CUTS ARTS FUNDING: Ohio joined the list of American state arts agencies taking big cuts in their budgets. “Broad state cutbacks forced the council to lower its projected 2003 budget from $15.7 million to $13.3 million. The council already had had its budget reduced by 6 percent last October.” The Plain Dealer 07/25/02

FILLING UP THE MIDDLE: Boston has some major performing arts halls. But there’s a gap for those performers who can’t draw enough to fill Symphony Hall but are two big for smaller venues. So a private developer is building a new four-hall complex for mid-size groups. The largest theatre in the $65-70 million project will have 800-1000 seats. It’s to open in 2005. Boston Globe 07/25/02

Wednesday July 24

GETTING A BOOST: The British government has come through with an unexpected £5.2 million of funding for 49 of the country’s top “non-national museums and galleries.” The funding comes from the UK’s Designated Museum Challenge Fund, “created in 1999 to promote collections of national and international importance.” BBC 07/24/02

ART AS RESEARCH: A new British government reports says the arts and humanities should be funded in the same way that science and medical research is. “The arts and humanities field is of increasing economic significance, with growth in the creative industries being three times faster than the economy as a whole. ‘The move to the office of science and technology will also further the contribution we are already making to the intellectual, cultural, creative and economic life of the nation, and provide a coherent and much-needed route from the arts and humanities community to government policy making’.” The Guardian (UK) 07/23/02

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO CRITICS? Set aside The New York Times and a few other national outlets which still have some dedication to traditional arts criticism, and there is a startling lack of intelligent media discussion on the arts these days. Full-time critics are increasingly rare at America’s daily newspapers, and even cities known for their strong support of the arts find themselves stuck with capsule reviews, thumbs-up-thumbs-down assessments of complex performances, uninformed reviewers, and general media laziness. But does the blame for the dumbing down lie with reviewers, media conglomerates, or thin-skinned artists themselves? Word of Mouth (Minnesota Public Radio) 06/02 [RealAudio plug-in required]

• YOU MEAN CRITICS DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING? 18 U.S. journalists are going back to school next fall, courtesy of a McKnight Foundation grant. What’s the point? Well, for one Midwest music writer, the value of academic study is obvious – it might just make him a better critic. “I need to get better as a writer… I need to figure out a way to do it differently–in terms of describing music, or referencing music.” The grants allow the journalists to spend a year studying whatever they want, regardless of whether their chosen course of study directly impacts their area of expertise, and forbids them from writing for publication during that time. City Pages (Minneapolis/Saint Paul) 07/24/02

THE POETS KNOW: Composer John Cage once dedicated a book to “us and those who hate us, that the USA may become just another part of the world, no more, no less.” Since 9/11, America has at times come close to fulfilling Cage’s wish, but has mainly devolved into its usual bullying tactics in Afghanistan and beyond. Artists and poets have been among the small number willing to criticise the U.S. actions, and they have largely been shouted down or decried as unpatriotic. Has the post-9/11 world begun to stifle creativity, or is the current wave of ultra-nationalism just one more bump on the road of American artistic freedom? The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 07/24/02

A SENSE OF PROGRESS: Why are so many people resistant to new experimental art? “In a world where experience is increasingly fragmented and isolated, art points to the unbreakable chain of human creativity, and refuses to make islands of separation out of past, present and future. New work is new energy, and we need new energy, not least to understand what we have already achieved.” The Times (UK) 07/24/02

Tuesday July 23

THE IRRELEVANT NEWSPAPERS: For three weeks the newspapers in Vancouver Canada have been on strike. Last time there was a strike – in 1978 – it was a disaster for the local arts community. “Ticket sales plummeted, seasons curtailed, staff reduced to handing out flyers on Granville Street, huddled in doorways like Jehovah’s Witnesses. This time, arts groups hardly notice the papers are gone. Certianly part of the reason is that there are so many other sources of news. But it also “comes down to the fact that both Vancouver dailies have been cutting back on arts coverage for years (along with city hall and other time-consuming local beats), judging it more cost-efficient to publish press releases of Hollywood films, wire-service photos of female breasts, and hotel interviews in which Jamie Portman sucks up to the star du jour. Having of necessity turned to other media with their message, local artists no longer live or die at the whim of some underpaid ‘critic’ who would rather be covering sports or restaurants or, well, anything really.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/23/02

Monday July 22

THE LATEST IN SUPERPAC: Dallas has unveiled plans for a new $250 million performing arts center. “The complex, adjacent to the Meyerson Symphony Center in the downtown Dallas Arts District, is scheduled to open in November 2007. One building will house the Dallas Theater Center in an adaptable 700- to 800-seat facility to be built directly east of the Meyerson. Across the street, a second building will contain a 2,400-seat opera house that will provide a new home for the Dallas Opera and the Dallas season of the Fort Worth Dallas Ballet.” Fort Worth Star-Telegrapm 07/21/02

WHAT’S THE PROGRAM? With the demise of Stagebill, Playbill has a virtual monopoly on the concert/theatre program business in many American cities. “Insiders say that some arts organizations are already reporting that Playbill is suggesting new or different terms and that the idea of forming an arts consortium to look at other publishing options was floated. It’s an exciting possibility – a program company run and operated by arts organizations — but the time constraint of being ready for the upcoming season will most likely put it on the back burner temporarily.” Washington Post 07/21/02

CULTURE SERVED UP COLD? Cultural diversity is an orthodoxy commonly preached these days. But is it a policy that deadens art? “The essence of cultural diversity, as preached by government and these organisations is ‘respect’ for other voices, different points of view and self-expression. We are exhorted to listen to other voices in every discussion on diversity but never to judge them. The rhetoric of diversity deems every cultural form of worth, not because of a quality intrinsic to it, but for the sake of it. This phoney respect is not earned, but derived from an external formula distinct from culture. All too often, the praise and endorsement of other cultures expresses itself alongside a total ignorance of them. This is why, despite much talk of diversity, champions of it tend to sound the same and the exhibits or productions seem to merge. We are being fed a formula for indifference.” The Art Newspaper 07/20/02

CURSE OF THE ADJUNCT PROFESSOR: “There once was an unwritten deal. If you were smart and willing to devote up to 10 of your most productive years studying for a doctorate, certain things would likely happen. A college or university somewhere would hire you. And if you did well there, there was a full-time tenured job in your future. The money wouldn’t be great, but you’d be part of an academic community. You’d do research in your field. You’d live a life of the mind. Then the deal changed. Critics call it the corporatization of higher ed. Colleges prefer to call it a shift toward greater efficiency.” Washington Post 07/21/02

Sunday July 21

WHY NOT CLEVELAND? Cities from San Francisco to Seattle to Boston have proven that the arts are an investment that comes back to reward the larger economic climate of a region handsomely. So why are some cities so hopelessly unable to master the concept? In Cleveland, arts advocates are struggling with old attitudes and embarrasingly transparent ploys. “Many of the city’s students and young workers can’t develop careers here because Cleveland’s dull image doesn’t attract enough activity in their chosen fields. Isolated neighborhoods and marooned campuses discourage their efforts to form collaborations and a sense of community. Worse, perhaps, some of Cleveland’s attempts to make itself enticing are so outmoded that hip, in-demand workers are writing the city off as clueless.” The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 07/21/02

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE: A furious collection of Toronto artists, musicians, and community activists gathered in protest this week in an effort to shut down Presto, a “new, all-ages punk-rock and hip-hop club and gallery.” What’s the problem? It seems that the club is not a club at all, but an elaborate PR campaign by those kings of the Swoosh™ at Nike. The club, which opened this summer, was apparently intended to drum up attention for the company’s newest line of sportswear, become one of the hottest night spots in Toronto, and then vanish mysteriously this August. Nike says it wasn’t trying to fool anyone, but the folks who were fooled anyway aren’t taking it lying down. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 07/20/02

DIVERSITY COMES TO THE UK: Most Americans probably imagine Great Britain to be about as racially diverse as, say, North Dakota. But the truth is that the UK has never lacked diversity, only the desire to celebrate it. Recently, however, there has been an explosion of high-profile films and exhibits from minority artists in the country. “Why this interracial outpouring in the arts? Perhaps because the whole meaning of Britishness is being reconstructed by younger, less tradition-bound thinkers, artists, writers and politicians. Their perspective is more cosmopolitan, more global, and they’re eager to show it.” The New York Times 07/21/02

Friday July 19

SNOB APPEAL: Joseph Epstein traces the roots of snobbery in America in his new book. “The phenomenon, he argues, was more or less nonexistent before the early 19th century, despite the proliferation of kings and dukes all over the map. Snobbery feeds on social uncertainty, and in a rigidly organized society with clear and mostly hereditary class distinctions, no one could hope for upward mobility or fear the loss of status failure.” Salon 07/18/02

BUZZING THE BUZZWORDS: “Two keywords – innovation and challenge – dominate the discussion of contemporary art the world over. But both shy away from the real issue. The big question is this: what makes a work of art really good – really profound, beautiful, moving, serious? Instead of directly addressing this great issue, there is a tendency to concentrate on secondary matters. Like whether what the artist is doing has been done before or whether it stands in opposition to what is taken to be popular belief. It’s not that innovation and challenge are in themselves bad. It’s just that they don’t make much headway in helping us to understand how art can matter to us.” The Age (Melbourne) 07/19/02

HOW TO RAISE YOUR PROPERTY VALUES: Lowell is one of those small, secondary New England cities struggling in the shadow of Boston, and, as such, it sometimes finds itself with a hard sell in convincing artists to migrate to its downtown. “It’s an old story: Artists move into run-down but affordable neighborhoods, set up studios in old warehouses, and inject new life into the streets. They plant the seeds of gentrification, then get priced out.” But Lowell is making a concerted push to get and keep artists, and buck the trend of the revolving art door. Boston Globe 07/19/02

BUYING REJECTION: Some very big publishers and recording companies are selling writers and composers the “opportunity” to be considered for publication by professional editors and producers. Wait – isn’t that the job of editors and producers to look at new material? “I guess this is an improvement over the Famous Writer’s School and Famous Artist’s School of my childhood,” writes Kurt Andersen, but surely it’s just a setup for rejection. Public Arts 07/18/02

Thursday July 18

HOUSE VOTES NEA INCREASE: The US House of Representatives voted an increase in the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts Wednesday. “In a 234-192 vote, the House agreed to increase the NEA budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 by $10 million, to $126 million. The same amendment to a spending bill for public lands programs and cultural agencies boosted funds for the National Endowment for the Humanities by $5 million to $131 million.” Nando Times (AP) 07/17/02

BILBAO-ON-HIDSON CHOOSES DIRECTOR: Jonathan Levi has been chosen as director of the new $62 million Bard Performing Arts Center. The center, designed by Frank Gehry, “is to be completed in January and open in April as a home for music, theater and dance. The building’s two theaters will be used both for academic purposes and as a public space for international cultural events. Like the Guggenheim Museum that Mr. Gehry designed in Bilbao, Spain, the Bard center is highly distinctive with a series of low-lying steel canopies that look like large, overlapping ribbons.” The New York Times 07/18/02

Tuesday July 16

BUMPING UP CULTURE: The British government propses to give arts and culture a funding increase of £75 million next year. Along with the funding came a pledge to “maintain free access to Britain’s national museums, saying attendance at museums had risen by 75% since the government abolished entry fees last year.” Under the proposal, “funding to culture, media, sport and tourism would rise from £1.3bn in 2002 to £1.6bn by 2006.” BBC 07/15/02

CULTURE? IT’S JUST CULTURE… The battle between “high” and “low” culture has been raging for some time. But is anyone paying attention anymore? ?The curious thing about this conflict – a savage, no-holds-barred struggle to anyone professionally caught up in it – is that nine-tenths of the population barely know that it exists. Pavarotti and Puccini, the Beatles and So Solid Crew – it is all simply ‘music’ to the specimen radio browser or megastore CD rack sifter. The vast cultural chasm that supposedly exists between a Tchaikovsky symphony and Andrew Lloyd Webber is a matter only for the arts police.” New Statesman 07/15/02

CLICK TO LEARN: It’s called Net thinking. “a form of reasoning that characterizes many students who are growing up with the Internet as their primary, and in some cases, sole source of research. Ask teachers and they’ll tell you: Among all the influences that shape young thinking skills, computer technology is the biggest one. Students’ first recourse for any kind of information is the Web. It’s absolutely automatic. Good? Bad? Who knows?” Washington Post 07/16/02

OUT IN THE COLD: As the state of Connecticut declares a budget crisis, some small arts groups are getting the bad news that their state funding has been zeroed out. Some of those left out are award-winning and have been funded for years. “There’s a chilling effect when a national or state arts agency deems your group is not worthy of financial support. More than just the dollars, the awarding of a grant – however modest – says the group deserves help from the community and others should follow suit. When the state dismisses an organization’s grant request, it gives others permission to do so.” Hartford Courant 07/14/02

Sunday July 14

RECONCILING ELITISM AND EQUALITY: “High culture is seen by some as the product of a hidebound establishment bent on excluding outsiders… Can people of left-liberal political sympathies believe that high culture has special and superior value which justifies state support for theatre and grand opera, but not for pop concerts or darts competitions? On the face of it the answer is surely ‘Yes’; even if, after the characteristic British manner, left-leaning votaries of high culture… occasionally mask their interest under an appearance of irony, given the risk that such interests run of being branded affected or pretentious. The Guardian (UK) 07/13/02

A ONCE-DIVIDED ARTS SCENE GELS NICELY: Berlin is like no other city on Earth, in that it spent 50 years divided squarely in two, then attempted to readapt to existing as a single entity. That kind of dichotomy can make or break any attempt at a coherant arts scene. “This is today’s Berlin: a mix of old Disneyfication, new construction and eager renovation. And, tucked into any corners still waiting to find a place within that mix, a burgeoning world of contemporary creativity that makes the city one of the most dynamic art centers on the planet and a magnet for outsiders.” Washington Post 07/14/02

TWIN ARTS PHILOSOPHIES: How to support the arts in a time of fiscal downswing is a challenge faced by elected officials across the country. In the Twin Cities, two rookie mayors are taking decidedly different routes towards maintaining the area’s well-known commitment to arts funding. In Minneapolis, Democrat R.T. Rybak is offering mostly lip service, and a promise that money will flow when the city’s coffers are replenished. Over in Saint Paul, Republican Randy Kelly swears he can pay for the arts and still balance the budget, but some of his promises have gotten him in trouble when the cash wasn’t forthcoming. The Star Tribune (Minneapolis) 07/14/02

BE A BOARD MEMBER FOR FUN AND PROFIT: Time was when a seat on the board of a major cultural institution was really nothing but a prestige position awarded to those rich and well-connected enough to get offered that sort of thing. “But times are changing. Brash newcomers, who owe their seats to a growing public demand for representativeness and transparency, are beginning to take their places beside the old money around the oak tables at the RSC, the British Museum or the National Gallery.” The Observer (UK) 07/14/02

GONE NATIVE: The arts world and the larger capitalistic society understandably view one another with skepticism, and sometimes outright hostlity, and the best way to make an artist nervous is to put a businessman in charge of his fiscal affairs. Such was the case when Gerry Robinson was persuaded to take on the leadership of the Arts Council of England, with the hope being that he could use his business savvy to streamline the council’s operations. Four years in, Robinson has done just that, but the council appears to have had as much impact on him as he has had on it: “Like many arts ministers and Arts Council chairmen before him, Robinson has gone native, and is quite prepared to admit the fact. He now talks the arts talk with total conviction, effortlessly embracing both the social importance of the arts… and the pursuit of excellence.” Financial Times 07/12/02

Thursday July 11

ILL AT EASE WITH THE ARTS: It’s time for Britain’s Labour government to announce its support for the arts. But “New Labour has never been publicly at ease with the arts. Tony Blair may be an occasional theatre-goer, but the philosophy and practice of Blairism have little real place for the arts as such. Predisposed as they are (or were, until the 2002 budget) to American rather than European models of the role of government, senior Labour ministers have an intellectual aversion to arts spending. But their suspicion of the arts is also more visceral. The New Labour coalition was built on tabloid tastes. Marginalising the arts, like marginalising civil liberty, is a price New Labour remains instinctively willing to pay to court public approval from the tabloid editors.” The Guardian (UK) 07/12/02

WHAT AILS US: Britain’s arts seem caught in mismanagement and lack of creative direction. “The despondency that developed throughout the arts world after 20 years of starvation funding means that we have become too timid and defensive to subject ourselves to muscular public self-criticism. We are afraid to speak frankly and openly about the inadequacies of our major cultural institutions. We fear that if we burn down the opera houses, we will be left with nothing but a smouldering pile of ash. Yet what need is there for artists to demolish the major cultural institutions when we have the media to do it for us?” The Guardian (UK) 07/12/02

HOBBLED BY HISTORY: New York’s famous literary landmark Algonquin Hotel has got its third set of owners in 15 years. “The Algonquin, of course, is the dowager queen of West 44th Street, more storied than any other theater-district hotel. But if the new owners are to succeed where its other eager buyers have failed in making the Algonquin a player in the luxury-hotel market, they’ve got to resolve the same dilemma that has proved insoluble to its previous modern-day owners: how to give the old hotel a new profile without alienating the old guard of returning guests entranced by the Algonquin’s place in the intellectual history of the city?” New York Observer 07/11/02

Wednesday July 10

CULTURAL DISCONNECT: San Jose, whose symphony orchestra recently went out of business, is not served well by cultural institutions, though there is broad support for the arts, says a new survey. The study reported that “95 percent of Silicon Valley residents believe artistic creativity is so vital that art should be taught in school at least an hour a week, and yet 38 percent of local parents say their children get no arts instruction at all. And while 80 percent of residents have attended a live performance in the past year and 60 percent have visited a museum, 53 percent rated the area `poor’ or `fair’ as a place to attend concerts or museums.” San Jose Mercury News 07/09/02

ANOTHER 9/11 CASUALTY: At a time when appreciating other world views might be important in America, arts presenters are finding that getting visas for international artists to enter the US is getting more difficult. Village Voice 07/09/02

TIME TO WONDER: Are today’s overprogrammed kids losing their creativity? With little free time and more and more planned activities, today’s kids don’t have time to let their imaginations wander. “Today’s youths don’t play creatively, can’t make decisions for themselves, and, thanks to technology, are lazy, impatient and get frustrated easily, critics say.” The Star-Tribune (Cox) (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 07/10/02

ART AS BRANDING EXPERIENCE: Increasingly, corporations are coming up with ideas for art, then funding them, often through arts organizations. “This is sponsorship, but not as we know it. Instead of waiting for an arts organisation to have a good idea and patronising it, these sponsors are generating ideas of their own – and putting their names up front in lights. In today’s uncompromising business climate, there is little cash for philanthropy. Arts sponsorship is being moved from ‘charity’ to ‘marketing’. A warm fuzzy feeling isn’t enough; today’s executives need concrete results.” The Scotsman 09/10/02

Tuesday July 9

RETHINKING LINCOLN CENTER? Bruce Crawford is taking over as president of Lincoln Center, and one of his first pronouncements is that the center’s redevlopment plan – which carries an estimated budget of $1.2 billion – may need to be rethought. “The scope of the campaign needs to be decided, and it needs to be based on more than hope. What would we like to do, and what can realistically be done? We need to address that issue, and we will.” The New York Times 07/09/02

Monday July 8

BASICS VS. CREATIVITY: A new report charges that the British government’s emphasis on basics and testing in schools comes at the expense of teaching the arts. “Music teaching gets an average of 45 minutes a week – and in some schools just half an hour – religious education, history and geography just short of an hour, and art and design and technology just over an hour.” The Guardian (UK) 07/05/02

DEAF AND THE ARTS: Some 400 deaf artists are participating in an international arts festival in Washington DC devoted to art by the hearing-impaired. “The weeklong extravaganza is said to be the largest event in any country devoted to deaf issues and the arts. More than 8,500 people from 108 countries have registered, and organizers are expecting hundreds more.” The New York Times 07/08/02

• WHY A FESTIVAL: “There is a separatism. Deaf people can be reluctant to let hearing people into their world. And a lot of hearing people don’t know anything about us. There’s a perception that it’s a disability, ‘Poor you’.” Washington Post 07/08/02

A CONFUSING TIME: Connecticut arts groups are feeling schizophrenic. On one hand, some ambitious big-ticket arts building projects are underway. On the other hand, funding is down, and the economic downturn is a threat. “How should they react? With less programming? Higher ticket prices? Should they hunker down, water down and pander to what they think is their audience? Will we see more mediocre, less adventuresome art? Or will we see programming that braves conservative forces and dares to excite and re-energize a community? Will they be rising stars or pale moons going around and around the same old orbit?” Hartford Courant 07/07/02

Sunday July 7

PRICED OUT OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD: No one gets into poetry for the money. In fact, many consider poverty to be an essential part of poetic inspiration. So when poets and other artists begin moving out of your city in droves, it’s possible that you have a bit of a cost-of-living problem. Yes, Chicago, we’re looking at you. Chicago Tribune 07/06/02

NEXT, THEY’LL TRY TO BAN WINE FROM FRANCE: The Italian Futurists of the early 20th century were easily one of the most amusing philosophical movements of the last 200 years. Given to sweeping pronouncements and outlandish predictions about what the coming epoch would bring, Futurists also had a habit of calling for the destruction of beloved aspects of Italian society, such as gondolas, opera, and Venice. But their most daring attack on civil society may have been the day they tried to abolish pasta. The Telegraph (UK) 07/06/02

Friday July 5

FREE TO BE: The idea of “open source,” as practiced by some in the software world, is spilling over into the physical world, with some new products giving away “proprietary secrets.” “In a world of growing opposition to corporate power, restrictive intellectual property rights and globalisation, open source is emerging as a possible alternative, a potentially potent means of fighting back. And you’re helping to test its value right now.” Alternet.org 07/01/02

Thursday July 4

A REMARKABLE IMMIGRATION: A new book pays tribute to the cultural accomplishments by the wave of Jews immigrating to Britain in the 1930s. “When 55,000 of them came to the United Kingdom in the 1930s, driven from their homes and universities, their art galleries and concert halls, they immeasurably enriched the cultural life of this country and, in music, opera, dance, literature, mathematics, science, architecture and the history and connoisseurship of the visual arts we owe them a largely unacknowledged debt.” But, asks Brian Sewell, where is the sense of passion that such a book ought to convey? London Evening Standard 07/01/02

Wednesday July 3

WHY ARTISTS? Why do we hold artists to be special? “The vast majority of artists will never be famous. Many will achieve limited, parochial renown to be all but forgotten by posterity, except maybe for family members, art society types, dedicated collectors, traditionalist dealers, local or national art history chroniclers: all strictly small-time. The condition for most artists will remain relative anonymity and obscurity, but I stress the word ‘relative’ here: being known and respected in a local community carries its own weight, however insignificant against the wider international benchmark. But then, why dwell on artists anyway? What makes them so special compared to ‘ordinary’ humans?” *spark-online 07/02

Tuesday July 2

WHO GIVES TO THE ARTS: New studies show that Americans’ contributions to non-profits was flat last year. “On the upside, arts and culture giving by American foundations climbed to nearly $3.7 billion in 2000, more than double the $1.8 billion recorded for 1996. Adjusted for inflation, this is an 83% overall increase – an average of 16.3% annually. Arts giving by U.S. foundations slightly outpaced the giving in all fields during this period.” Backstage 07/01/02

WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM… Performing Arts, the program magazine handed out at 40-50 major California performance venues statewide, including the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson theaters, the Hollywood Bowl, Pasadena Playhouse, and Orange County Center for the Performing Arts has folded. It was a victim of the takeover of Stagebill by Playbill last month. Theaters in New York, Chicago and other cities that used Stagebill are scambling to decide on new program book services. “In light of the changes, representatives of performing arts venues from around the country are organizing a July 8 meeting in New York to discuss their options, including self-publishing or negotiating new contracts with other publishers.” Los Angeles Times 07/02/02

WE DECLARE A THUMB WAR: What happened to the culture wars? There’s as much offensive culture out there as there has been. “Whatever happened to the age-old culture spaz-out that’s been a staple of pop since Elvis learned to undulate in the ’50s? The tango between stars and their exasperated detractors has followed a clear pattern: The artists allegedly push the boundaries of taste and the critics splutter, usually to the benefit of the artists, who get tagged as controversial, which invariably stirs sales.” But nothing – despite some high-level provocations… Washington Post 07/02/02

CULTURE – AN ESSENTIAL INDUSTRY: In Korea “it has been strongly argued that the culture industry should be made a key industry of state. With regard to this, the government has considered culture technology a core technology for state development and, subsequently, published a comprehensive plan for developing skillful workers related to the culture industry. As a result, the share of the culture industry budget of the total budget of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism increased rapidly from about 3 percent in 1998 to 16 percent in 2002.” Korea Herald 07/02/02

COMP THIS: What do Korea’s culture consumers look like? A survey says most Koreans are not in the habit of buying tickets to events. “Among the respondents, 61.2 percent said they asked their friends to buy the tickets for them or went to the performance because they had free invitations. Only 13.6 percent of respondents said they purchased the tickets at the ticket box office whereas 10.6 percent bought the tickets at designated reservation centers.” Korea Herald 07/02/02

Monday July 1

THE GREAT AMERICAN… “What is the Great American novel/play/ song/idea/movie/TV series?” Chicago Tribune critics take a whack at naming the best of the best. “Take your pick – and take cover. We like the notion of choosing a single work, from the multiplicity of created works that surround us, and anointing it as the best reflection of who and what we really are.” Chicago Tribune 06/30/02

A MATTER OF DEDICATION: Sacramento has a growing arts scene. And yet, the city never seems to quite be able to pay for the arts it has. So some are suggesting a new city arts-dedicated tax that would provide significant stable funding for the arts. Any takers? Sacramento Bee 07/01/02

Friday June 28

WRONG NUMBER: Few things get audiences (or performers) more ticked off than cell phones ringing during performances. Now Japanese scientists have come up with a possible solution. “They have developed a wood that is filled with magnetic particles which can block phone signals and could be used to make theatre doors and walls. The magnetic wood effectively blocks the microwave signals, rendering the phones useless and stopping almost any chance of ringtones ruining the performance.” London Evening Standard 06/25/02

I JUST CALLED… On the other hand, young pop music fans consider cell phones standard equipment at concerts. “Mobile phones have quickly become a popular concert accessory. Fans call friends to brag about the show and hold up their phones so others can hear a favorite song.” Nando Times (AP) 06/28/02

Thursday June 27

NO MONEY WHERE THE MOUTH IS: When the San Jose Symphony went bankrupt this spring, city officials were quick to verbally reaffirm San Jose’s commitment to the arts. But this week, the city council slashed the city’s already meager arts funding by nearly 20%. San Jose Mercury News 06/27/02

Wednesday June 26

BETTER THAN NOTHING: Even as other cities slashed and burned funding in the 1990s, New York held firm with a serious financial commitment to the arts. But post-9/11, with a budget crisis looming, new mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a devastating 15% cut in such funding, prompting much protest from the groups to be affected. Six months later, the cuts have been much reduced, and the result is one with which New York arts groups seem prepared to live. The New York Times 06/26/02

Tuesday June 25

A BETTER WAY TO SUPPORT THE ARTS? “When I contemplate the Canada Council, which isn’t often, I wonder: What if it didn’t exist? What would life in Canada be like? Would people not write poems and novels? Would painters not paint, would dancers not dance? For their part, would Canadians not take an interest in other Canadians? Would CanCult itself not exist? Just for fun, contemplate for a moment what might happen if we switched from an arts grant system to an arts credit system: a situation in which public support went, not to the producer, but to the consumer of Canadian arts.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/25/02

LONG OVERDUE INVESTMENTS: Finally Toronto is going to see some major investment in its cultural infrastructure. It’s about time. “While American cities were investing in infrastructure throughout the boom years of the 1980s and late 1990s, Toronto remained devoid of any notable major projects. The saga of the opera house kept stalling, and arts funding was sent to the guillotine during Mike Harris’s Common Sense Revolution.” National Post (Canada) 06/23/02

HELPING OUT DOWNTOWN: A new report proposes a series of measures to assist artists and cultural groups in Lower Manhattan. “In addition to tax and real estate allowances, the report also proposes designating downtown Manhattan as a cultural zone, which would include the commissioning of public art and the sponsorship of public performances.” New York Daily News 06/24/02

Monday June 24

THE FUTURE OF INNOVATION: Should people have the right to control intellectual property? Should corporations? Is it good for society? For innovation? Author Lawrence Lessig proposes that for innovation to continue, a “creative commons” ought to allow for the free flow of ideas. Reason 06/02

Sunday June 23

GOTTA LOVE THOSE GAYS AND BOHEMIANS: A new study sure to make Jerry Falwell cringe suggests that cities with high populations of “gays and bohemians (artistically creative people)” are more likely to thrive economically than those populated by, presumably, straights and dullards. The study focused on the economic impact of the “creative class” on large American metropolises. The Star Tribune (Minneapolis) 06/23/02

Friday June 21

FIXING COVENT GARDEN: Covent Garden chief Tony Hall on addressing the Opera House’s biggest problems – high ticket prices and limited audiences: “I’ve tried to address price through the 50 per cent rule, that is, half the tickets in the house now cost £50 or less, every night. As for capacity, the house only holds 2200 people. One way to bring the ballet and opera from inside to out – and thus to much wider audiences – lies in the power of the screen, both big and small. We relayed Romeo and Juliet to the piazza in Covent Garden, to about 3000 people there, but – here is the new bit – last month we took it by satellite to Victoria Park [in East London]. It’s a poor area, needs revitalising.” Sydney Morning Herald 06/21/02

INVERNESS PLANNING CULTURAL QUARTER: The Scottish city of Inverness is trying to be named Cultural Capital of Europe for 2008. In an attempt to woo the title, the city has announced a £20 million plan for a new cultural quarter. “The cultural quarter is a place that could inspire creativity and inspiration that would lead to the regeneration of the riverside of Inverness and ultimately contribute to the growth and status of Inverness and the Highlands as a whole.” The Scotsman 06/21/02

SO FUNNY, EVEN MY CATS LAUGHED (REALLY): So you think TV and movie critics sit around trying to think up clever little quotes so they can see themselves blurbed in big letters in ads? Hmnnn… “In writing columns and reviews, getting quoted is never my agenda. Nope, not on my radar screen. No ego here. I have too much integrity for that. My validation comes from within.” Los Angeles Times 06/21/02

Thursday June 20

MAKING A SHOW OF CUTS: With states across America facing budget deficits, many have proposed cutting public arts funding. Arts budgets are small compared to overall state budgets, but they’re highly visible (read: they make good poster-children as candidates for fiscal austerity). Backstage 06/19/02

THE ST. PETERSBURG REVIVAL: “This year the annual Stars of the White Nights festival in St Petersburg offers an exclusively Russian extravaganza of opera, ballet and concerts, sending a message of revival of national pride and optimism after the gloom of the 1990s. But while conditions in the ‘Venice of the north’ are getting better, they are still a long way from its imperial heyday. There is not much you can do at 11pm, other than trudge back home through beautiful but eerily empty streets.” Financial Times 06/18/02

Wednesday June 19

ART VS. BASKETBALL: Community activists in Los Angeles are clashing over how best to use a 3-1/2 acre vacant lot in the city’s Little Tokyo neighborhood. Residents want a gym to house their basketball league, but an art museum whose property backs up on the lot wants to turn it into an “art park” connecting the multiple cultural institutions in the neighborhood. Sports usually win out over art in these disputes, but which proposal is better urban planning? Los Angeles Times 06/19/02

Tuesday June 18

LINCOLN CENTER’S NEW LEADER: Bruce Crawford, former general manager of the Metropolitan Opera has been chosen as the new chairman of Lincoln Center, succeeding Beverly Sills. “In addition to presiding over Lincoln Center, the country’s largest and most important cultural institution, with constituents like the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Ballet, Mr. Crawford will oversee the center’s often contentious $1.2 billion redevelopment plan.” The New York Times 06/18/02

PATENTLY WRONG: The number of patents granted has exploded in recent decades. A sign of increasing innovation and progress? Perhaps. But tying up new ideas in patents are “just as bad for society as too few. The undisciplined proliferation of patent grants puts vast sectors of the economy off-limits to competition, without any corresponding benefit to the public. The tension between the patent as a way to stimulate invention and the patent as a weapon against legitimate competition is inherent in the system.” Forbes 06/17/02

THE LOTTERY CRUNCH: Britain’s lottery helped spur a wave of cultural building in the past few years that has transformed the country’s cultural infrastructure. But lottery revenue is shrinking, and estimates for maintaining he UK’s “heritage” over the next 10 years will be “nearly £4 billion, of which £800 million is needed for museums and galleries.” The Art Newspaper 06/14/02

Sunday June 16

COLORADO GOVERNOR CUTS ARTS FUNDING: Colorado Governor Bill Owens used his line-item veto to cut $766,030, or 40 percent of the Colorado Arts Council budget. Owens explained that “grants to these arts programs go to the metro Denver area that already has a dedicated sales tax for these purposes. Because there is a large alternate source of revenue, and given the discretionary, one-time nature of the funds, I am vetoing this line.” Denver Post 06/05/02

Friday June 14

WHERE ARE THE CRITICS? “Unfortunately, critics, and criticism, are becoming more and more irrelevant. Their authority has been undermined by chat rooms, bulletin boards and online reviews from your fellow Amazon.com customer.” And the contrarian critics? They’re almost worst of all – b-o-r-i-n-g. They’ve all got an agenda, and most are compromised in one way or another. LAWeekly 06/13/02

• NEW LETTERS responding to Chris Lavin’s critique of arts journalism. “Art is about depth, breadth and substance – stuff that a smart quippy writing style insults, a press release kills, and an academic analysis buries. There’s a place in between all these journalistic tones that will allow art and artists to be better revealed. Yes, I believe this, but I’m afraid that our culture as a whole is too embedded in its quick-fix mentality.” ArtsJournal.com 06/14/02

BOUNCING BACK DOWN UNDER: Australian arts groups were affected by 9/11, just like American companies. But the effect was mostly mild – the Sydney Symphony, dependent on single-ticket sales, saw declines, but the Sydney Theatre Company actually posted increases. Sydney Morning Herald 06/14/02

MENTORING WITH SWISS PRECISION: “On the theory that any artist, regardless of age or experience, can benefit from guidance, Rolex S.A., the Swiss watchmaker, has created a novel mentoring program that will link up five up-and-coming artists with five world-class masters in their fields. The five mentors — the conductor Sir Colin Davis, the choreographer William Forsythe, the Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza and the theater artist Robert Wilson — and their protégés gather tonight for a reception at the Frick Collection, where they will begin their yearlong partnership.” The New York Times 06/13/02

Thursday June 13

LOOKING FOR THE SNOB-FREE ZONE: We are a world of snobs – each of us trying to define ourselves as superior in some way to those around us. And yet, writes Joseph Epstein, “one would like to think that Is there a snob-free zone, a place where one is outside all snobbish concerns, neither wanting to get in anywhere one isn’t, nor needing to keep anyone else out for fear that one’s own position will somehow seem eroded or otherwise devalued? A very small island of the favored of the gods, clearly, this snob-free zone, but how does one get there?” Washington Monthly 06/02

Wednesday June 12

CULTURAL MAKEOVER: Nothing new about cities investing in art. But the middle-class suburban town of Cerritos, California is making an unusually big commitment “investing heavily in art and culture – even commissioning music – and doing it all in the birthplace of auto malls and freeway buffer walls. ‘We want our city to be the best possible for our residents, so we’re making it sparkle more, in carefully considered ways. We’ve already invested heavily in education. Art and culture seems the next logical phase.” Los Angeles Times 06/12/02

MICHIGAN JOINS ARTS-CUT MOVEMENT: Like many governments across America, Michigan is facing tough budget times. And like many other governments, state legislators are proposing major cuts in its arts budget – a “50 percent cut in arts grants, from $23.5 million to $11.9 million. It’s too early to predict whether the cuts will be adopted, but the fact that a joint committee of the state Senate and House will meet over the next week to discuss the cut has arts advocates on the defensive and preparing for a political fight.” Detroit Free Press 06/12/02

Tuesday June 11

MAJOR INDUSTRY: A new study reports that nonprofit American arts groups generate $134 billion in economic activity each year. “The new survey covered 3,000 local arts organizations in 91 cities, as well as 40,000 of their patrons, and drew a statistical picture of a booming business. These groups account for 4.85 million full-time-equivalent jobs, a larger percentage of the workforce than lawyers or computer programmers.” Washington Post 06/11/02

BIRMINGHAM PRINTS AD: The Birmingham News ran an ad for a production of The Vagina Monologues Sunday “after haggling between the play’s staff and The News.” But the paper would not allow the name of the play to be used in the ad. “It was all in one font type, no headline, graphics or photographs, and it didn’t contain the title of the show. Instead, an asterisk directed interested folks to call a phone number for the name.” The paper says about the originally rejected ad: “There is the name itself, ‘Vagina Monologues.’ But that was not the real issue; it was the way the layout was done.’ The ad featured a microphone stand (The Vagina Monologues is performed with a bare stage, no props or sets), and double-entendre tag lines such as ‘spread the word.’ ‘We told them, “If you’ll calm this down, we’ll run it in a heartbeat. Our responsibility is to our readers, to be sure no one is offended.” Tuscaloosa News 06/10/02

Monday June 10

LACK OF DISCIPLINE: American academic culture has changed dramatically in recent years. “The dissociation of academic work from traditional departments has become so expected in the humanities that it is a common topic of both conferences and jokes. More and more colleges are offering more and more interdisciplinary classes, and even interdisciplinary majors, but increased interdisciplinarity is not what is new, and it is not the cause of today’s confusion. What the academy is now experiencing is postdisciplinarity – not a joining of disciplines, but an escape from disciplines.” Wilson Quarterly 06/02

IRAN OPENS UP TO CULTURE? Iran’s president Mohammed Khatami is encouraging a new openness in the arts, even inviting international academics and artists to the country to talk about art. “Artists and artistic activities have been given great encouragement since Khatami came to power in 1997. We are being advised to be active in the cultural scene, to end Iran’s political isolation. The doors were closed for two decades after the Revolution [1979], but now we are opening up and we are facing a generation that longs to know more about recent art movements.” The Art Newspaper 06/07/02

CREATIVITY = ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: Richard Florida’s new book suggests that “instead of underwriting big-box retailers, subsidizing downtown malls, recruiting call centers, and squandering precious taxpayer dollars on extravagant stadium complexes, the leadership should instead develop an environment attractive to the creative class by cultivating the arts, music, night life and quaint historic districts – in short, develop places that are fun and interesting rather than corporate and mall-like. It’s advice that city and regional leaders can take or leave, but Florida contends that his focus groups and indices – reporting the important factors needed for economic growth in the creative age, from concentrations of bohemians to patents to a lively gay community – are more accurately predicting the success and failure of metropolitan areas.” Salon 06/07/02

Sunday June 9

UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THE “V” WORD: The Birmingham News in Alabama, has refused to carry ads for a production of The Vagina Monologues. The paper also won’t write about the show, saying that “our first responsibility is to our paid readers. We do not want to take the chance of offending anyone.” The paper evidently objects to the name of the show, and is the only newspaper in North America so far to refuse ads for it. Says one of the show’s promoters: “They told us we could not use the name of the show in our ad. It’s hard to imagine why we’d pay thousands of dollars for a highly censored ad that doesn’t even mention the name of the show.” Black & White City Paper (Birmingham) 06/06/02

9/11 ON THE FRINGE: This year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival will have a strong current of 9/11 art running through it. “The attack resonates throughout the programme. We have been receiving applications since April and it was obvious this was going to be a big thing. It is fascinating, it has really shaken the imagination. The thread seems to be dealing with the emotional response to the events. This year’s fringe is the biggest yet with almost 1,500 shows from 11,700 artists. A quarter of the shows are world premieres and 24% are performed by overseas groups, half of them from the US.” The Guardian (UK) 06/07/02

Friday June 7

HOLLYWOOD TO SECEDE? Los Angeles voters will vote this fall on whether to carve ut Hollywood as its own city, distinct from LA. “Hollywood secessionists have argued that a smaller city, of 160,000 people, would be better able to attack crime, spruce up the area’s famous boulevards and restore Hollywood to its former glory.” Los Angeles Times 06/06/02

LINCOLN CENTER’S TAX PROBLEM: For years Lincoln Center believed it was exempt from city service taxes. Turns out it believed wrong. “After extensive negotiations, Lincoln Center sent a $450,000 check to the city in December. Talks are continuing on another $550,000 in contested charges.” New York Post 06/06/02

IRANIAN PERFORMERS DENIED VISAS: Ten Iranian performers, part of a troupe of 28, have denied visas to perform in this summer’s Lincoln Center Festival “because they were deemed at risk of becoming economic refugees. The other actors in the troupe were given initial clearance, having proved that they are not likely to stay on past the expiration of their visas, but they are now awaiting a security check.” Lincoln Center has reduced the number of performances the company will give. The New York Times 06/07/02

Thursday June 6

ENTERTAINMENT BOOM: The worldwide entertainment industry faced some big challenges last year – the dotcom bust, an economic slowdown, September 11. But despite all that, “the worldwide entertainment and media sector saw spending rise 1.5 per cent in 2001, surpassing the $1-trillion (U.S.) mark for the first time ever. A new survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers says this is just the start of a rally that will see spending of $1.4-trillion by 2006.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/06/02

MASSACHUSETTS – SMALLER ARTS CUTS? Massachusetts was one of the first states this spring to propose wholesale cuts in the state’s arts budget – the state House of Representatives recommended a 48 percent cut in the state’s public arts spending as a way of helping to close a budget deficit. But intense lobbying by arts groups narrowed the state house cut to 24 percent. And this week the state senate’s budget committee recommended keeping funding at this year’s level – $19 million. Boston Globe 06/06/02

• TAX LAW WORKS AGAINST NON-PROFITS: Boston Museum of Fine Arts director Malcolm Rogers is campaigning against a measure approved by the state’s House of Representatives to eliminate tax deductions for charitable contributions. ”Statistical studies show that for every dollar they save in taxes, people give about a dollar and 20 cents more to charity. Legislators who estimate that the change in tax law would funnel between $180 million and $200 million per year from taxpayers’ pockets to state coffers say they have no choice” as they attempt to close a big budget deficit. Boston Globe 06/06/02

Wednesday June 5

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CULTURAL FLOWERING? Fifty years ago, when Elizabeth took to England’s throne, many predicted a flowering of English culture, a second Elizabethan era. There have been successes. But “alongside its cultural ascendance, England has cultivated the highest illiteracy rates in western Europe, as well as the ugliest cities. Children leave our schools never having heard of Bach or Leonardo, their fertile minds stuffed with three-bar tunes and electronic games. Many will reach the end of their lives never having set foot in the National Gallery or Royal National Theatre, never having glimpsed the opportunity to transcend the ordinary.” London Evening Standard 06/05/02

Tuesday June 4

THE QUEEN’S PARTY: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth threw a big party to celebrate her 50 years on the throne. How big? More than a million people attended the pop/rock concert at Buckingham Palace, far surpassing expectations. The concert “was followed by a display of fireworks and water fountains in a dazzling 15-minute son et lumiere that enveloped the Buckingham Palace in a brilliant kaleidoscope of colour.” And the Queen? “The Queen, wearing ear plugs, and Prince Philip – neither of them natural lovers of rock and pop – planned to attend only the last half hour, arriving to huge cheers at 9.55 pm.” The Telegraph (UK) 06/04/02

WHY THE WORLD DOESN’T TAKE ARTS JOURNALISM SERIOUSLY? Why is arts journalism marginalized in so many publications? Literary critic Carlin Romano believes that “until arts journalists and their supporters examine the intellectual issues of their trade as seriously as investigative reporters probe their own dilemmas over protecting sources or going undercover – marching onto op-ed pages as controversies break, demanding the same attention as American media dopily devote to sports – they’ll continue to be enablers of their own marginalization.” Chronicle of Higher Education 06/03/02

CAMPAIGN TO REOPEN ITALIAN THEATRES: There’s a campaign in Italy to reopen some 361 unused theatres and opera houses. “Italy has still many unused halls, a result of the country’s long history of political polycentrism, which since the early 18th century has encouraged theater and opera to percolate through society in a manner unparalleled elsewhere. In countless small cities, a religious festival or a change of governor could be enough to bring into being a short operatic season, even if this was limited to a few performances of a single work. As one writer has remarked, in the 19th century, opera houses ‘were as numerous as cinemas [are] today’.” For one reason or another many theatres were closed even though they’re fit to be used. Andante 06/04/02

QUEENS OF CULTURE: Is the Museum of Modern Art finally “bringing” culture to Queens, its new temporary home? Not at all – the borough is more than Archie Bunker. “In Manhattan, culture is called to your attention, boxed up, neatly placed along landmarks like Museum Mile. It’s roped off, so tourists know where to find it: Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Broadway, the Met. But in decentralized Queens, culture is more complicated, a mix of clashing international and neighborhood values embodied by old- and new- wave immigrants, as well as native-born locals such as hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, folksy world music man Paul Simon or the late punk rock legend Joey Ramone.” Newsday 06/04/02

LA’S CULTURE BILL: Add up all the cultural projects looking for money in Los Angeles right now and the bill tops $1 billion. That’s enough to build another Getty Center. “The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles in Exposition Park are the largest players, each preparing to seek $200 million to $300 million.” Also in the hunt is the Orange County Performing Arts Center, which is raising money for a new $200 million concert hall. Los Angeles Times 06/02/02

A WHO’S WHO OF PITTSBURGH CULTURE: Every year the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette arts staff puts together a list of the “top 50 cultural forces” in the city. This year, the staff decided to make it “easier on themselves by grouping its winners into categories. “We created 10 categories in which to place our 50 names: categories for the arts leaders who break with tradition; the opinionated leaders who challenge the city’s notions about culture; the behind-the-scenes leaders who nurture the development of artists; the leaders of small arts groups who foster quality work; and others.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 06/03/02

Monday June 3

ANOTHER FIRE AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE: “Thousands of people, including some of Britain’s most famous musicians, were evacuated from Buckingham Palace last night as a fire broke out, disrupting preparations for tonight’s pop concert. The fire started between the ballroom and the state rooms which form the heart of the working palace and are used regularly by the Queen and members of the royal family.” The Guardian (UK) 06/03/02

SUPERFUND: After much political wrangling, various levels of government finally got their acts together in Toronto Friday and announced long-awaited funding of $232 million for cultural projects in Ontario. “Some people appear to have swapped scripts. Now the rhetoric arts lobbyists have used for years has been co-opted by the politicians. They confidently promise that museum expansions and concert halls will create an economic boom, lure millions of tourists and improve everyone’s quality of life. They’ve become converts to the faith, based on the notion that an arts boom is the vehicle to transport all of us to a future of prosperity.” Toronto Star 06/02/02

JAPAN – THE NEW CULTURE SUPERPOWER? “Critics often reduce the globalization of culture to either the McDonald’s phenomenon or the ‘world music’ phenomenon. For the McDonald’s camp, globalization is the process of large American multinationals overwhelming foreign markets and getting local consumers addicted to special sauce. In this case, culture flows from American power, and American supply creates demand. For the world music camp, globalization means that fresh, marginal culture reaches consumers in the United States through increased contact with the rest of the world. Here, too, culture flows from American power, with demand from rich Americans expanding distribution for Latin pop or Irish folk songs. But Japanese culture has transcended US demand or approval.” The Guardian (UK) 06/03/02

ABOUT NAMES OR ABOUT ART? When Avery Fisher gave $10.5 million in 1973 to Lincoln Center to rebuild Philharmonic Hall, the deal stipulated that the building would forever carry his name. Now the hall needs another massive overhaul and Lincoln Center wants to maybe resell naming rights. “Fisher’s heirs are prepared to go to court to protect the name, although the two sides say they will meet this week to try to work out an understanding. The outcome, analysts say, could set a precedent for how philanthropists and cultural organizations negotiate naming rights.” Nando Times (AP) 06/02/02

Sunday June 2

ADRIFT IN A SEA OF AESTHETIC (ANASTHETIC?): “In these years post-turn-of-the-century, we’re awash in so much choice in entertainment, so much competition for our attention, that we risk losing a sense of our basic selves. Art exists, partly, to articulate identity. Greek drama reinforced that society’s basic myths. Medieval Gothic architecture expressed, in towering grandeur, the superstitions and heavenly dreams of that world. Through much of the 20th Century, painters, dramatists, novelists and filmmakers borrowed from and mirrored one another, and an eager consumer could take solace in sampling a little bit of all of them.” Chicago Tribune 06/02/02

THAT GIANT SUCKING SOUND? Dallas is raising $250 million to build a new performing arts center. “But not everyone on the local performing arts scene considers it a friendly giant. For some, it’s a voracious juggernaut set to gobble up most of the city’s limited cultural money and attention. And its leftovers are unlikely to be enough to go around. Supporters of the center, and representatives of some of the smaller arts groups, argue that the attention focused on the performing arts center is a boon to the cultural scene as a whole.” Dallas Morning News 06/02/02

Tuesday April 30

JAZZING UP THE LOTTO: The British lottery has financed an astonishing boom of construction projects in the arts in the past few years. But the lotto has seen a £500 million dropoff in sales in the past four years. So the managers are planning to rename the lottery in an attempt to make it more “exciting.” BBC 04/29/02

A “KENNEDY CENTER OF THE WEST COAST”? Maybe a bit of an overstatement, but the $60.9 million Mondavi Center performing arts complex due to open in Sacramento this fall will transform that city’s cultural life. Sacramento Bee 04/29/02

Sunday April 28

DEFINING EVENT: Los Angeles erupted in riots in April 1992 after the Rodney King verdict. And “a generation of paintings, murals, songs, books and plays was born amid the anxiety and violence of spring 1992, and many were weaned on the philanthropic programs that followed. With the exception of Anna Deavere Smith’s one-woman show Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, most of those works have faded from public memory. But behind them stands a group of artists whose creative lives were reshaped, in sometimes startling ways, by the riots.” Los Angeles Times 04/27/02

Friday April 26

MASSACHUSETTS TO CUT CULTURE: Massachusetts is facing a budget crisis so the state is making budget cuts. The biggest cut will probably be in culture. The state legislature recommends a 48 percent cut in the Massachusetts Cultural Council budget, from just over $19 million this year to about $10 million next. Boston Globe 04/26/02

AUSTRALIA COUNCIL – MISSING IN ACTION? What’s the purpose/vision of the Australia Council? Some see the body as largely irrelevant these days. “In its recent Planning for the Future report, the council suggested it ought to invest more on risky artistic works. A year and two chair appointments later, debate has begun on whether the body itself is too risk averse. Is it any wonder outsiders aren’t sure what the council is about any more? Where does it stand, for instance, on copyright, one of the most pressing issues for artists in this digital age? On the digital agenda generally? Global open markets?” Sydney Morning Herald 04/26/02

DECLINE OF WESTERN CIV? You either see culture changing and growing, or you don’t. Harper’s editor Lewis Lapham sees signs of the decline of Western civilization everywhere. “The people that have (wrecked the culture) – it’s the (Rupert) Murdochs of the world. Those are the people who say, ‘Whatever the market will bear.’ The market doesn’t think. The market isn’t a cultivated person. It’s a ball bearing. It will go immediately to what sells. That’s what wrecks the culture’.” As for literate magazines: “Most of the magazines that Lapham categorized as similar in nature – the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, the New Republic, the Nation, the Weekly Standard, and possibly the National Review – all lose money, he said, and depend on foundations and patrons. ‘It’s like running an 18th century orchestra. Esterhazy bankrolled Haydn, and the Harper’s Foundation bankrolls us’.” San Francisco Chronicle 04/25/02

FRESH START? After six months of turmoil for the board of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the institution has picked a new chairman it hopes will turn its fortunes around. Los Angeles Times 04/25/02

• Previously: TAKING THE FIGHT OUTSIDE: Two prominent members of the Orange County Performing Arts Center board have resigned from the organization. Four other top board members are part of a lawsuit against the pair, charging them with securities fraud in their business. “The lawsuit seeks damages of more than $50 million for the plaintiffs’ losses on the stock market.” In leaving the board, the pair said that sitting on a board with people who accuse them of fraud “was just something we could not stomach.” “The resignation of the Broadcom founders – billionaire philanthropists and leaders in the high-tech-driven ‘new economy’ – represents a blow to a board that has been assiduously courting the next generation of business leaders and arts patrons.” Orange County Register 03/17/02

Tuesday April 23

BOMBS AWAY: It’s official – this year’s Adelaide Festival was a complete disaster. The controversy-laden festival attracted only 35,000 customers to its events, the lowest number in a decade. The festival received $8 million in grant support, but took in only $1 million – some $625,000 short of projections. The Age (Melbourne) 04/23/02

CULTURE, NOT BOMBS: Think of Belfast and culture isn’t the first thing that springs to mind. But the city is campaigning to be named Europe’s Capital of Culture for 2008. “We’re not trying to say Belfast is an undiscovered joy or anything like that and we’re not going to try and disguise that there’s been a conflict here for 30 years because everybody knows about it. The drive behind the project is aspirational – it’s not a reward for good behavior or what you’ve done. We want to use culture as a tool to change the society we live in.” Lycos News (Reuters) 04/21/02

Friday April 19

ARTS REBOUND IN OZ: After a down year in 2000, Australian arts consumption went up dramatically in 2001. “Cinema remained clearly the most popular arts entertainment with eight out of 10 people continuing to take in at least one movie each year, and patrons increasing the frequency of their cinema outings from 10 to 11 trips a year. Live bands were the second most popular choice with attendance ratings jumping to 51 per cent. Public art galleries attendances rose to 50 per cent of the population and live theatre jumped 7 percentage points to 48 per cent.” The Age (Melbourne) 04/19/02

WHAT RIGHT COPYRIGHT? Is the US copyright law overly protective? Some critics not only believe that it is, but that “property talk limits our imagination—it is severely limited when influential figures such as Jack Valenti use the word theft eight or nine times in a given speech, because it is impossible to argue for theft.” Valenti replies that “copyright is at the core of this country’s creativity. If it diminishes, or is exiled, or is shrunk, everyone who belongs to the creative guilds, or is trying to get into the movie business, or is in television, is putting their future to hazard.” Village Voice 04/17/02

Thursday April 18

MEASURING THE HUMANITIES: “How can we articulate in compelling ways the continued importance of the humanities to our national life? A fundamental part of the problem, we quickly discovered, is that it is almost impossible to find reliable and up-to-date data on many aspects of the humanities – in contrast to the sciences, which have long been the subject of, and had access to, a broad collection of quantitative information.” So a new project has been created – “the Humanities Indicators, a set of empirical databases about such subjects as the education of students in humanistic disciplines; the growth of traditional departments and new fields; the employment of humanists both within and beyond academe; and the availability of financing for the humanities.” Chronicle of Higher Education 04/15/02

PHILLY RPAC LOSES A KEY FIGURE: Sandra Horrocks has resigned from her position as marketing director for Philadelphia’s high-profile Regional Performing Arts Center after being informed that her influence in the organization would be trimmed in a coming reorganization. The move was precipitated by the RPAC’s new president, who has made a number of house-cleaning moves since taking over 10 weeks ago. Philadelphia Inquirer 04/18/02

Monday April 15

GETTING CLOSE TO GROUND ZERO: Numerous arts companies have expressed interest in becoming part of a cultural center proposed for Lower Manhattan near Ground Zero. “What is clear is that Ground Zero has captured the imagination of many in the arts and culture business.” But it is also making it harder for arts groups with other projects in the city to get attention. Andante (Crain’s New York Business) 04/14/02

Sunday April 14

CUTLER OUT IN OZ: John Cutler has resigned as chair of Australia’s Arts Council, less than a year after assuming the position. Cutler had big plans for the council, but circumstances suggest that the former info-tech specialist may not have known what he was getting into in accepting the job. Sydney Morning Herald 04/13/02

Friday April 12

MYTHS OF THE WIRED EDUCATION: Does technology improve the quality of higher education? That’s been the theory. But “recent surveys of the instructional use of information technology in higher education clearly indicate that there have been no significant gains in pedagogical enhancement.” The Nation 04/11/02

Tuesday April 9

THIS YEAR’S ARTS PULITZERS: Newsday classical music critic Justin Davidson wins this year’s criticism Pulitzer. Henry Brant wins the music Pulitzer, Carl Dennis wins for poetry, and Suzan-Lori Parks wins the drama award for Topdog/Underdog. The New York Times has a good collection of background links on the winners. Pulitzer.org 04/08/02

FRESH BLOOD: With the European Union making migation between European countries easier, there is some trepidation in the UK. But the last great influx of foreign artists had an enormous, positive impact on the country. “Our most cherished institutions, even the culture that some people believe to be under threat, would not be as robust or as worth preserving if Britain had not opened its borders to foreign artists and arts administrators 60 years ago.” London Evening Standard 04/08/02

GLOBAL DOMINATION? WHAT GLOBAL DOMINATION? “We have been hearing a good deal about how American mass culture inspires resentment and sometimes violent reactions, not just in the Middle East but all over the world. They continue to insist that Hollywood, McDonald’s, and Disneyland are eradicating regional and local eccentricities – disseminating images and subliminal messages so beguiling as to drown out competing voices in other lands. Yet the discomfort with American cultural dominance is not new. On the contrary, the United States was, and continues to be, as much a consumer of foreign intellectual and artistic influences as it has been a shaper of the world’s entertainment and tastes.” Chronicle of Higher Education 04/08/02

COPYRIGHT GRAB: Proposed legislation in the US Senate would regulate the ability to copy and distribute anything digitally. The legislation is backed by large media companies like Disney, but opposed by consumer groups and the open source community. “This represents an incremental power grab on the part of these media companies. It threatens to make all free and open-source software efforts criminal.” San Francisco Chronicle 04/08/02

Monday April 8

BUYING RESPECTIBILITY (BUT AT WHAT COST?): “A handful of Russians have acquired fortunes of $1 billion and more in the decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union. While millions of their countrymen suffered collapsing living standards, declining health and increasing alcoholism, a few made enough money to join the ranks of the world’s richest men. Now that these men have money, they seek recognition. They want access to western-dominated international business and international society [such as the boards of major arts institutions such as the Guggenheim] and are ready to pay for the privilege. But at what price and on what terms should western institutions open their doors?” Financial Times 04/08/02

A MATTER OF INTEREST: In the past few months some large foundations have granted relief money to New York arts groups to help them with the economic fallout from September 11. Some of the grants are substantial, and won’t be spent right away. So what becomes of the interest earned on the money? Backstage 04/05/02

ART’S COMMUNITY CENTER: Symphony Space – famed for its Wall to Wall music marathons and literary readings by such stars as James Naughton, Leonard Nimoy and Angela’s Ashes author Frank McCourt – has been redesigned and expanded. With its strong Upper West Side contingent, Symphony Space always has been community-oriented; it was, in fact, a community protest that led indirectly to the launching of Symphony Space in 1978.” Newsday 04/07/02

Sunday April 7

COPYRIGHT NEEDS MORE PROTECTION? “A decision last week by the Supreme Court of Canada allowing three Quebec art galleries to make and sell reproductions of an artist’s work without his permission points to the need for new copyright protections, an artists’ organization says.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/06/02

Friday April 5

THE CORPORATE COPYRIGHT HUSTLE: “Can Congress repeatedly extend copyrights for decades, impoverishing the public domain, to benefit corporations and the distant descendants of individual creators? That question is now before the Supreme Court: In Eldred v. Ashcroft, it agreed to review the constitutionality of the 1998 copyright-extension law. The law has been challenged by a group of nonprofit organizations and businesses that use works in the public domain.” American Prospect 04/03/02

LAND OF THE FREE AND HOME OF THE… DUMB? Is it truethat “American culture in general has an affection for dumbness?” Apparently so, and there’s even a hierarchy of dumb. At the top, The Simpsons. At the bottom, almost any movie whose title includes “National Lampoon.” The reason may be simple. “In this age of political correctness, gross-out humor is the only thing that offends without regard to race or creed. It’s practically the only field open to humor anymore. By going into that realm, you’re not going to get in trouble for being politically incorrect.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution 04/05/02

A MATTER OF VISION: There’s been a great deal of talk about how London’s South Bank Centre ought to be expanded. But who’s providing the compelling vision of what it should be and how it should be done? “Someone, somewhere on the South Bank should be telling us what an astonishing place it could be, and how. They should proclaim it not as normal but as exceptional. The South Bank is special because it is not Covent Garden or Bluewater or Oxford Street, but is a district dedicated to music and art.” London Evening Standard 04/05/02

Thursday April 4

REINING IN THE ARTS IN NOVA SCOTIA: “Six years ago, Nova Scotia became the last province in [Canada] to set up an arts council, borrowing the tried-and-true model of an independent Crown agency that would use peer juries to decide who gets grants. Last week, it became the first province to disband its arts council, locking the doors and firing the staff in a coup directed by Culture and Tourism Minister Rodney MacDonald. He is proposing to replace the council with his own, tamer version, setting up a new organization that will share office space and staff with the culture ministry and have two ministry bureaucrats on its 12-member board.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 04/04/02

HOME IN THE LAND OF PIRATES: China is one of the world’s biggest abusers of copyright, with piracy  of intellectual property a commonplace thing. So you’d think the world’s leading innovators would stay as far away as possible. Not so – indeed, some of the most protective companies have set up shop in China. Why? “Two things: They’re tapping talent and eyeing market opportunities.” Far Eastern Economic Review 04/11/02

Tuesday April 2

BREAKING THE CODE: Is computer code free speech? Some critics of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act are proposing that it is. They contend that the act has locked up rights to creative property and stifles innovation. “There is essentially no fair use left once the D.M.C.A. is done with it.” A company that wrote and sells a program that disables copy protection for e-books, contends its program code is protected speech. The New York Times 04/02/02

CAPITAL IDEA: For the first time since 1990, Europe’s “Capital of Culture” will be awarded to a British city. There are two unlikely frontrunners for the honor – Belfast and Newcastle. The Observer 03/31/02 

ART AS GLOBALIZER: “The old joke about modern art used to be that you couldn’t tell which way up it went. The joke about postmodern art is that you can’t tell which work is which. Or where it comes from. That’s because most of it is pure NY-Lon.” What’s a ‘NY-Lon’? “A ‘NY-Lon’ is a postmodern art person who shuttles between New York and London, one who can afford never to return telephone calls because everyone assumes he is on the other side of the Atlantic, one whose presence in town astonishes friends so much that they invite him for dinner whenever they catch sight of him.” London Evening Standard 04/02/02

Monday April 1

GETTING CENTERED: Performing arts centers are touted as projects to rejuvenate cities. But it doesn’t always turn out that way. In Dallas, “downtown’s next monument could be the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, which is being touted as both the city’s cultural showpiece and the exclamation point for the Arts District. Norman Foster and Rem Koolhaas are outstanding architects, and there’s an excellent chance that their designs for the opera house and theater will be stunning. But architecture alone won’t produce the civic triumph the public is hoping for.” Dallas Morning News 03/31/02 

TEMPORARY FUNDING: An Ontario art fund is an unusual new source of money for the arts. “Trillium is controversial not only because its annual $100-million comes from gambling (four government-run casinos were built for that purpose), but because it reflects the ideology of the province’s Conservative government. Its grants to arts groups are temporary rather than permanent, and are designed to make the culture business more businesslike. To make sure it doesn’t stray from the path, Trillium has been firmly politicized and brought under the control of the Premier’s office.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/30/02

Thursday March 28

POWER SHIFT: Covent Garden has announced next year’s season, and the lineup signals the fortunes of resident companies. While the Royal Opera season – the first under new music director Anthony Pappano – looks brilliant, the Royal Ballet’s presence is shrinking. “The next Royal Ballet season confirms what has been widely feared – a remorseless decline in the company as a creative organism within British culture.” The Telegraph (UK) 03/28/02

REFORMING CONSUMERS OUT OF THE EQUATION: As digital music and video technology has boomed over the last decade, consumers have become more and more innovative in how they utilize available components. Many have “networked” together computers, stereos, televisions, and more to create a centralized home entertainment center that can be controlled at the touch of a button. But the legislation currently pending before Congress aimed at creating greater copy protection could make all such setups obsolete, and is threatening to disrupt the way in which people listen to music. Wired 03/28/02

CLEANING UP THE STREET OF STARS: For years New York’s Times Square was a seedy wasteland until a 1990s cleanup that revitalized 42nd Street. Downtown Hollywood also declined seriously in the past few decades. But there are signs of a Times Square-style fix-up. “What you realize is that Hollywood has a lot of beautiful architecture, it has the potential. This is something Los Angeles really lacks, a real urban space where people are out there on the sidewalks, walking and gawking.” Backstage 03/27/02

Wednesday March 27

ART AND PORN IN CANADA: A horribly controversial case in Canada came to a close this week, as a judge in British Columbia ruled that the pornographic stories involving children and torture written by the defendant have artistic merit and are therefore not illegal. The issue at the heart of the case was whether or not Canadians should have the freedom to write fiction on such topics, even if there are no photographs present or real people involved. The ruling has wide-ranging implications across the country, and may have some impact in the U.S. as well, where authorities are struggling with the same issue. National Post (Canada) 03/27/02

• BATTLING ACADEMICS: The judge in the Canadian kiddie-porn case came to his decision after consulting with three literary experts, two of whom claimed that the defendant’s stories had artistic merit. The third expert claimed the opposite, but the judge dismissed his opinion, “saying he applied morality and community standards in judging the works, which the Supreme Court has said is not the test of artistic merit.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/27/02

Monday March 25

PLAY NICE: Come Christmas, it seems like every arts company has a “cash cow” production it wants to let loose to graze. Hartford, like many cities, sees a stampede on its stages. Couldn’t someone buy these folks a calendar, lock them in a room and make them play nice? Hartford Courant 03/24/02

Sunday March 24

MERGING TO SURVIVE: “Faced with tough economic prospects, exhibition opportunities, receptive funders, and the rise of so-called ‘heritage tourism,’ Philadelphia institutions are merging, combining, collaborating and cooperating in ways unheard-of for a city widely perceived as deeply conservative, if not backward, in its organizational thinking… While there are political lobbying, and marketing, and exhibition collaborations in places such as Chicago, Detroit and Richmond, nothing nationally approaches the breadth of joint projects developing in Philadelphia.” Philadelphia Inquirer 03/24/02

Friday March 22

ADELAIDE’S BIG SUCCESS: The Adelaide Festival might have dragged itself through the headlines, firing director Peter Sellars, and appearing to not know which end was up. But the festival sold 180,000 tickets, a 60 percent increase over the last festival.  Fringe artists earned $3.85 million at the box office, compared to $2.08 million in 2000. Sydney Morning Herald 03/22/02

• ADELAIDE POST-MORTEM: So was this year’s Adelaide Festival as bad as fired-director Peter Sellars’ detractors maintain? Did Adelaide’s city newspaper poison Sellars’ agenda with its early criticism? Or was the festival so good that it will make the next edition difficult to pull off? Lots of questions, but then, aren’t there always? The Age (Melbourne) 03/22/02

FIGHTING CRIME WITH ART: The British government says it will use more arts and culture programs to try to turn young people off crime. “The arts and sport can encourage young offenders to make choices, decisions and personal statements, to have enthusiasm, to take risks and take responsibility.” BBC 03/22/02

BRINGING OSCAR HOME: “The Academy hasn’t held the Oscar ceremonies in the real Hollywood since 1929, when it lasted all of 15 minutes, hardly long enough for a self-respecting celebrity to exit a limo these days. The $94 million Kodak Theatre, designed for the Oscar ceremonies, is pure nostalgia. It resembles a 1920s movie palace with stacked opera boxes.” But the Kodak sits in the middle of a strip mall, in a neighborhood known more for its drug dealers than its glitz and glamour. Is the project a laudable attempt to revitalize a landmark area, or a misguided plunge into a history that no longer exists? The Christian Science Monitor (Boston) 03/22/02

Thursday March 21

WHAT ARE THE ARTS WORTH? “Liberal-minded arts lovers have been wringing their hands and flinty-eyed fiscal conservatives warming their souls over a new study that suggests the economic impact of cultural facilities and sports stadiums is exaggerated… But reading the whole study reveals that things are, of course, a bit more complicated… Rather than dampening cultural activists, [the] report should really serve as a renewed call to artists to justify their existence on more lofty grounds than those that economists can provide.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/21/02

WELCOME TO THE VERIZON/ENRON/WELLS FARGO SMITHSONIAN! Smithsonian chief Lawrence Small testified at a congressional hearing yesterday on funding possibilities for the national museum’s latest modernization campaign. But the mood turned ugly when a New York congressman accused small of selling the nation’s cultural heritage to the highest bidder, and decried the growing trend of selling naming rights. “Frankly, just speaking as an individual citizen, I deeply resent it. You didn’t start this but you seem to me to be the biggest cheerleader. What we are experiencing is crass commercialization,” Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) said. Washington Post 03/21/02

MORE FALLOUT FROM THE HARRIS GRANTS: The arguing is continuing in Ontario over a slate of $91 million in grants earmarked for specific cultural organizations by the province’s outgoing premier, Mike Harris. Accusations are flying from other politicians, including an assertion by a Toronto city councillor that Harris’s grants have cut deserving organizations out of the funding pool. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/21/02

KEEPING GROUND ZERO FOR THE PUBLIC: The debate over how a rebuilt WTC site might memorialize the victims of 9/11 has become a contentious one, and one architecture critic says the key is to keep the decision out of the hands of private interests who want merely to cut their losses, and put up a quick-and-dirty memorial surrounded by office space that may well go unused. “The real issue is how to build a living city –a place that offers a vibrant mix of culture and commerce; a place that is easy to reach by subway, commuter train or ferry boat; a place where a frazzled office worker can find a few minutes of serenity at the waterfront; a place, like Rockefeller Center, where great buildings form an even greater urban whole.” Chicago Tribune 03/21/02

Wednesday March 20

BERLIN’S BUDGET AX: Berlin’s new city council made about $2 billion worth of spending cuts, in an effort to work its way out of a financial crisis. The city’s arts and culture programs will take big hits. “The council said there would be no more free theatre and that it would contribute nothing more to investment by the heritage foundation that runs many museums and galleries. About 15,000 jobs are expected to go in the city, where 17% are unemployed.” The Guardian (UK) 03/20/02

ITALY’S CRISIS OF LEADERSHIP: Italy’s big cultural institutions are in political turmoil. Critics charge that the “centre-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi, which took office nine months ago, seems unable to find the right people to run Italy’s art centres, cultural institutes overseas, or even — and most damagingly — the Venice Film Festival in September.” The Times (UK) 03/20/01

THE AMOUNT’S FINE – JUST HOW TO SPEND IT? After months of wrangling, the province of Ontario and the Canadian government are anxious to make a deal on a $200 million investment in the arts. Problem is, the two governments can’t agree on how the money should be split up. And arts groups are getting impatient. Toronto Star 03/19/02

• THE AGITATOR: Ontario Premier Mike Harris has never been a subtle politician, and his all-too-public battles with the national government in Ottawa are legendary. So when Harris announced that he was unilaterally implementing over $90 million of funding for provincial arts groups without waiting for matching funds from the capitol, a firestorm of criticism ensued. From artists to MPs, it seems no one is happy, and nearly everyone is blaming Mike Harris. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/20/02
• THE PLAN: Meanwhile, at least one major Canadian newspaper is still reporting that a deal is in the works for the $200 million, and that it will bring large wads of cash to Ontario arts groups and glory to all the politicians involved (even Mike Harris.) But with Harris apparently intentionally irritating the rest of the country’s pols with his unilateral funding plan, will the whole deal fall apart? National Post (Canada) 03/20/02
• THE LEGACY: It isn’t that Mike Harris is a big fan of the arts, says a Toronto paper, it’s that he’s leaving office this month after a stormy tenure which failed to yield any significant legacy other than that of an ineffective agitator. Not only does yesterday’s grandstanding move by Harris leave Canada’s National Ballet School out in the cold, but it effectively leaves even those groups getting funding short of what they need, and does no one but Harris and his legacy any good at all. Toronto Star 03/20/02

Monday March 18

TAKING THE FIGHT OUTSIDE: Two prominent members of the Orange County Performing Arts Center board have resigned from the organization. Four other top board members are part of a lawsuit against the pair, charging them with securities fraud in their business. “The lawsuit seeks damages of more than $50 million for the plaintiffs’ losses on the stock market.” In leaving the board, the pair said that sitting on a board with people who accuse them of fraud “was just something we could not stomach.” “The resignation of the Broadcom founders – billionaire philanthropists and leaders in the high-tech-driven ‘new economy’ – represents a blow to a board that has been assiduously courting the next generation of business leaders and arts patrons.” Orange County Register 03/17/02

• Previously: SUE THE ONES YOU LOVE: The new chairman of the Orange County Performing Arts Center is suing one of the center’s biggest benefactors. Henry Samueli has raised more than $10 million for the center, but he’s the subject of a stock fraud lawsuit brought in part by OC’s Thomas Thierney. “Some fear that the legal fight will dampen donations and force arts leaders to take sides.” Los Angeles Times 03/12/02

Sunday March 17

ARTS DEAL COLLAPSES: A few weeks ago it looked like Toronto’s arts institutions were going to get a big windfall from Canada’s federal government in the form of $200 million in funding. But the deal seems to have collapsed. “Things were clear. We were just trying to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. The last thing we were trying to iron out was the high-profile announcement we were planning.” Instead, says Ontario’s culture minister, the feds have folded. “We had a deal, but now it appears they’re doing a pirouette. They’ve made more sudden moves than Baryshnikov.” Toronto Star 03/15/02

THE DIFFICULTY OF RANDOM TRAGEDY (FOR ART): How to make art out of tragedy? Much classic tragedy seems predetermined. But “what kind of art can come from what appears to be blind chance? ‘It’s much easier to write about tragic flaws – the idea that what makes you great also brings you down. And much harder to write about the opposite idea, which has marked the culture of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries: The universe is a random series of events we can’t possibly understand, much less transform into art.” Chicago Tribune 03/17/02

A QUESTION OF QUALITY OF CULTURE: The British measure the quality of everything. “At a time when the concept of quality control has become embedded in the culture, though, the one place where it does not apply is in culture itself. In culture, the government’s test of what is best remains the market. If people buy it, watch it or listen to it, then it is good. If there is an increase in people buying, watching or listening to it, then that is even better. If more people buy, watch or listen to it than to anything else, then that is the best of all. It has been a very long time since any senior Labour figure dared to question this passive populism.” The Guardian (UK) 03/16/02

CLOSING DOWN CULTURE: Since it opened in 1989, the Glassboro Center for the Arts has been the focus of southern New Jersey’s cultural life in the performing arts, presenting national and international artists. But Rowan University, where the center is located, is in a bind, and the arts center “is one of four institutes or centers the university is closing to help close a $6 million hole in this year’s budget and an expected $12 million shortfall next year. Shuttering the centers and eliminating the jobs of at least 18 employees is expected to save the university about $1.3 million.” South Jersey Courier Post 03/15/02

Friday March 15

NATIONAL ARTS MEDAL WINNERS NAMED: Johnny Cash, Kirk Douglas, Helen Frankenthaler, Yo-Yo Ma and Tom Wolfe were named as the latest recipients of the US National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal. “The honors are an annual practice established by Congress for the arts in 1984 and for the humanities in 1988.” Washington Post 03/15/02

IN LETTERS: John Brotman, director of the Ontario Arts Council, writes to protest the conclusions of a study and a report on that study in Canada’s National Post, that said public money invested in the arts failed to make promised economic returns to their communities: “A few years back, the Ontario Arts Council (OAC) found that arts organizations in Ontario returned 20 per cent more in provincial taxes than they received in provincial government funding. Statistics Canada data estimates that the economic impact of Ontario’s arts and culture sector is $19.1 billion or on a per capita basis that is more than $1,700 in economic return for every Ontario resident.” ArtsJournal.com

• THE STORY: TAX MONEY TO ARTS FAILS ON PROMISED RETURNS? A new Canadian study suggests that taxpayer money invested in professional sports teams and the arts do not produce the economic benefits touted by arts supporters. “The research … leads inexorably to the conclusion that the benefits from having sporting or cultural activities are not nearly as large as their proponents argue. The multiplier effects are usually small and might even be negative in some instances. Job creation is minimal.” National Post (Canada) 03/06/02

Thursday March 14

CHALMERS AWARDS SCRAPPED: A somewhat public dispute between the Ontario Arts Council and philanthropist Joan Chalmers has resulted in the outright cancellation of Canada’s prestigious Chalmers Awards, to the dismay of many in the arts world. In place of the awards, the council will hand out fellowships and grants, but these will come with neither the prestige nor the publicity that the awards carried. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/14/02

BRAIN SCANNER: Scientists are studying the differences between the brains of an artist and a scientist to see if characteristic differences can be found. This week an artist and a scientist had CT scans of their brains done in a London hospital. “Another scientist dismissed the experiment as trivialising, and insisted scientists and artists were so different it would make more sense to compare rugby and billiards on the basis that both were played with a ball.” The Guardian (UK) 03/13/02

THE END OF HISTORY (9/11 NOTWITHSTANDING): Francis Fukuyama has believed that since the fall of communism history is over as we know it. Does he still believe it after September 11? Yes. “For all those who want to develop, modernity is only available as a package deal in the medium term. According to Fukuyama, anyone who wants growth must also accept human rights, free elections, and free trade. That leaves the cultural resistance of the Islamist masses and the countries with strong Islamic traditions. Fukuyama does not believe that it will take 100 years to calm the fundamentalist uprising, the same length of time it took for the fundamentalism of the Reformation to cool down in Europe.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 03/13/02

Wednesday March 13

NOW THAT IT’S OVER… Director Peter Sellars said yesterday that he had been forced out as director of the recently concluded Adelaide Festival. “Obviously it is embarrassing when you bring one of the biggest international fish you have ever had in your fish tank and treat them the way I was treated. I just hope you never ever treat anyone this way again, it’s not a good idea, it’s bad for international relations and it’s a little bit stupid.” The Age (Melbourne) 03/13/02

MAKING THE CUT: The downside of a system of public funding for the arts is that there’s a limited amount of money to go around, and someone has to make the call as to who gets funded and who doesn’t. In Toronto this week, representatives of city, provincial, and federal government will announce what they plan to do with a massive $200 million arts funding package, and while some well-known organizations are a lock to see some of the cash, other long-planned projects may be left out in the cold. Toronto Star 03/13/02

THE WORST (AND BEST) JOB IN THE WORLD: “Wanted: executive director for nonprofit art center. Responsibilities include too much to do in too little time with too few resources. Plenty of backbreaking physical toil coupled with mind-boggling financial conundrums. Qualifications: must be able to deal with artists and a public who will stretch you as thin as Lara Flynn Boyle, or who will tear you apart like so many hyenas if the mood strikes them. Experience in a leadership position and good phone voice a must. Salary: not enough for what you will be required to do–but as there’s no price you can place on this job anyway, we figure why bother even trying. Must be willing to start as soon as possible. Are you free tomorrow?” City Pages (Minneapolis/Saint Paul) 03/13/02

Tuesday March 12

BACK TO CULTURE: Attendance for New York arts groups after September 11 might have been down for a short time, but people have returned to cultural pursuits. “Outside the Museum of Modern Art lines are extending down the block on many days, and attendance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is heavier on weekends than it was last year at this time. The New York City Ballet is within a percentage point of pre-September attendance projections for its “Nutcracker” and winter repertory performances. And for the week ended Sunday, Broadway set box office records for this time of year with revenues up 18 percent and attendance up 6 percent over the same week last year.” The New York Times 03/12/02 

WHY CULTURE MATTERS: Several American cities are looking at ways to dramatically increase their public funding for the arts. If voters approve a new real estate tax in Detroit this summer, the arts will get $44 million more each year. Why should taxes be raised for culture? There are the usual economic reasons, writes Peter Dobrin, but more important, because the arts are “the only part of life that advances civilization.” Philadelphia Inquirer 03/12/02

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FRENCH AND ENGLISH: Are there differences in the ways English and French Canadians consume culture? A new study says yes: “If you are an English-speaker, you are more likely than your French-speaking fellow Canadians to read books, go to the theatre or to Broadway-style shows. If you are francophone, you probably are a more assiduous patron of the symphony, opera and festivals. Also, you watch more television, especially local programs.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/11/02

BERLIN – IT’S THE VISION THING: Berlin’s cultural institutions are suffering. Money is tight and getting tighter. But “the problem can’t only be money. Stuttgart, Hamburg, and Leipzig have all, to varying degrees, managed to produce better opera than any of the Berlin houses for less money. Germany has dozens of regional houses with programs which display more freedom and fantasy than those currently on offer in Berlin. But vision, unless you count Stölzl’s bungled reform plan, has been the one thing conspicuously lacking.” Andante 03/12/02

• UNITY THROUGH CULTURE: In its search for an attractive — and nonthreatening — image, Berlin may have at last found a goal. By the end of this decade, it could become a City of Museums. Focused around the Spree River’s Museum Island in east Berlin and the Kulturforum just two miles away in west Berlin, a dazzling array of new and refurbished museums are to offer a wealth of art comparable to that found in New York, London and Paris. And the hope is that the rest of Germany will also feel pride.” The New York Times 03/12/02

Monday March 11

PENNSYLVANIA CUTS ARTS GRANTS: The state of Pennsylvania – facing a $600 million budget shortfall – has reduced its already-awarded grants to arts organizations by 22 percent. “The news has sent many arts managers – especially those at smaller organizations that depend heavily on state money – scrambling to make cuts or find alternative funding.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 03/11/02

WHAT RIGHT COPYRIGHT? A case recently accepted by the US Supreme Court challenges current copyright laws. “Many policymakers (and even some intellectual policy mavens) view IP rights as a one-way street – they assume that the more IP rights we grant, and the broader and more durable we make those rights, the more society will benefit through increased production of books, music, movies, etc. The matter isn’t even remotely that simple.” Here’s what’s at stake legally. FindLaw 03/05/02

NOT MUCH OF ADELAIDE: The Adelaide Festival is one of Australia’s great festivals. But the leadup to this year’s event was marked with the dismissal of artistic director Peter Sellars. Now the festival is over, and at least one critic wonders if the cumulative effect of all the pieces mounted up to much of a whole. The Age (Melbourne) 03/11/02

RECLAIMING SAN FRANCISCO: A little more than a year ago, real estate prices were so high in San Francisco that artists were being forced from their homes and work spaces. The dotcom bust has changed all that. “Bust-era prices and audience demand have made it possible for a new generation of venue providers to make cultural events in the Bay Area affordable again. Often the people running these spaces are performers themselves, whose lucrative jobs during the boom finally allowed them to give back to the communities they enjoyed for so long.” San Francisco Bay Guardian 03/08/02

Sunday March 10

THE ART OF AFGHANISTAN: You would think, form the press accounts, that Afghanistan is little more than a bombed out wreck. “I had come to Afghanistan to see what remained of the country’s culture after the depredations of the Taliban and the devastation of war. And I was astonished to find, amid the bombed-out ruins of Kabul, an artistic community that was not only optimistic but exuberant. Everyone I talked to had extraordinary stories to tell about the Taliban era, but they had survived that time surprisingly well, and were taking up much where they had left off.” The New York Times 03/10/02

DENVER’S ARTS BOOM: The American economy may still be in a down cycle, but Denver is in the midst of an arts building boom. “Driving these projects, which have a total projected construction budget of $389 million to $608 million, is a convergence of an ever-increasing need for suitable performance space and a coming of age by many of Denver’s suburban communities. The dozen projects range from a $100 million-to-$300 million regional performing arts and convention center that is being discussed for the southern metropolitan area, to a $500,000 lower-level expansion of the Lakewood Cultural Center.” Denver Post 03/10/02

Friday March 8

THE BERLIN CRISIS: The city of Berlin is € 68 billion in debt – so much debt that it has to borrow extensively just to pay the interest on its debt. This has created a crisis for the city’s rich cultural life. “Even today, Berlin has more museums than rainy days. Not to mention eight full-time symphony orchestras, several professional chamber music ensembles, and three opera houses. Each threat of closure or amalgamation is greeted by howls of protest; the result is that everything is slightly underfunded. Since those who work for cultural institutions are government employees and cannot be sacked, most organizations are unable to respond to requests for budget cuts simply because they have no option but to continue to pay their staff. Instead, they run up debts.” Andante 03/08/02

Thursday March 7

TAX MONEY TO ARTS FAILS ON PROMISED RETURNS? A new Canadian study suggests that taxpayer money invested in professional sports teams and the arts do not produce the economic benefits touted by arts supporters. “The research … leads inexorably to the conclusion that the benefits from having sporting or cultural activities are not nearly as large as their proponents argue. The multiplier effects are usually small and might even be negative in some instances. Job creation is minimal.” National Post (Canada) 03/06/02

SUCCESSFUL ARTISTS SHOULD RETURN GRANTS? Two American congressmen have suggested that artists who become commercially successful should repay grants they received earlier in the careers from the National Endowment for the Arts. “NEA Acting Director Eileen B. Mason promised to consider the suggestion. ‘I think it would be terrific,’ she told the House Appropriation Committee’s subcommittee on the Interior Department and Related Agencies.” Hartford Courant (AP) 03/06/02

THE POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF HOMELAND DEFENSE: Bruce Cole, the new chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, believes that agency “needs to pay attention to its original mandate and establish its role as a defender of the homeland.” To accomplish that, he has developed a program called “We the People” which is intended to “encourage scholars to propose programs that advance our knowledge of the events, ideas and principles that define the American nation.” Washington Post 02/06/02

SPUTTERING AT THE CHURCH OF POP CULTURE: “The first breath of cultural freedom that Afghans had enjoyed since 1995 was suffused with the stuff of commercially generated popular culture. The people seemed delighted to be able to look like they wanted to, listen to what they wanted to, watch what they wanted to, and generally enjoy themselves again. Who could complain about Afghans’ filling their lives with pleasure after being coerced for years to adhere to a harshly enforced ascetic code? The West’s liberal, anti-materialist critics, that’s who.” Reason 03/02

Tuesday March 5

ADS FOR ARTS: The arts advocacy group Americans for the Arts has produced a series of ads promoting the arts. The ads were donated, and so far $100 million worth of air time to run the spots on TV around the country has been donated. “The three-year campaign, which also includes print, radio, the Web and other media, is designed to make parents aware that arts education is vital to producing not only artists, but well-rounded, imaginative people in general.” Dallas Morning News 03/05/02

Monday March 4

FUNDING TORONTO: Canada’s federal government has decided to give Toronto’s largest arts groups $260 million. “The long-awaited grants are seen by some as the beginning of a cultural rebirth for Canada’s largest city.” The arts groups have a long (and expensive) wish list for the money. National Post (Canada) 03/02/02 

Sunday March 3

DOES ART STILL MATTER AFTER? “In 1937, it took a couple of days for Picasso to hear the news of Guernica; today, he would have watched it unfolding live on television. This immediacy and its accompanying glut of images and information is itself a challenge to artists. One difficulty in making art about Sept. 11 is that it is hard to create anything that rivals in magnitude the live images that so much of the world spent days obsessively watching on television. In the face of this new reality, the demand that art respond literally, directly and rapidly to crisis contains an underlying note of panic: an urge to demonstrate to a broader public, through a definitive statement on something of great social moment, that art is indeed necessary, that art can still make a difference, despite a growing fear that it is not and cannot.” The New York Times 03/03/02 

INTO THE SUBURBS: Artists have traditionally worked in cities. But more and more urban arts groups are realizing that a major part of their audiences come from the suburbs. And that in turn is bringing artists out to the ‘burbs’. “There’s a real pent-up demand for culture in the suburbs.” Minneapolis Star-Tribune 03/03/02

Friday March 1

SAVING ART FROM COLLECTORS: “Historic items worth more than £3.2m, including paintings by Rubens and William Blake, have been kept in the UK following export deferral. The government can save rare items “for the nation” by putting a bar on its removal from the country. Often a museum or gallery will then step in and buy the item so that it can be kept on public display.” BBC 03/01/02

ROCKWELL OUT AT NYT: “John Rockwell, editor of The New York Times’ Sunday Arts & Leisure section for the past four years, steps down from the influential post today. He will move into the newly created position of senior cultural correspondent, writing cultural news stories and criticism… Under Rockwell’s guidance, it has developed into perhaps the country’s most prominent source of performing arts commentary, with coverage of everything from movies to the performing arts, from the mainstream to the fringe.” Andante 03/01/02

Thursday February 28

DON’T PICK ON THE ARTS: The Atlanta City Council, facing budget shortfalls, proposed cutting funding for arts groups. But after a spirited council meeting at which arts supporters rallied to speak against the cuts, funding restored almost to 2001 levels. Atlanta Journal-Constitution 02/27/02

LEARNING THROUGH POP CULTURE: Does “teaching” popular culture dumb down education? Maybe not. “Getting our students to ‘read’ popular cultural critically may well become our task as teachers in an age increasingly dominated by the mass media. If students can learn to reflect on what they view in movies or on television, the process may eventually make them better readers of literature. The many critics of popular culture, who adamantly oppose its inclusion in the college curriculum, fear that studying it inevitably involves dragging what has traditionally been regarded as high culture down to the same level. But that is not to say that no embrace is possible. By being selective and rigorously analytical, one may be able to lift popular culture up to the level of high culture, or at least pull it in that direction.” Wilson Quarterly 01/02

THE ART OF GLASS AND BODIES: Surprised researchers have discovered that “the cells that make up the heart, lungs, and many other organs in the body display glasslike properties, according to a report in the October Physical Review Letters.” They conjecture that “just as heat can turn an apparently solid champagne glass into liquid, cells are made more fluid – and therefore able to contract, crawl, and divide – by internal jostlings within the cell, what is called noise temperature.” Harvard Focus 11/01

Wednesday February 27

EVEN TOUGHER COPYRIGHT LAWS: The World Intellectual Property Organization, an international body of government representatives that globalizes laws, has announced new guidelines to crack down on digital piracy. The WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performance and Phonograms Treaty, which go into effect over the next three months, extend copyright protection to computer programs, movies and music.” Wired 02/26/02

MIGHT AS WELL HAVE ASKED JAMIE SALE TO DESIGN IT: One sure way to get a hostile reaction from the Russian press is to allow a foreigner, particularly an American, to design a building in St. Petersburg. It works even better if the American is chosen over a prominent home-grown architect. So when a commission chose Eric Owen Moss to head up the massive renovation needed for the Mariinsky Theatre, it was a good bet that many people were not going to be happy. Andante 02/27/02

SUBVERTING THE TEST: From kindergarten on, Korea’s education system is geared towards teaching students how to pass the exam any student wanting to go to college must take at the age of 18. “There are no alternatives for less academically minded students interested in subjects like art or music, or who don’t want to go to college at all. The result is a system designed to produce cookie-cutter test-takers.” But Korea’s students – many of whom are expected to study 18 hours a day – are demoralized by the test, and drop-out rates have soared. So why is the government trying to shut down an alternative school that seems to be finding success? Far East Economic Review 02/28/02

MAKING STRIDES IN ST. PAUL: Long in the shadow of its larger sister city, Minneapolis, St. Paul has in the last decade begun to come alive again. Now, a new mayor is making the arts an emphasis, meeting with the city’s existing theater and music execs as well as looking for ways to draw new blood into the St. Paul arts scene. “Where new Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak plans to eliminate that city’s Office of Cultural Affairs, [St. Paul Mayor Randy] Kelly says he hopes to be able to direct more city resources toward the development of arts and culture.” Saint Paul Pioneer Press 02/24/02

Tuesday February 26

NEW YORK’S NEW CULTURE CZAR: New York City has a new culture czar. Cultural affairs commissioner Kate D. Levin “inherits a department many arts professionals describe as in need of serious reinvigoration. Even as Rudolph W. Giuliani poured an unprecedented amount of city money into cultural building projects and became known for his love of opera, the agency charged with promoting the interests of New York’s arts institutions quietly but steadily diminished in size and influence amid years of budgetary ups and downs.” The New York Times 02/26/02

SELLING OUT SELLARS: The end, when it came, was swift. Director Peter Sellars had promised something completely different for this year’s Adelaide Festival. Within a few days of revealing what that was, though, Sellars had resigned. Why? Interviews with Adelaide City Messenger editors reveal the increasing skepticism Sellars plans had provoked. The Idler 02/26/02

SELLING OUT ABORIGINAL: Australian Aboriginal art is very popular these days. But is it being over-promoted? “When we talk to old people in this country and they … tell us their stories, and then when we go somewhere like Germany and see that story told on a tea-towel … or we see a woman playing the didgeridoo, that is a total abuse of what we are giving the world.” The Age (Melbourne) 02/26/02

Monday February 25

MESSING WITH THE CLASSICS: Why do critics get so upset by resettings of classic works? Okay, maybe dance gets away with some updating, but play Verdi “with a line of men sitting on the loo,” and throw in “midget devils and gang rape” and everyone’s screaming. “What’s in operation is an artistic dress-code in which we believe that old stories should be told in the old way even though the artists who are now the beloveds of cultural conservatives – Shakespeare, Mozart, Bach – told old stories in a new way.” The Guardian (UK) 02/23/02 

BUT HE THROWS A GOOD PARTY… London “arts celebrities” have mounted a campaign to pressure Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi not to remove Mario Fortunato, the Italian cultural envoy to London. “A letter to Mr Berlusconi, published last week in Italian and British newspapers, praised Dr Fortunato’s tenure as a roaring commercial and artistic success which turned the Belgravia institute into one of London’s hippest cultural spots.” The Guardian (UK) 02/25/02

Sunday February 24

DRAWING THE LINE: A man in British Columbia is on trial for distribution of child pornography, in the form of a story he wrote. The accused claims that the story is literature, not porn, and as such is protected speech. Not a new debate, of course, but still a brutally difficult one to participate in. Does the quality of the work determine whether it is art? Or the content? Or the inclusion of non-pornographic material beside the offensive stuff? One thing’s for sure: no one envies the judge. Toronto Star 02/23/02

WHO NEEDS LONDON? “The decision as to which UK city will be appointed European Capital of Culture in 2008 will be made in March,” and at least one British writer is pitching an unlikely candidate. “To argue against Belfast winning the honour because it has no opera or ballet and has not produced a Belfast Ulysses is to deny the aspirations of present and future generations – culture pitches itself endlessly forward; culture is a debate, an argument.” The Guardian (UK) 02/23/02

BBC4 – ARTS HAVEN OR CLEVER DODGE? For years now, Brits have complained that the BBC has been dumbing down the level of its arts programming, and bemoaning the recent lack of much in the way of live concerts or truly informative arts documentaries. The public broadcaster’s response has been to launch BBC4, a cable channel supposedly dedicated to the arts. But critics are howling still, saying that the arts should not be relegated to “niche” programming, but distributed throughout the BBC schedule as they once were. Sunday Times of London 02/24/02

Friday February 22

BUSH’S ARTS COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS SEND “MIXED MESSAGES”: President George Bush has appointed six new members of the National Council on the Arts. The Council advises the National Endowment for the Arts. “However, the nominations to serve on this Council, which oversees the selection of grants for all American artists, send mixed messages about the President’s support of diverse art forms and of the Arts Endowment itself.” One of the appointees, for example, belongs to an organization that advocates abolishment of the NEA. Artswire Current 02/21/02

JAPAN STAYS AT HOME: Yes travel is down worldwide since September 11. But in Japan travel has shrunk to almost nothing. Companies specializing in Japanese cultural tours to New York say business is about 10 percent of usual levels. Why? “The herd mentality appears responsible for a chain reaction involving Japanese tourists avoiding overseas travel, particularly to the United States, with one Japanese company after another canceling its employees’ overseas travel for training or other purposes, simply for the reason that other companies also have canceled.” Daily Yomiuri 02/22/02

THE DEATH OF CITY LIFE? “James Howard Kunstler’s 1993 book The Geography of Nowhere was an impassioned rant against suburbia, shopping malls, cheap disposable architecture and the fragmentation of communities fostered by an increasingly mobile, car-oriented culture. His latest book, The City in Mind, is a sort of companion to that earlier volume, a jeremiad against poor urban planning and the decline of the American city. His outlook is pessimistic, to say the least.” The New York Times 02/22/02

Wednesday February 20

A COPYRIGHT TOO FAR? The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that will review whether Congress’ 1998 copyright law went too far in protecting the rights of those who create intellectual property. Plaintiffs “argue that Congress sided too heavily with writers and other creators when it passed a law in 1998 retroactively extending copyright terms by 20 years.” Wired 02/19/02

HOLDING ON TO WHAT YOU’VE GOT: Give credit where its due: American arts organizations have come a long way in the lobbying game in the last decade or so. With most states facing crushing budget deficits this year, and almost everything on the chopping block, theatres, orchestras, and galleries are fighting desperately to keep the pittances they’ve managed to squeeze from their elected representatives. Of course, this works better in some states than others. Minneapolis Star Tribune 02/20/02

SAYING NO TO CIVIC ART SINCE 1911: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is a textbook example of a city risen from the ashes of a bleak, post-industrial malaise that many thought it could never dig out from. But although many aspects of Pittsburgh life are much improved, the realm of public art is still a difficult area. The city’s Art Commission, when it is mentioned at all, is usual cited as a bunch of folks determined to put a stop to civic art projects for one reason or another, rather than a group encouraging new and diverse public art. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 02/20/02

Tuesday February 19THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROBLEM: “There is a growing catalogue of worries about intellectual property issues—from the emergence of overly broad ‘business method’ patents to heated charges that proprietary claims on pharmaceuticals stifle affordable access to medicine in the Third World. A day hardly goes by without a high-profile intellectual-property battle heading to court. Meanwhile, university researchers are griping that open, collegial dialogue is being eroded by proprietary interests and secrecy as professors vie to create startups and get rich. These issues are interwoven because they all involve balancing similar kinds of private and public needs in a knowledge-based economy.”Technology Review 02/18/02

HOLLICK TAKE OVER SOUTH BANK: Lord Clive Hollick, a Labour Party friend and media tycoon, takes over as chairman of the South Bank Board. “His most pressing task will be to raise the money necessary to upgrade the centre.” Criticisms of the appointment were immediate. “This does show total insensitivity to the concerns of the public about cronyism.” BBC 02/19/0

• CRONIES R US:  Yet another political crony has been put in charge of an English cultural institution, writes Norman Lebrecht. Lord Clive Hollick might think he has the political clout to make a success of his new job as chairman of London’s South Bank, but he doesn’t have the experience to succeed, and besides, “Tony Blair does not want to be bothered with culture – or with building schemes, for that matter, since the Millennium Dome fiasco.” The Telegraph (UK) 02/19/02

SELLARS RETURNS TO ADELAIDE: Director Peter Sellars showed up for the Adelaide Festival this week promising to explain after the festival why he had been removed as director of the festival. “My mistakes here – I will give you a very impressive list of them mid-March,” he said, breaking into peals of laughter. “I have a very impressive list. I have looked it over pretty carefully and I see things that, of course, I didn’t see when I came here. Next time out …” Sydney Morning Herald 02/19/02

Monday February 18PUBLISHING DEFENSIVELY: Want to protect your great idea from being stolen by others? Tell the world. “Such disclosure, known as defensive publishing, is an increasingly common tactic for protecting intellectual property. Publishing an innovation means that competitors have access to it, of course. But many companies say the competitive risk is outweighed by the benefit of making it difficult for someone else to win a patent — a patent that could give the holder the right to demand licensing fees from all other users of the technology or technique.”

The New York Times 02/18/02

A CHAIRMAN FOR SOUTH BANK CENTRE: There’s a new man in charge at London’s South Bank Centre, which includes the Royal Festival Hall and the Hayward Gallery – Clive Hollick, one of Labour’s biggest business supporters and former owner of Express newspapers. “The job is unpaid and arguably thankless as the centre has been involved in years of dramatic attempts at redevelopment that have been repeatedly stalled.” The Independent (UK) 02/18/02

PURELY PURITAN: Oh, let’s all dump on the Puritans, shall we? Those odd folk of 17th Century England weren’t appealing? “A puritan is a censor, a prude, an enemy of the arts.” And yet, the Puritans “were certainly united in their belief that works of art were necessary adjuncts of political greatness.” The Guardian (UK) 02/17/02

Sunday February 17

CHANGING THE SYSTEM: New York City’s new commissioner of cultural affairs has swept into office with a plan to reform what she sees as a broken system. Specifically, Kate Levin wants to provide for a more open and equitable distribution of the city’s resources allocated for support of the arts. Under the current system, “85 percent of the city’s arts financing is given to the Cultural Institutions Group, a group of 35 prominent cultural institutions, while the rest of the city’s arts groups are left to apply for remaining 15 percent.” The New York Times 02/16/02

HOORAY FOR ELITISM! “These days, to be called elitist is to have one’s character defamed, like being called racist or sexist. Unfortunately for arts organizations, fear of the label can have a worse outcome than wearing it proudly — especially when it leads to mundane programming and favors diversity over quality.” Minneapolis Star Tribune 02/17/02

Thursday February 14

HELPING OUT AFTER 9-11: An anonymous arts-loving donor gave the Carnegie Corporation $10 million to give to New York arts groups hurting after September 11. The money – as much as $100,000 each will go to 137 arts organizations. The New York Times 02/14/02

WHERE NO ONE KNOWS YOUR NAME: “So what do you do?” “I’m a conceptual artist.” “How interesting. What project are you working on at the moment?” “I only have one project. I change my name by deed poll every six months.” The Guardian (UK) 02/13/02

Wednesday February 13

ROYAL OPERA HOUSE TO GO MULTIMEDIA: London’s Royal Opera House is going multimedia. Under new director Tony Hall (who knows something about electronic media after his years at the BBC) the ROH will broadcast performances on large screens. A test is planned for London, and the idea will be tried elsewhere if the initial broadcasts are a success. There are also plans to offer broadcasts of live performances in cinemas and “the opportunity to have online chats with stars including Placido Domingo and Darcey Bussell.” The Independent (UK) 02/13/02

Tuesday February 12

INSITEFUL: “Site-specific work has developed out of a gradual loss of faith, or interest, in traditional purpose-built venues – the gilt-and-velvet theatre in which the curtain rises on a play, the gallery where flat paintings hang on white walls, or those dreary municipal ‘centres’ such as the Barbican, that sprang up in the Sixties and Seventies.” For 10 years one of the most ambitious presenters of site-specific work in the UK is a group called Artangel. “Many such Artangel projects involve what is known as ‘the community’. But we don’t tick politically correct boxes, or set out to be accessible and non-elitist. It’s the artist who leads, and we follow.” The Telegraph (UK) 02/12/02

SHIFTING SEAT OF LEARNING: For a long time, New England has been considered home to America’s most prestigious universities. “But these days, the region’s dominant hold on the higher-education market is fading. The nation’s population center is shifting to the South and West, where a handful of public and private colleges have emerged as real competitors in selectivity, quality, and, most of all, price.” Chronicle of Higher Education 02/11/02

Sunday February 10

COPYWRONG: Last week a judge ruled that the new Austin Powers movie couldn’t use the name “Goldmember” because it infringes on MGM’s James Bond copyright. “The Goldmember affair – which riled MGM because it parodies the 1964 Bond film Goldfinger in which Sean Connery uncovers a plot to contaminate the Fort Knox gold reserve – is just one in a long line of copyright battles that continue to erupt over the ownership of everything from book and movie titles to acronyms, initials, images, even single words or catch phrases.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/09/02

Friday February 8

AN END TO DECENCY: Ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s “Decency Commission,” set up after the mayor objected to an art exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, finally came up with a report. But that report will likely never see the light of day now that Giuliani is out as mayor and Michael Bloomberg is running the city. Says Bloomberg: “I am opposed to government censorship of any kind. I don’t think government should be in the business of telling museums what is art or what they should exhibit.” Nando Times (UPI) 02/08/02

TAKEBACKS: On Monday Catherine Reynolds canceled her $38 million gift to the Smithsonian. The money had been controversial because Reynolds had wanted the museum to build a paean to individual accomplishment with the cash, and even suggested who might be included. But Washington’s big arts donors are philosophical about the debacle. Says Reynolds: “I think we really hit a nerve. We’ve gotten so many calls from museums in the past two days.” Washington Post 02/07/02

ALL ABOUT THE ENTROPY: A group of mathematicians has been analyzing documents using the “file-ZIPping” programs that computers use to conserve space, and some interesting linguistic results have emerged. The patterns, or entropy, of the language in the text being analyzed is unique to the point that, after being fed multiple documents of varying styles, the computer was able to identify different languages, and even anonymous authors, based solely on the sequence of the text. The Economist 02/07/02

GRASS WON’T KEEP OFF THE TABOOS: “German novelist Guenter Grass has broken two national taboos this week, calling for the publication of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and raising the delicate subject of German wartime refugees fleeing from the Red Army. He called for basic information on National Socialism to be made available, and for public discussion of the phenomenon. He said that would help young people who may be fascinated with Nazism, but do not understand the reality behind it.” BBC 02/08/02

Thursday February 7

RESTORING AFGHANISTAN’S CULTURE: UNESCO has made the reconstruction and preservation of Afghan heritage the focus of “International Year of Cultural Heritage – 2002.” “The immediate priority is the formation of a cultural policy by the Afghan government, revival of Kabul museum and the reconstruction of Islamic cultural heritage in Herat city.” Asia Times 02/06/02

THE BEST WE CAN BE: For a long time we humans have believed that humankind would always continue to evolve, to get better and better. Look at all the improvements in our species in the past few hundred years. But a scientist says we may have peaked – that this is the best it gets, that it’s all downhill from here… The Observer (UK) 02/03/02

PENNSYLVANIA TO CUT ARTS FUNDING? After increases in its budget for most of the 1990s, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts would see a 9 percent reduction in its budget – from $15.4 million to $14 million – if a proposal by the state’s governor. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 02/07/02

Wednesday February 6

CHICAGO’S NEW THEATRE: A new Music and Dance Theatre has started construction in Chicago. “The venue, which will serve as the performance space for a dozen local arts groups, including Chicago Opera Theater, Music of the Baroque, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, will carry $53 million in design and construction costs. The theater’s board also hopes to raise between $9.5 million and $10 million for an endowment fund that will subsidize the cost of operating the space for the arts groups.” Chicago Business 02/04/02

Tuesday February 5

BUSH ASKS FOR MORE ARTS/HUMANITIES MONEY: “As part of its fiscal 2003 budget proposal, the Bush administration yesterday requested an increase of $9 million for the Smithsonian for a total of $528 million, an all-time high in its federal appropriation.” Bush also asked for $2 million increases for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. This would be the fifth year in a row the NEA has had a budget boost. Washington Post 02/05/02

INDEPENDENT ANALYSIS OR LAZINESS? Some critics decline to do independent research into the subject they are reviewing, claiming some invisible line between critic and journalist. But the “rigid segregation of the critic and the work has always seemed both precious and limiting to me. It suggests both a haughty distance from the thinking, breathing creator and a fear that the critic’s pristine sensors might be blunted or corrupted by deigning to talk with artists about their work. Being able to engage in spirited discourse, rather than unthinking boosterism or jealous sniping, is the first sign of a mature cultural society.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 02/05/02

THE TROUBLE WITH TOYS: A toy exhibition in Nuremberg showcases the latest in kids’ toys. “Many new products try to reconcile children’s needs and parents’ concerns. The solution is to separate form from content, the first offering children fun, the second soothing adult consciences. However enjoyable and colorful the many new toys are, seeing them all at the same time is rather depressing. Many of them talk, dance, react and simulate so perfectly that they look more like playmates or caregivers than toys. They are aimed at annoying the lonely, unimaginative child so that he or she annoys no one else.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 02/05/02

Monday February 4

STANDARD-ISSUE TASTE? The tastemakers of yesteryear helped blaze a way through art. But have the special feelings for art these people had become too commonplace? “Does there inevitably come a point, when more and more individuals have a feeling for art, at which all those feelings become standard-issue feelings? There are certainly a good many people working in our museums and arts organizations who seem to believe that this is the case. They regard the public not as a group of individuals but as a monstrous abstraction – as a mirage. The very idea of the tastemaker may now be a paradox. We may be entering a time when what we must celebrate is the individuality, the privacy, even the loneliness of taste. To affirm the solitariness of taste may be the best way, right now, to celebrate the things we love.” The New Republic 02/01/02

CHOOSING TO WALK OUT: Unlike politicians or bores at dinner parties, it’s pretty easy to discard art. “Whether you care about opera, or books, or music, or theatre, or whether you couldn’t give two hoots about them, whether your occasional displeasure with them is an expression of sound critical judgment or bias or merely a bad mood, you have to admit that compared with most other things in life, they are easy to get rid of. You can say goodbye to them abruptly, frankly, unequivocally, completely — either because you’re bored to tears with the whole idea of them, or else because you know there are too many good operas, good books, good plays, good musical compositions to waste time on bad ones.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/04/02

Sunday February 3

STORYBORED: “It is one of the most notable features of this age of artistic over-production that just as the quantity of fiction produced has grown so alarmingly, so too has the number of observers ready lazily to declare that all life has gone out of the activity. We no sooner open the cultural pages of a newspaper than some commentator tells us that the novel, the theatre, the television play, the poem or the movie has died, but that somehow nobody else has noticed.” The Guardian (UK) 02/02/02

WHERE ARE WE GOING? When you’re right in the middle of consuming contemporary art, it’s difficult to see where its going. “Certainly, in the free-for-all that is contemporary art, the challenge is to find any connection within the chaos of its styles, influences, cross-influences and impulses. As art critics, we’re largely dancing in the dark.” Hartford Advocate 02/01/02

Friday February 1

BEWARE – THE ARTISTS AT THE GATES: In the UK, enrollment is down in university science courses, and up in arts and humanities. Whether that’s good news or bad depends upon your outlook: the information was presented to Members of Parliament as warning; it indicates, said one MP, a “slide toward the cheap end” of academia.” The Guardian (UK) 01/31/02

Thursday January 31

ART & MORALITY: Recently, a Canadian critic blasted a production of Richard Strauss’s Salome, and seemed to be as upset with the content of the opera as with the director’s vision. The controversy brings up an interesting conumdrum for critics: since art doesn’t exist in a vacuum, shouldn’t critics be allowed to dislike art that offends modern sensibilities? “You can’t just denounce a play because you dislike its characters and are disappointed that they aren’t being punished for their crimes. Or can you?” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 01/31/02

HOW ARTISTS MAKE A LIVING: The Urban Institute has announced plans to study the support structure for artists in nine major American cities. According to the Institute, there has never been a scientific investigation into what types and amounts of support are available to assist artists, and the information found in the study will be used to compile a national database for artist use. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 01/31/02

SLOW TALKING: Does the ease of e-mail and instant messaging and cell phones degrade our ability to communicate eloquently? “I have witnessed a manifest decline in the grammar, literary style, and civility of communication. People are less likely these days to stroll down the hall or across campus to converse. Our conversations, thought patterns, and institutional clockspeed are increasingly shaped to fit the imperatives of technology. It is time to consider the possibility that—for the most part—communication ought to be somewhat slower, more difficult, and more expensive than it is now.” Utne Reader 01/30/02

Wednesday January 30

NEW NEA CHIEF DEAD: Michael Hammond, who became the chairman of America’s National Endowment for the Arts only a week ago, was found dead in Washington Tuesday. “Hammond, 69, a composer and former dean of Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, had told his staff on Monday that he was sick, and stayed home that day. Monday night he attended a dinner and cocktail party at the Shakespeare Theatre but left halfway through. When Hammond didn’t show up for meetings Tuesday morning, several members of the staff went to the house he had borrowed in the American University Park neighborhood. When no one answered the door, they called the police.” Washington Post 01/30/02

• ACCOMPLISHED ADVOCATE: “He was still in the process of charting a course for the federal arts agency. But he had made it known that getting children interested in the arts early in life and building a wider audience for the arts among the general public were among his top interests.” Dallas Morning News 01/30/02

LANGUAGE OF ART AND SCIENCE: Science, like art, helps explain the world around us. And yet the language of science, the words used to explain it, are often not easy to understand. Likewise, art has not often helped us to learn about science. But there are signs that art is taking new interest in expressions of science. National Post (Canada) 01/30/02

ARTS LOSSES SINCE 9-11: The numbers are starting to come in for arts losses since September 11. “Nearly $30 million was lost between September 11 and October 31, based on 419 responses from arts groups in the five New York City boroughs. Box office income at the reporting institutions was down $11.6 million in that period, and they received $3 million less than anticipated from foundations.” Village Voice 01/29/02

BETTING ON BELFAST: What city will be chosen Europe’s Capital of Culture for 2008? Of the 13 cities in the running, Belfast is the oddsmakers’ favorite “because of its venues, the reputation of its council, but above all because Prime Minister Tony Blair stands most to gain politically by selecting it.” The Guardian (UK) 01/30/02

ARGENTINE CRISIS HITS THE ARTS: “Argentina’s artists and institutions learned long ago to live with small budgets. During the last few years the State has barely been able to keep its museums open, with most of the shows underwritten by foreign institutions, embassies and corporate sponsors. But devaluation and its concomitant loss of revenue, along with decreased consumption, seems certain to affect the privatised utilities’ support of the arts.” The Art Newspaper 01/30/02

Tuesday January 29

THE LINCOLN CENTRE MESS: “Lincoln Center is a community in deep distress, riven by conflict over a grandiose $1 billion redevelopment plan that was supposed to repair its deteriorating buildings and bring the cultural jewel of New York into the twenty-first century. But instead of uniting the center’s constituent arts organizations behind a common goal, the project has pitted them against one another in open warfare more reminiscent of the shoot-out at the OK Corral than of a night at the opera.” New York Magazine 01/28/02

SO NO ARRESTING SALLY MANN, GOT IT? “Massachusetts’ highest court has overturned the child pornography conviction of an art student who photographed a 15-year-old girl with her breasts exposed. The Supreme Judicial Court said Monday that John C. Bean, who was taking courses at the Worcester Art Museum, ‘had no lascivious intent’ and the pictures were ‘neither obscene nor pornographic.’ A judge had sentenced Bean to six months’ probation on a charge of ‘posing a child in the nude.’ Bean also faced having to register as a sex offender.” Nando Times (AP) 01/28/02

Monday January 28

ARTIST SUES CATHOLICS: A California artist is suing the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and its president for $100 million for comments the group made in protesting an art exhibition in Napa. The Catholic League had protested Catalan artist Antoni Miralda’s exhibit of the pope, some nuns and Fidel Castro defecating. Catholic League president derided the exhibit and asked: “Now I get it: To show his appreciation of Mother Earth, Miralda had to show the pope and nuns defecating. But why couldn’t he have chosen the Lone Ranger and Tonto instead? Or better yet, just Tonto and a few of his Indian buddies?” Jon Howard, a part Cherokee artist who lives in Santa Rosa is suing, claiming the remarks were libelous. San Francisco Chronicle 01/25/02

• Previously: PROTESTING A DEFECATING POPE: An exhibition at the Copia Museum in California features “defecating ceramic figurines of the pope, nuns and angels.” Catholic groups are protesting. The museum says the figures are “caganers” or “figurines are part of Spain’s Catalonian peasant tradition dating back to the 18th century.” But a Catholic spokesman says: “When it’s degrading, everybody knows it except the spin doctors who run the museums.” Nando Times (AP) 01/06/02

IS OXFORD FALLING BEHIND? Oxford is one of the world’s great universities. It is “a byword for Britain’s ancient scholarly traditions and still one of the country’s best-known cultural symbols, finds itself having to prove that it has an equally meaningful future – or else risk the fate described by a onetime professor of economics here, of ‘sliding gradually into mediocrity’. Unthinkable as it might once have been, too, Oxford has seen its academic reputation successfully challenged by other British institutions of higher learning that, until recently, were not even considered fully fledged universities.” Chronicle of Higher Education 01/25/02

Sunday January 27

ARTISTIC OUTPOURING: “Immediately after Sept. 11, thousands of people in New York and around the world set out to capture the meaning of those events through artistic expression. In the intervening months, thousands more have joined the effort, resulting in what may turn out to be the largest creative response in history to a single day’s event. Poetry, prose, dance, architecture, photography, soundscapes, TV, popular music, theatre, comic books, film, painting and sculpture: They have all grappled with the attacks and their aftermath, in the process provoking questions about the nature of art, its practical usefulness, and the legitimacy of artistic aspirations by non-artists.” But while such art may be therapeutic, is it good? “With art that is made in response to an immediate situation, it is rare that that kind of work is able to go beyond commemorating or documenting in the most straightforward manner.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/26/02

• RUSH TO MEMORY: Why rush to produce memorials for the events of September 11? There are so many proposals and ideas. “This is partly because America’s hurry-up, need-it-now culture can’t spare the time to let consensus develop organically. We’re too impatient to let historical perspective determine what is sufficiently important to cast in bronze. Still we insist on public memorials, even though interest-group politics complicates the process considerably. No public monument can satisfy everyone, but today, it seems, it’s difficult for a monument to satisfy anyone.” Philadelphia Inquirer 01/27/02

GAY FUND PLAYS IT STRAIGHT: Colorado Springs is not exactly a tolerant place for gays and lesbians (the city is famous for an anti-gay rights initiative passed in the early 1990s). But today Colorado Springs is home to the Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado, which “since its inception in 1997 has become part of the fourth-largest foundation in Colorado. It has awarded more than $7.3 million, including $2.9 million to arts and culture organizations.” The fund has an agenda – it “provides money only to nongay-specific organizations and productions.” Denver Post 01/27/02

THE GREAT VANILLA MIDDLE: How’s this for a definition of the middle class – “pacific, tolerant, secular, preferring prudence and profits to glory, conscious of itself as a group and, crucially, inward-looking to the point of neurosis.” A new book charts how “throughout the 19th century, this minority – just 12 per cent of western populations – grew in influence until it ruled cultural and political life. ‘The lower orders can feel but not speak, the aristocracy can speak but has nothing to say; only the bourgeoisie interpret and express the national will,’ the French critic Emile Faguet wrote in 1890. What was it like to belong to this elite?” Financial Times 01/25/02

Friday January 25

MARKERS: What is an appropriate memorial for the destruction of the World Trade Center? New York is full of memorials to other tragedies. “Those commemorating large-scale tragedy assume an astonishing variety of forms, from a 148-foot Doric column to a pocketful of blackened dimes and nickels. But each embodies the notion that even the most appalling catastrophe is part of a living continuum.” The New York Times 01/25/02

• INSTA-ART: A flood of new artwork coming out responds to the events of September 11. But “can good art can really be summoned up on demand like that, even in response to cataclysm?” Some of the best, most enduring artistic responses to tragedy haven’t appeared until years after the events. Public Arts 01/24/02

MADE TO ORDER: This year’s Adelaide Festival is showing films. But unlike most festivals that collect up films to showcase, Adelaide has commissioned artists to make movies just for the festival. The Age (Melbourne) 01/25/02

Thursday January 24

AT THE MERCY OF THE DONOR LIST: The collapse of Houston-based Enron Corporation has sent shock waves through Wall Street and Washington, and launched a whole new slew of late-night TV jokes. But the wholesale disappearance of such a massive company is having a potentially devastating effect on Houston’s already shaky arts scene. Replacing a donor who regularly drops tens of thousands of dollars on local ballets, symphonies, and playhouses is a herculean task. Andante 01/24/02

HELPING MANHATTAN ARTISTS: The Andy Warhol Foundation has given $600,000 to help artists in Lower Manhattan. “The grants of $15,000 to $25,000 will go to 29 small to midsize visual arts organizations in Lower Manhattan that have financial hardships. ‘We really feel strongly that these groups are just vital to the city’.” The New York Times 01/24/02

Wednesday January 23

TAKING A NATIONAL VIEW: The Scottish Arts Council’s new chairman has a reputation for being tough. He’s set himself a big task. “The arts council must match the significance of the circumstances. It’s got to take a national view, to lift its head from administrative purposes and say: ‘Look what can we do to push Scotland on’. It has to make far more impact, so it’s got to be riskier as well.” The Scotsman 01/23/02

Monday January 21

ENGLISH AS AN ENCROACHING LANGUAGE: English is turning up more and more in German speech and writing. “The unhostile takeover of English in trade journals, at conventions and in scientists’ and economists’ ‘speechlessness’ with regard to German have fostered a dilution of democratic discourse.” Will the Germans follow the French and set up a national council to “protect” German from the encroachment of English? Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 01/21/02

Sunday January 20

OBVIOUSLY A SOCIALIST-ELITIST PLOT: “As American schools struggle to beef up test scores and lift attendance and graduation rates, millions of dollars are being spent to send squadrons of unlikely heroes — musicians, dancers, poets and painters — into classrooms. Minnesota is helping to lead this massive educational experiment, even as critics point out that no concrete evidence supports this approach as either cost-effective or beneficial to children.” Minneapolis Star Tribune 01/20/02

RANKING THE EGGHEADS: A new book purports to examine the top intellectuals in America, quantifying their importance largely by how widespread their reputation is. A high number of Lexis-Nexis hits counts for more than a substantive idea, making for a predictably controversial list. Is Dinesh D’Souza washed up? Was Lionel Trilling overrated? And what the hell is Sidney Blumenthal doing anywhere near a list of intellectuals? The New York Times 01/19/02 (one-time registration required for access)

Friday January 18

REINSTATING AN OLD ART FORM: Soviet communists, in their zeal to stamp out religious influences, stripped their nation’s churches. Almost the first things to go were the bells: they were melted down to make power cables and tractor parts. Now, with a resurgence of religion, there’s a demand for replacements. So Russian metal-workers are trying to relearn the old art of casting bells. The Moscow Times (AP) 01/18/02

Thursday January 17

BAD SIGN FOR THE THEATRE? “In a new survey of 1,002 adults ages 18 and older, the Gallup Organization found that the overwhelming majority of Americans prefer home-based activities to a night on the town. In fact, only 10 percent said they’d go out.” Christian Science Monitor 01/16/02

THE AESTHETICS OF ART: Artists tend to be repelled by aesthetics, for a number of reasons. Many are suspicious that too much analyzing of their art will harm their creativity; it will encourage them to develop their rational ego at the expense of their creative unconscious. Or they suspect that aesthetic analysis will have no effect on them, that thinking about art in this way is simply useless. Aesthetics-online 01/02

Wednesday January 16

GERMANY’S CULTURAL STATESMAN: “The Goethe Institute is responsible for Germany’s cultural policies on the international front. And lately the institute has not enjoyed many opportunities for relaxed cheerfulness – though perhaps this is about to change” as a new president is chosen. “The job of president of the Goethe Institute has the cachet of statesmanship – after all, this most prestigious instrument of Germany’s foreign cultural policy has roughly 3,500 employees in 128 cultural institutes in 76 countries, and the presidency is an internationally visible position. But it is also an almost volunteer position, which is why other candidates of retirement age, who prefer better remuneration in their declining years, have indicated their lack of interest.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 01/16/02

NY CUTTING BACK CULTURAL SPENDING: New York’s cultural institutions are preparing for big cutbacks in funding from the city. City departments have been asked to plan for budget cutbacks of 25 percent. “Since no one wants to go back to the days when they didn’t paint the bridges, cultural projects will be at the bottom of the list. And when they get to the bottom of the list, there’s going to be nothing left.” The New York Times 01/16/02

WHO WILL HEAD NYT SUNDAY ARTS? Who will succeed John Rockwell as editor of the New York Times Sunday arts section? “Since last month, the name of Kurt Andersen has landed on lists of those believed to have spoken with [executive editor] Howell Raines about the job. But Andersen — former editor of New York magazine, co-founder of Inside.com and host of an arts program on National Public Radio — said he’s had no talks and doesn’t want the job.” Raines is believed to want the section to take on more popular culture. New York Daily News 01/15/02

• Previously: NYT CHANGING ARTS COVERAGE? New York Times Arts & Leisure editor John Rockwell has announced he’s stepping down from the job. Rockwell says Howell Raines, the Times new editor, wants to change the paper’s cultural coverage. “I found out Howell Raines wanted to take this section in a new direction – which, I might add, is perfectly within his rights as executive editor. Howell wants to take it more in a populist direction, more popular culture’.” New York Observer 12/19/01

Tuesday January 15

MAYOR LEAVES ART TO CRITICS: New York’s Jewish Museum is opening a show in March that looks at the growing artistic use of symbols from the Nazi era. But while religious leaders are bound to protest, don’t look for coercion from the city’s new mayor Unlike previous mayor Rudy Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg plans to stay out of debates over art: “I am opposed to government censorship of any kind. I don’t think the government should be in the business of telling museums what is art or what they should exhibit.” The New York Times 01/14/02

THE EDUCATION PRESIDENT: That’s what George Bush wants to be. “This year’s reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is widely regarded as the most ambitious federal overhaul of public schools since the 1960s. States will now test all students annually from third to eighth grade, while launching a federally guided drive for universal literacy among schoolchildren. Perhaps more strikingly, a political party that once called for the abolition of the Education Department has radically enhanced the federal presence in public schools. After repeating the mantra of local control and states’ rights for a generation, the GOP now intrudes on both. What has happened?” The Nation 01/14/02

REDUCED FOR NOISE: The Sydney Fringe Festival begins this week. There are 73 events in the 16-day program, “yet this year’s Fringe has suffered a massive budget set-back” because the “noise police” have clamped down on one of the more popular large events. Sydney Morning Herald 01/15/02

Monday January 14

WE LOVE L.A.: While many arts groups across America have had tough times since September 11 (falling attendance, donations and revenues, causing layoffs and a scaling back of activity) Los Angeles arts groups seem to have done fine. “Their income for 2001 may be flat or down slightly, but top officials say they know of no layoffs at major Southern California cultural organizations and only a few cancellations in this year’s schedules.” Los Angeles Times 01/14/02

EDUCATION SPENDING CONTINUES TO RISE: As the economy has slowed in the US, so has spending on higher education. A survey of states says that appropriations for higher education are up this year by 4.6 percent, the “smallest such increase in five years.” Still, adjusted for inflation, state spending on higher education rose by 2.7 percent going into 2001-2. Chronicle of Higher Education 01/14/02

Friday January 11

THE WHY’S WHY OF SMART: Even people who made the “top intellectual” list are skeptical about it. After all, why consider Thomas Friedman but not Maureen Dowd? Why say you don’t count novelists (who have an iffy claim on intellectual status anyway) if you then include Toni Morrison and Aldous Huxley? The New Republic 12/31/01

• WHAT’S IT TAKE? “Let us now stipulate that it is a goddamned outrage that [your name here] and/or [your friends’ names here] were not included, and that [your enemies’ names here] were. Restitution can and must be sought in the courts.” Slate 01/07/02

• Previously: WHO’S WHO OF SMART: A new book attempts to determine who America’s leading intellectuals are by counting media mentions. Dumb methodology but great fun. “The top public intellectual by media mentions in the last five years turns out to be Henry Kissinger, followed by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Sidney Blumenthal comes in seventh, which of course undermines the entire enterprise.” New York Observer 01/02/02

Thursday January 10

CANADA’S FAILING ARTS: A Canada Council report studying Canada’s largest arts institutions comes to a depressing conclusion: “that the big arts groups have reached the limits of their growth in a society that increasingly can find no more public nor private money to pay for them.” Attendance is static or falling, public funding has dropped, and private fundraising hasn’t kept up. “Do we need the debt-laden Toronto Symphony? Should we tell the Stratford Festival that, with a $2-million surplus to its credit, it no longer requires public subsidy? Will the National Ballet still be worthy of the name when it has only 35 dancers and never tours?” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/10/02

ARTS CLUB RAIDED: New York’s venerable 104-year-old National Arts Club was raided by police last Friday. Police “arrived at the crack of dawn with a search warrant and orders to raid the club’s administrative offices as part of an investigation into possible grand larceny and tax evasion. The club has been rocked by controversies in recent years, and some members fear that “some of the club’s sizable art collection, which the 1997 audit said had an appraised value of $4.9 million, could be sacrificed to pay for the club’s legal bills.” New York Observer 01/09/02

CAUGHT IN THE CULTURE WAR: Performance artist William Pope.L was one of two artists whose grants from the National Endowment for the Arts were held up by the then acting head of the NEA last month. Though money was later approved for a production of Tony Kushner’s Kabul play was later approved, Pope.L’s grant has not been released. Says the artist: “The NEA has an institutional responsibility not to bring besmirchment to or blacken, if I may, their character by valuing work that can possibly bring criticism on them. But in limiting themselves, they encourage a particular way of looking at American culture, don’t they?” Village Voice 01/09/02

Wednesday January 9

DECLINE IN ARTS FUNDING FROM UK LOTTERY? The arts’ tremendous building boom in the UK in the past seven years has been largely the result of big slugs of cash from the National Lottery. But the lottery’s take in the past six months is down five percent, falling to £668 million for the half year, down from £708 million in a similar period the year before. The arts stand to get about 16 percent of the total, and this is the third year in a row that lottery revenues are declining. The Art Newspaper 01/08/02

TRYING FOR A RETURN TO BEAUTY AND LIGHT: It’s a tough time for newspaper columnists. There is a lingering sense that to write about anything but the aftereffects of September 11 would be disrespectful, or at least ignorant of current priorities, and yet life has moved on, and many writers are desperate to return to the days when, if they felt like sitting down at the keyboard and banging out 1200 words on narrative form, they could do so. But how to ignore the daily barrage of war news? The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 01/09/02

Monday January 7

ADELAIDE MAKEOVER: Having purged Peter Sellars as director of this year’s Adelaide Festival, the festival has revealed a new lineup that keeps some of the Sellars fare and adds new performers. Still at the heart of the festival is John Adams’ El Nino directed by Sellars. The Age (Melbourne) 01/07/02

Sunday January 6

PROTECTING IDEAS TO DEATH: “Lawrence Lessig’s passionate new book, ‘The Future of Ideas, argues that America’s concern with protecting intellectual property has become an oppressive obsession. ”The distinctive feature of modern American copyright law,’ he writes, ‘is its almost limitless bloating.’ As Lessig sees it, a system originally designed to provide incentives for innovation has increasingly become a weapon for attacking cutting-edge creativity. Why, Lessig asks, does American law increasingly protect the interests of the old guard over those of the vanguard?” The New York Times 01/06/02

THE IDEA OF GENIUS: “Do any artists deserve a transcendent label? At one time such questions would have seemed somewhat strange. Philosophers have argued about how to define genius, not about whether it exists. But challenges to the idea’s validity have become commonplace in recent years. Genius has been judged to be little more than a product of good marketing or good politicking.” The New York Times 01/05/02

CHANGE OF VENUE: In the past decade new performing arts venues have sprung up all over Atlanta. But some have not lived up to their extravagant ambitions. “Now, facing serious deficits, an unforgiving economy and a loss of creative leadership, two of the biggest halls are confronting their greatest challenges. The question is not whether they can survive, but whether, in a newly competitive market, the venues can continue to be as experimental in their programming.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution 01/06/02

OF INTELLIGENCE AND MORALITY: A new book looks at the politics of intelligent people. “It is now a commonplace – but for all that still unnerving – that it was very often not merely the stupid but the highly intelligent who gave their support to the Hitlers and the Stalins of the last century. Anyone in search of an explanation for this fact might therefore think it better to look not to the quality of mind of these devotees but rather to their character, their moral psychology. This is an intricate, treacherous field of inquiry, and one for which we have no particularly powerful philosophical idiom: since at least the 18th century, philosophers have given over the matter to novelists, and the older vocabularies – of corruptibility, of akrasia, or weakness of will – no longer have broad intellectual resonance.” The New York Times 01/06/02

ART TO THE RESCUE: Like many charities, the New York Times’ Neediest Cases Fund has seen contributions decline since September 11. So the paper has decided to hold an auction of art to try to make up the shortfall. Artists donating work include Ross Bleckner, Louise Bourgeois, Larry Clark, Chuck Close, Gregory Crewdson, Jenny Holzer, William Kentridge, Sol LeWitt, Shirin Nashat, Nam June Paik, Doug and Cindy Sherman, Mike Starn and Christopher Wool. The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation has also contributed a painting by the late Pop artist.” The New York Times 01/05/02

Friday January 4

THE FUTURIST’S TOMORROW: “The future is coming up faster than ever, and it will not be long now before we drive our even bigger cars, fitted with instant e-mail communications, from the high-rise office built behind the façade of a fine old structure — façadism will be the architectural style of the era — to our exurban homes decorated with the odd Old Master leased by the year from the local museum in a curators’ brainwave we will call Rent-a-Rembrandt.” Or so says Faith Popcorn, who has something of an impressive record with such predictions. National Post (Canada) 01/04/02

Thursday January 3

LINCOLN CENTER SUFFERS MORE HITS: Lincoln Center’s controversial $1.2 billion refurbishment plans got a double hit Wednesday when new New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg “suggested that the project would have to be delayed” and that the city might have difficulty in following through with a promised $240 million contribution. Meanwhile, Lincoln Center’s interim executive director said she was leaving to head Philadelphia’s new Kimmel Performing Arts Center. The New York Times 01/03/02

HELPING ARTISTS, NOT CORPORATIONS: There are countless organizations devoted to funding art, and millions of dollars are spent every year by philanthropists doing their part to bring new works to the world. But most of the available cash comes in the form of grants that can only be applied for by incorporated non-profits, leaving independent artists out in the cold. But in Pennsylvania, a familiar foundation has begun devoting a good-sized chunk of change to helping out the proverbial “starving artist.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 01/03/02

Wednesday January 2

OLYMPICS CULTURAL CHIEF RESIGNS: The director of the Athens Cultural Olympics has resigned. The cultural event is to be held in conjunction with the 2004 Athens Olympics. “The resignation was the newest head-on blow to the 2004 Games organizers, who had been dogged by infighting, bureaucracy and delays. The International Olympic Committee has repeatedly warned Athens to quicken its work if it wants to host good Games. The Cultural Olympics, initially envisioned as similar to the ancient Greek poetry and art contests that were held along with sports competitions in Ancient Olympia, were one of Greece’s strong points in winning the bid for the 2004 Games.” Andante (Xinhua) 01/02/02

GOING FORWARD: Most novels are told in the past tense. But great art, great thinking happens in the present dreaming of the future. That’s really the essence of modernism – using the past to build a future rather than declaring the past and future as cause-and-effect. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/02/02

THIS YEAR’s CULTURAL CAPITALS: In promoting culture, the European Union has been choosing a “Cultural Capital” each year. The idea promotes the arts in those chosen cities and has spurred greater investment in the arts. “For 2002, there are two Cultural Capitals, both small, historic cities: Salamanca, in western-central Spain, and Brugge, near the coast of Belgium.” Chicago Tribune 01/01/02

Monday December 31

THINK YOU KNOW ARTS? Think you know what happened in the arts this year? Been following the papers and keeping up with your daily dose of Arts Journal? Well, check out The Guardian’s Arts Quiz and see how well you score (AJ’s editor took the test and…ahem…only managed 11 right answers out of 20…) The Guardian (UK) 12/31/01

HURTING IN THE CAPITAL: In Washington DC “the fourth quarter of 2001 has been among the saddest, most frustrating and apprehensive for Washington’s arts groups. First the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, then the disappearance of the tourists, then the anthrax deaths, then the government’s warnings more attacks could be coming, all set against the tumbling economy. People have stayed away in droves.” Washington Post 12/30/01

WHERE ARE THE ARTISTS? The tragedy of Sept. 11 has made all of us return to the human project of making sense of the world with new vigor; but four months out from the bruising blow to the nation’s sense of security, there is little coherence to the sense being made by our professional ‘sense makers,’ the nation’s musicians, playwrights, poets and visual artists.” Washington Post 12/30/01

YOU JUST HATE TO GIVE THSE PEOPLE ANY ATTENTION, BUT… members of a New Mexico church (probably looking for attention) rallied against the Harry Potter books, claiming he was the devil. “JK Rowling’s novels were burnt alongside other items considered to be the work of the devil, including horror books by Stephen King, ouija boards and AC/DC records. Eminem CDs and copies of Disney’s Snow White film were thrown in a dustbin.” BBC 12/31/01

Sunday December 30

THE YEAR IN ARTS: Publications around the world choose the best and worst in arts in 2001. Here’s our compilation of “Best of/Worst of” lists. ArtsJournal.com

Friday December 28

ARE PACS ALL THEY’RE CRACKED UP TO BE? “PACs have become the hot new urban fix, following the festival market, the convention center, the baseball stadium, the sports arena, the aquarium, and the museum… Yet it took Lincoln Center 25 years to become a destination instead of merely a venue. That’s one of its forgotten lessons. Without the simultaneous development of shops, cafes, housing, and hotels, performing arts centers quickly become marooned by their own lofty intentions.” Dallas Morning News 12/28/01 (one-time registration required for access)

LOOKING BACK: The BBC traces the year in arts, month by month – from Matthew Kneale’s Whitbread win to Madonna’s Turner Prize announcement. BBC 12/27/01

FIGHTING FOR CONTROL: Two San Francisco institutions are duking it out for control of the theatre at the Palace of Fine Arts. “The Exploratorium science museum and the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, which sit side by side in the dreamy, city-owned Palace of Fine Arts complex in the Marina District, are trying to work out new leases with the city,” and the Exploratorium wants to take over operation of the theatre. San Francisco Chronicle 12/27/01

COMING TO TERMS WITH ART’S RESPONSIBILITIES: It has become almost cliched to point out the importance of art’s survival in a culture so shaken by the trauma of 9/11. But for artists themselves, who are now expected to have something relevant to say on the subject, the journey from horror to productive creation is not an easy one, and the decision of how to address the grieving of a nation without seeming trite or preachy is not an easy one. Christian Science Monitor 12/28/01

Thursday December 27

LANGUAGE VS. TECHNOLOGY? The education ministry of a prosperous Indian state is under fire from self-styled guardians of culture, following a proposal to allow high school students to study Information Technology (IT) as a second language. Opponents fear that, since students are only permitted to pick one language to study, IT will quickly become the course of choice, replacing Marathi, the local language which is in danger of dying out. Wired 12/25/01

POP GOES THE EASEL: As museums around the U.S. struggle with attendance figures and constantly evolving competition from new and exciting pop culture offerings, many are turning to pop art exhibits to draw in the younger set. From the Guggenheim’s motorcycles, to SFMOMA’s Reeboks, to a widely criticized display of Jackie O’s clothing at no less a gallery than New York’s Metropolitan Museum, it cannot be denied that museums are dumbing down. But is this a failure of the arts, or a success for marketing? The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) (AP) 12/27/01

Wednesday December 26

ARTS AFTER 9-11: “A massive infusion of irrationality is necessary to stabilize self-belief during a crisis. And that means the arts are going to be hit hard on two levels. The first is that the very nearly illiterate George W. Bush will set the limits on the public conversation about terrorism. The second level, far more devastating, is the retreat of artists from the arena of public issues. Conscious of their need to connect with an audience, why would they write the plays and novels for which the times will pillory them?” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/26/01

Monday December 24

NEA KEEPS KEEPIN’ ON: President Bush’s nominee for chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts was confirmed by the Senate last week. It’s been a tumultuous few decades for the NEA, though the political turmoil has calmed a bit in the past few years. But the government is not likely to pay the arts much heed until they get new champions. “The arts are a strange part of American life. Almost everybody loves them on some level, but they haven’t been educated to think about it as part of government.” New York Times 12/24/01 (one-time registration required for access)

THE START OF… Fifty years ago, Canadian Governor General Vincent Massey produced a report on culture whose “recommendations led eventually to the creation of the Canada Council and the National Library. But the report exerted other influences that were less obvious and less beneficial. What seems clear now is its political bias. It framed support of the arts in essentially political terms, and we have been burdened by those terms ever since.” National Post (Canada) 12/24/01

SMART AS A MACHINE: Machines don’t have the intelligence “imagined by Stanley Kubrick in 1968, when he released the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. This year, we can now say at the safety of its end, did not bring us a Hal, or anything like it. Computers can play a pretty good game of chess, transliterate speech and recognise handwriting and faces. But their intelligence does not touch our own, and the prevailing scientific wisdom seems to be that it never will.” The Economist 12/22/01

PERFORMANCE AFTER 9-11: “I have seen great performances this fall, and I have seen imperfect performances, but I have seen no indifferent performances. Artists’ work seemed more focused, more intense during these harrowing weeks. The less gifted among us can learn much from them.” San Francisco Chronicle 12/23/01

OLD PROBLEM: “As any regular patron can tell you, the people who turn out for music, dance and theater are more likely to be concerned with Medicare than with student loans. It’s a tricky population twist for arts managers to navigate as they try to accommodate their reliable, though aging, subscription base while also pulling in new blood for the future. It’s not a particularly new problem – the core audience has always been those who have no babies and some disposable income – but modern demographics and economics have given a new urgency to the issue.” Washington Post 12/23/01

A HOME OF THEIR OWN: For a decade, a dozen Chicago arts groups have been working on building a new mid-size theatre, a joint home they can grow into. The delays have been frustrating though, and several of the groups are just barely hanging on as construction is about to begin. Chicago Tribune 12/23/01

WHEN ART IS ISOLATED: Eyes glaze over for most people encountering issues of aesthetics. But maybe it’s not their fault. “I would say that western philosophy and western fine art are designed to be irrelevant to the lives of most folks. They are supposed to be incomprehensible to people like most of the students I have taught. We’re working with a conception of art in which most art is isolated in little cultural zones like the museum, the concert hall, the poetry reading, where art is supposed to function by sweeping us from our grubby little world and into the exalted realm of the aesthetic.” Aesthetics-online 12/01

WHAT IF ARTS AND SPORTS TRADED PLACES? “There are sports people and arts people, the two alien civilizations whose populations are greater than all others combined. Throughout history, sports people have had little tolerance for the artsy-fartsy types, just as arts people have looked down their noses at the beer-swilling lunkheads.” But “how would things be different if the arts were sports, and if sports were the arts?” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 12/23/01

Friday December 21

GOOD YEAR FOR AUSSIE ARTS: Despite an economic slowdown and a drop in tourism after September 11, 2001 was a terrific year for Australian arts groups. Ticket sales and subscriptions were up, box office was good, and most of the country’s arts institutions are optimistic.”The best result of all was achieved by the Melbourne Festival. The largest spring event staged reported record boxoffice returns of $3.5 million last month.” The Age (Melbourne) 12/21/01

MELLON DONATES TO NYC ARTS GROUPS: “The Andrew Mellon Foundation announced yesterday the first in a series of grants totaling $50 million to aid cultural institutions directly affected by the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11. The first awards, $2.65 million each, will go to three New York groups that are grant-making organizations themselves: the Alliance of Resident Theaters/New York, the American Music Center and the New York Foundation for the Arts.” The New York Times 12/21/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Thursday December 20

CALIFORNIA LOVES THE ARTS: A survey on interest in the arts in California shows that 78 percent would be willing to tax themselves an extra $5 a year to support the arts (the state currently spends $1 a year on arts). Among the other findings: “83 percent of those surveyed attended a performing or visual arts event at least once in the past year, and 31 percent attended four or more performances a year.” Sacramento Bee 12/19/01

Wednesday December 19

NEA RELEASES SOME HELD-UP GRANT MONEY: “After holding back its initial approval, the National Endowment for the Arts has decided to give the Berkeley Repertory Theater a $60,000 grant for a production of Tony Kushner’s new play on Afghanistan. The endowment’s acting chairman held up two grants last month at the very last step in the approval process, a move that generated discussion about the NEA’s procedures and the artists’ work… Officials at the NEA have steadfastly refused to discuss the rationale behind the scrutiny since the acting chairman’s action became public almost three weeks ago.” Washington Post 12/19/01

NYT CHANGING ARTS COVERAGE? New York Times Arts & Leisure editor John Rockwell has announced he’s stepping down from the job. Rockwell says Howell Raines, the Times new editor, wants to change the paper’s cultural coverage. “I found out Howell Raines wanted to take this section in a new direction – which, I might add, is perfectly within his rights as executive editor. Howell wants to take it more in a populist direction, more popular culture’.” New York Observer (second item) 12/19/01

Tuesday December 18

ENRON COLLAPSE A BLOW TO HOUSTON CULTURE: The collapse of Houston-based Enron has some major cultural implications for the city’s arts organizations. The company was a big investor in art – both for its walls as well as support for the arts. “Many cultural institutions here, including the Museum of Fine Arts, the Houston Ballet, the Alley Theater and the Houston Symphony, will feel the repercussions as well, because the company contributed to all of them.” The New York Times 12/18/01 (one-time registration required for access)

NEWSFLASH – CALIFORNIANS WANT CULTURE: “The California Arts Council will release today the results of a statewide public opinion survey that indicates that California residents endorse government support for the arts and are willing to pay for it. The survey, the first of its kind for the state arts agency, indicates that 78% of Californians are willing to pay $5 more in state taxes if the money goes to the arts.” Los Angeles Times 12/18/01

Monday December 17

THE GIRLS’ EDGE: A new study has established that “girls have higher reading skills than boys, have more confidence in their ability to learn and, when taught together with other girls, even catch up in math where males still appear to have an advantage. Nevertheless, the political activists and their organizations, which spend most of their time concocting calls for action, are not satisfied with the girls: No matter how well educated they are, girls still tend to choose ‘typical female careers or fields of study in disproportionate numbers,’ according to the study.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 12/16/01

WOMEN FOR PEACE: Why have there been so few women Nobel Peace Prize winners? “One group of individuals the Nobel Peace Prize has consistently under-rewarded is women, and, strangely, this has never been a controversial element of the prize. The discrepancy is jarring. During the 100-year history of the Nobel Peace Prize, 109 prizes have been awarded. Ten have been to women. Women – under-represented in the democratic or anti-democratic regimes that choose to wage wars – are also under-represented in the garnering of plaudits for peace.” The Guardian (UK) 12/16/01

Sunday December 16

GETTING INVOLVED: “In recent years, the term ‘activist’ has tentatively resurfaced at art panels. Participants have voiced a mix of renewed interest in addressing social and cultural problems, frustration that so many of those issues remain little changed after decades of awareness, and reluctance to adopt the last generation’s model because, in retrospect, it was too absolutist.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 12/16/01

Friday December 14

ART OUT OF CHAOS: A novelist – a non-Jew, non-musician – is stymied in trying to write about a musician in the Holocaust. She works her way through after a visit to the concentration camp where many artists were sent. “Theresienstadt had four working orchestras; in addition to symphonies and original operas, hundreds of chamber and lieder concerts were performed, and there were two cabarets. According to one historian, for most of the war Theresienstadt had the freest cultural life in the occupied Europe.” Boston Review December 2001

Thursday December 13

CONCERT HALL OR CIVIC REVITALIZATION? Philadelphia’s new Kimmel Center was built with the help of nearly $100 million of public money, leading some to ask whether the expense of creating such cultural monuments is balanced by the benefits it returns to the community. “Officials say the Kimmel will create 3,000 jobs and generate $153 million in annual spending on tickets, parking, restaurants, hotels and the like. The building itself isn’t expected to be profitable for several years.” San Jose Mercury News 12/13/01

KEEPIN’ IT REAL IN DC: The nation’s capital does not have a stunning track record when it comes to supporting the arts nationally, and the current administration has had a few other things on its mind lately. Nevertheless, “this year’s recently concluded Kennedy Center Honors gala… proved to be what it is every year — the most convivial and least pompous party in Washington, if you can imagine such a thing.” Chicago Tribune 12/13/01

Wednesday December 12

DIGITAL DIVIDE: “Artists have been exploring digital art since the 1960s, but only in the past few years has it become widely practical because of better technology and prices.” Cell phone symphonies, digital graphics, interactive art…”it’s evolved to the point where artists are getting better at taking advantage of the tools and making better art. We’ve reached the level of seeing more museum-quality work.” Chicago Tribune 12/11/01

Tuesday December 11

RUSTY HINGE: England’s “Arts Council is no more than the hinge on the door that should lead the public to the arts, and artists to their public. But has there been a creakier, dodgier hinge in the history of metaphorical carpentry? Has there been a single year out of the past 20 when the Arts Council has not been going through some ‘upheaval’ or ‘crisis’ — usually entirely of its own making?” Another “reorganization” isn’t helping. The Times (UK) 12/11/01

ART IN ECONOMIC TERMS: “No doubt about it, the arts today are a hard sell. This is a problem because, despite all protestations against commercialism and ‘selling out,’ art has always had a tendency to follow the money. To an extent still far greater than many critics are willing to concede, all of the arts are economically determined, and their failure can be described in simple economic terms. There has been no problem with the supply of art (leaving aside arguments over its quality), what has been lacking is the demand.” GoodReports 12/11/01

ISRAELI ARTISTS OBJECT TO FUNDING CRITERIA: The Israeli government tries to come up with a uniform set of funding criteria for cultural organizations – a kind of one-size-fits-all approach to cultural funding. “The question is how the money ought then to be distributed, and if it is at all possible to come up with uniform criteria where art is concerned.” But a set of rules drafted to set criteria has been strenuously attacked by the country’s arts institutions. Ha’aretz (Israel) 12/10/01

ALL IN ALL – A GOOD YEAR: The Australia Council released figures measuring last year’s artistic output in Australia. All, in all, it was a pretty good year – “new Australian works increased by 41 per cent compared with 1999, with new dance and chamber music works accounting for the increase. Audience numbers reached record levels in 2000. Audiences increased 4.5 per cent between 2000 and 1999. The Age (Melbourne) 12/11/01

• THE PROFITABLE NON-PROFITS: “For the first time in almost a decade, the 21 dance, opera, theatre and chamber music companies made a significant profit. An aggregate profit of $4.6 million was reported last year, although this was reduced to $185,000 when the symphony orchestras were included.” Sydney Morning Herald 12/11/01

Thursday December 6

AN OFFICIAL POSITION ON FOLK MUSIC? A British government culture minister has taken a swipe at folk music, and folk fans are demanding an apology. In a debate in parliament on music licenses, Kim Howells observed: “For a simple urban boy such as me, the idea of listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell.” BBC 12/06/01

COME BACK PETE: The Adelaide Festival might have forced Peter Sellars to resign as artistic director, but the Festival still wants him to produce his expensive multimedia opera at next year’s festival. “Sellars, who resigned last month over programming difficulties, has been persuaded to return to Adelaide to direct the El Nino singers and will be present for the festival, as will its creator, John Adams.” The Age (Melbourne) 12/06/01

Wednesday December 5

THE ART OF SCIENCE? Art has long been influenced by science. But science has rarely taken inspiration from art. “When an artist walks into a lab and sees equations written on the board, his usual response is to say, ‘I don’t understand any of this – it must be brilliant,’ But when an engineer wanders into an art gallery and sees stuffed animals, he’s very likely to say, ‘I don’t understand any of this – it must be garbage.'” Wire 12/04/01

Tuesday December 4

NEA CHAIRMAN HOLDS UP GRANTS: The acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts has delayed awarding two grants recommended by Endowment panels and the National Council on the Arts. One grant was for $100,000 to Berkley Repertory Theatre for production of a new Tony Kushner play. The New York Times 12/04/01 (one-time registration required for access)

THE LINCOLN CENTER MESS: “Lincoln Center’s constituents are bound together by architecture, and that architecture is in need of repair. They are not bound together artistically and never have been. The redevelopment proposal, now projected at $1.2 billion, seems focused on initiatives that have little direct relation to their artistic mission. Making the public space more attractive and accessible is a worthy goal but not the most important. The project should be a visionary effort, a chance for each organization to address longstanding issues that have affected its artistic growth. The problem is that each organization has its own agenda.” The New York Times 12/04/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Monday December 3

THE IMPOSSIBLE FUNDING GAME: The Ontario government has made $300 million available for arts projects in the province. But $1.2 billion in requests has come in. And, in order to navigate the politics and rules for getting the money, you have to turn yourself in knots. Is this any way to run a lottery? Toronto Star 12/02/01

STEPPING UP: Arts organizations around the country have reported at least slight declines in ticket sales since 9/11. But New York’s arts community was decimated by the attacks, as tourism, the backbone of the city’s cultural scene, took a hit. Now, the Andrew W. Mellon foundation has set up a special $50 million fund to help those organizations worst hit by the fallout. Andante 12/03/01

KENNEDY CENTER HANDS OUT THE HARDWARE: “President Bush hosted a Hollywood who’s-who on Sunday as actors Jack Nicholson and Julie Andrews, composer-producer Quincy Jones, pianist Van Cliburn and tenor Luciano Pavarotti were honored for their contributions to the performing arts at the Kennedy Center Honors.” Nando Times (AP) 12/03/01

Sunday December 2

BIG GIFT FOR KENNEDY CENTER: Catherine Reynolds has given the Kennedy Center $10 million to underwrite performances over the next decade. The money, she says, is unrestricted. That’s important to say, because she is the donor who was criticized earlier this year when she gave $38 million to the Smithsonian for a “Spirit of America” exhibit and suggested who might be featured in it. Washington Post 11/30/01

THE LINCOLN CENTER PROBLEM: The restoration of New York’s Lincoln Centre is an exciting project. So why has it gathered up so little public enthusiasm? “Of the $1.2 billion budget of the redevelopment plan for Lincoln Center that will soon be made public, only 15 percent is devoted to public space. It is, however, a crucial 15 percent. For in one respect the critics are right: the center’s public spaces are miserably flawed. To make them perform on the same level as the artists who tread its stages is one of the plan’s stated goals.” The New York Times 12/02/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Friday November 30

BUILDING A BETTER CRITIC: “Most of the available writing on the arts today consists of consumer guides that provide brief synopses or trivial background information. These guides are not about providing substantial and thought-provoking criticism. The shortage of critical approaches has spurred a team of researchers to spend the past three years investigating the issues and considering solutions. The project is sponsored by the Thailand Research Fund and is titled ‘Criticism as an Intellectual Force in Contemporary Society.'” Bangkok Post (courtesy Andante) 11/29/01

OTHER CITIES SHOULD HAVE IT SO GOOD: Frankfurt’s arts groups are looking for money. The government has promised more – the performing arts will get DM5.5 million ($2.5 million) more in 2002 than originally planned, bringing the total budget for theater, opera, ballet and the Theater am Turm to DM132.4 million.” But arts groups had wanted DM143 million. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 11/30/01

Thursday November 29

ANTICIPATING HARD TIMES: Just as large corporations often lay off workers in an attempt to be ahead of sharp economic downturns, arts groups are beginning to look for ways to save money in anticipation of a period of reduced cash flow. The unique combination of the events of September 11 and the national recession has created a jittery atmosphere which has arts administrators questioning everything, from programming decisions to expansion plans. San Francisco Chronicle 11/29/01

• CALIFORNIA CUTS: The California Arts Council, citing hard economic times, says it will probably have to cut the amount of money it gives arts groups by 15 percent next year. Among the cuts will be arts education grants. “Starting next September, hundreds of schools won’t get arts funds.” San Francisco Chronicle 11/28/01

CUTTING THROUGH THE ANIMOSITY: “Who knows what makes visual art so hard for people to cope with? For whatever reason, it seems to be pilloried more in the public domain than other art forms. As an art critic, you are mindful of this. If people don’t understand a work of art, they will often not simply move on; they will dig in and actively hate.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 11/29/01

Wednesday November 28

THE HOTEL/MOTEL BLUES: Tourism is way down in San Francisco. That’s bad for arts groups on two counts. First, it means attendance at art events is down. Second, the city’s tax on hotels and motels generated $11.6 million last year for the arts, and declining occupancy means big cuts in tax collections for the arts. “The latest forecasts predict that the Grants for the Arts program will have 25 percent less money to dish out in 2002 than it did this year. San Francisco Chronicle 11/27/01

• BAY AREA ARTS CRASH: “On their own, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 aren’t going to sink any Bay Area arts organizations. But they have accelerated the economic downturn that was already roaring through the arts community, sending tremors through medium-size and smaller organizations. What happens in the next few weeks – prime fund-raising season for all nonprofit groups – will be critical to the survival of not only some Bay Area artists but also of their counterparts everywhere.” San Francisco Chronicle 11/27/01
• HARDEST HIT: The arts organizations most suffering in the economic downturn are those doing adventurous work, and those with mid-level budgets. “It’s the mid-sized organizations that are going to be hurt, the ones with a budget between $500,000 and $1.5 million. The smaller ones can just hole up in their garage and go dark or just keep going because they don’t pay anyone anything anyway.” San Francisco Chronicle 11/28/01
• WORSE OUTSIDE SF: At least arts groups in San Francisco can count on some help from the city. Outside the city, everyone’s struggling. Some groups have seen donations fall by half. And those that were already having problems before September 11 are gasping for air. San Francisco Chronicle 11/28/01

Tuesday November 27

DEFENDING THE ATTACKERS: Critic Jonathan Yardley defends the American Council of Trustees and Alumni report attacking some academics’ response to the American war. “There is one place in American life where conservatism still means what it is meant to, and it is the unlikeliest place imaginable. In response to the tidal wave of leftist insanity that has washed over the professoriat for the past three decades, a movement is taking shape to defend the campuses against the many dreadful developments that wave has brought: the politicization of the arts and humanities, the abandonment of the core curriculum, the suppression of dissent against leftist orthodoxy, political correctness in all its insidious and destructive forms.” Washington Post 11/15/01

ATTACK ON COPYRIGHT HOARDERS: Lawrence Lessig wants to change US copyright law. Why? “American copyright laws have gotten so out of hand that they are causing the death of culture and the loss of the world’s intellectual history. Copyright has bloated from providing 14 years of protection a century ago to 70 years beyond the creator’s death now, and has become a tool of large corporations eager to indefinitely prolong their control of a market. Irving Berlin’s songs, for example, will not go off copyright for 140 years.” Wired 11/27/01

WHO WILL CHAMPION L.A. ARTS? Los Angeles is home to 150,000 artists and boasts 1000 active arts organizations. Yet where is the support of the city? “Support for the arts is shamefully small, and the intersections between community life, political power and artistic expression are unfortunately rare.” Los Angeles Times 11/25/01

Monday November 26

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES: As arts organizations feel squeezed financially and try to anticipate the sensitivities of their audiences, some of the edgier or more controversial art that would have been expected before 9-11 is being postponed, canceled or melted away. Some worry that “in times of financial crises, arts organizations all too often cut back on ‘artistic initiatives’ – including commissioning new works – but that those seemingly painless cuts lead to further financial woes.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution 11/25/01

SCOTTISH ARTS CHIEF TO RESIGN: After weeks of speculation, the director of the Scottish Arts Council says she’ll resign the post. “Tessa Jackson, who had three years left to run on her contract, said she would remain involved in the development of the arts in Scotland. She had been in post for just under two years.” The Times (UK) 11/24/01

Sunday November 25

ATTACKING ACADEMIA: An advocacy group whose founders include Lynn Cheney, wife of American Vice President Dick Cheney has been collecting what it claims is evidence of “unpatriotic behavior” by US academics. “Calling professors ‘the weak link in America’s response to the attack,’ the report excoriates faculty members for invoking ‘tolerance and diversity as antidotes to evil’ and pointing ‘accusatory fingers, not at the terrorists, but at America itself’.” The New York Times 11/24/01 (one-time registration required for access)

FEEDING FRENZY: Ontario arts groups are after $300 million the government says it will pour into cultural facilities. Not surprisingly, something of a feeding frenzy has erupted, and “given that the SuperBuild pool for culture and recreation totals $300-million and the requests of the 400-plus organizations total an estimated $1.2-billion, the province is trying to find ways to cleave the elect from the damned.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/24/01

TELLING THE FUTURE: “In a funny turn, trends are a hot, new trend. Trend-spotting – the art and science of identifying new trends and predicting future trends – is a booming industry filled by a swelling rank of new professionals who go by a grab bag of titles. Trend-spotter, cool-hunter, pop futurist – all these new-fangled terms to describe what amounts to one of the world’s oldest professions: fortune-telling.” Dallas Morning News 11/24/01

Friday November 23

LAYOFFS ARE JUST A START: A new study quantifies the losses of New York arts groups since September 11. The challenges are many: Attendance is down, “city and state budgets have been slashed, individual giving is being re-directed to September 11–related causes, annual fundraisers are being dropped or pulling in a lot less money than anticipated, public schools are canceling field trips and cultural program contracts in all five boroughs, and capital campaigns have all but ground to a halt.” Center for an Urban Future 11/01

FUNDING SHORTFALL: Sixty leaders of Ontario arts organizations gather to discuss the financial crises facing the province’s arts groups. One estimate says Toronto arts groups are $40 million short of balancing their books this season, and the Toronto Symphony is in imminent danger of going out of business. Toronto Star 11/22/01

DOES MULTICULTURALISM EXIST? A professor at Pennsylvania Stae University argues that multiculturalism doesn’t exist. His “criticisms of the multiculturalist project are novel precisely because he does not find fault with the tenets of the movement, but doubts the very existence of multiculturalism in American life. True multiculturalism, he argues, would demand an understanding of and immersion in cultures so radically different that deference to all of them would cause major rifts in society.” Partisan Review 11/01

Thursday November 22

TRY NEW ZEALAND: Hoping to cash in on the troubled Adelaide Festival’s woes, the New Zealand Festival (scheduled for the same time as Adelaide) is launching a campaign to try to lure Australians to their festival instead. “The New Zealand Festival had traditionally worked with the Adelaide Festival to share the cost of bringing out international performers. But this year, the New Zealand Festival had to shoulder a greater financial burden because its Adelaide counterpart had rejected international shows in favour of local content.” The Age (Melbourne) 11/22/01

Wednesday November 21

HELP FOR NEW YORK ARTS: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has set up a $50 million fund for New York cultural institutions hurt in the wake of Sepetmber 11. Arts organizations are being hurt by sharply reduced audiences and a pullback in donations. “A survey of 150 New York arts organizations released this week by the Center for an Urban Future, a nonpartisan policy institute that focuses on economic issues, found that nonprofit arts organizations are entering their rockiest period in over 30 years.” The New York Times 11/21/01 (one-time registration required for access)

GONE BUT NOT DISMISSED: One of the featured pieces planned for next year’s Adelaide Festival was Peter Sellars multimedia opera El Nino. But when Sellars lost his job as director of the festival, most observers expected the opera would be stricken from the schedule (after all, it would be awkward to have Sellars in town as the festival went on). But new artistic director Sue Nattrass says she’s negotiating to keep it included. The Age (Melbourne) 11/21/01

CREATIVITY IN ITS MANY FORMS: Art and science are both expressions of mankind’s creativity. “Any work of art or science necessarily draws on many different, apparently unconnected areas. Such highly creative thinking may be likened to a mosaic of many tiles. In Picasso’s and Einstein’s cases, we have identified, among others: cinematography, geometry, technology, aesthetics, X-rays etc. Both men were concerned with the same problem – simultaneity and spatial representation.” The Independent (UK) 11/21/01

Tuesday November 20

TEACHING HUMANITIES IN A TIME OF WAR: “When colleagues and graduate students who are teaching this term gather, the conversation often turns to how to bridge the chasm between the syllabus – whatever it contains – and the students who are looking for help in figuring out how to sustain a humane connection to a world that’s overwhelming them. I listen to these conversations, then I look at recent issues of scholarly journals in my field, and I feel as if I’m in two different worlds. For years, literary scholarship has been refining the art of stepping away from humane connection.” Chronicle of Higher Education 11/19/01

FIRE SALE PRICES: Ticket sales to St. Paul Minnesota arts events have been so slow after September 11, that a consortium of arts groups have banded together to slash ticket prices by 50 percent through the end of the year. Minneapolis Star-Tribune 11/20/01

Monday November 19

HARTFORD’S NEW STAGE: Hartford’s Bushnell Center opens a new $45 million performance venue, including a 900-seat theatre meant to serve the city’s diverse performing arts companies. As a multi-purpose facility, it’s a calculated risk. Hartford Courant 11/18/01

Sunday November 18

NYC ARTS FEELING THE PINCH: “Already reeling from plummeting ticket sales after Sept. 11, museums and theatres across New York City are beginning to lay off staff and cancel exhibitions and programs after city and state governments slashed funding in anticipation of lower tax revenue.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 11/18/01

• A MATTER OF TIMING: “If there is agreement among museums and galleries about a need to preserve artifacts and photographs from Sept. 11, there seems to be little consensus about when to display them.” The New York Times 11/18/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Friday November 16

SELLARS EXIT BAD SIGN: The Australia Council (which helps fund the Adelaide Festival) expresses its concern over the exit of director Peter Sellars from the festival. “Council members and I are concerned that groundbreaking and contemporary Australian programming in festivals is not seen in the future as too highrisk as a result of the Adelaide Festival experience.” The Age (Melbourne) 11/16/01

OHIO ARTS TO BE SLASHED: “The Ohio Arts Council, its budget slashed by another 6 percent, has issued letters saying its grant recipients can expect to receive approximately that much less money over the final three quarters of the current fiscal year. The arts council’s annual budget was reduced virtually overnight by nearly $1 million, from $15.6 million to $14.6 million in round figures. It’s the second cut since July.” The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 11/16/01

Thursday Novermber 15

RESIGNATION PROTESTING SELLARS DEPARTURE: The only artist on the board of the Adelaide Festival has quit because the board failed to back Peter Sellars as artistic director. “Sellars resigned on Monday after a series of controversies including the perceived thinness of the 2002 program and its focus on community events. The festival also has seen the departure of several key staff and the near loss of a major sponsor because of an advertisement that featured Adolf Hitler.” Sydney Morning Herald 11/15/01

Wednesday November 14

WEST SIDE STORY: Why is Lincoln Center having such a tough time getting its renovation plans in order? “It isn’t a prosaic matter of upkeep or real estate. The troubles in our idealistic (if hardly idyllic) paradise involve internal unrest among the constituents: nasty rivalries, power contests, unreasonable ambitions, turf wars, ego conflicts and, ultimately, the worst-laid schemes of mice and managers. It’s all so operatic.” Andante 11/14/01

ARTISTIC RESPONSE TO DISASTER: How do artists respond after a major event in the life of a culture? “In the mix of responses there appear to be marked similarities of theme and emotion that transcend time, cultures and particular disasters. These past works of art and literature point toward the likely shape of cultural offerings inspired by the terrorism of Sept. 11, say several experts who have studied what one of them calls ‘the art of aftermath’.” The New York Times 11/14/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Tuesday November 13SELLARS GETS THE BOOT: After months of controversy and a festival program announcement that didn’t exactly wow critics, Peter Sellars has been forced out of directing next year’s Adelaide Festival. “Mr Sellars, a charismatic Californian who persuaded many of his radical community vision, resigned after the festival board lost faith in his limited program and asked him to broaden its appeal. He refused and yesterday issued a statement from Paris.” The Age (Melbourne) 11/13/01

• “CALAMITOUS AS IT GETS”: Sellars’s resignation yesterday – four months from opening night – is as calamitous as it gets. The responsibility for Sellars’s departure must be borne by the festival’s board because there is little doubt Sellars was pushed. Until last month there was the hope he would live up to his vision splendid and present a festival that was truly radical, remarkable and inclusive. But once the meagre program was seen – at a desultory launch in Port Adelaide while Sellars was doing his own thing in Paris – that hope had gone.” Sydney Morning Herald 11/13/01

CAN ART HEAL? WHAT’S ART? LA Times art critic Christopher Knight “dismisses the theory that art has the therapeutic force to heal in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.” But “healing is a process, often propelled by the voices of artists. No one is suggesting that art can provide an instantaneous miracle cure, but it can surely enhance the process of healing.” Los Angeles Times 11/12/01

• Previously: CAN ART HEAL? – FOOEY: “The idea that art functions as a remedial agent—useful for the treatment of social, spiritual or emotional disorders—is positively Victorian. Still, we cling to the fantasy—even if healing in our post-Freud world is less about physical lesions and more about psychological wounds. Americans’ sentimental relationship to art periodically drives us into the suffocating arms of therapeutic culture. The terrorist attacks seem to be doing it again.” Los Angeles Times 11/04/01

WHAT WILL THE NEW MAYOR MEAN FOR NEW YORK? Specifically, for the arts in New York? “He will have his hands full and museums may be hoping against hope that the Rubens in his name will bring something special to them. So far as anyone can tell, city budgets will be anything but Rubenesque. No one expects Mr Bloomberg to be an adversary of museums, comparable to the way that Rudolph Giuliani made a cause célèbre of the ‘anti-Catholicism’ at the Brooklyn Museum of Art last year.” The Art Newspaper 11/13/01

Monday November 12

HOW TO RUN CANADA: “Several of the Canada’s major cultural institutions, including the Toronto Symphony, are without CEOs and many arts managers are facing high turnover and burnout.” So some of Canada’s top cultural leaders are meeting to discuss the problems. CBC 11/10/01

NO AGENDA HERE: Last week a Globe & Mail critic attacked the National Post for being negative about Canadian artists. A Post critic replies: “We are always being told that Canadians have a national inferiority complex that makes them resent any of their compatriots who get ahead of the pack. (We hear it, amusingly enough, from both the left and the right, though usually in different contexts.) I don’t see it.” National Post (Canada) 11/12/01

• Previously: NATTERING NABOBS OF (CANADIAN) NEGATIVISM? Canada’s artists and critics have always had something of an inferiority complex when it comes to comparisons with its much-larger neighbor to the South, but Toronto’s National Post seems to engage in the self-loathing culture bashing more often than most. What exactly does such smirking negativism accomplish? Only the further weakening of the country’s arts infrastructure, according to a rival critic. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 11/07/01

THE HEALING ARTS: “It’s become more evident than ever that culture not only nourishes but heals, and that it is a significant stabilizing force for a society under duress. As maintaining the viability of American steel mills is necessary for defense, keeping our cultural base vital is essential for the country’s spirit.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 11/11/01

• Previously: CAN ART HEAL? – FOOEY: “The idea that art functions as a remedial agent—useful for the treatment of social, spiritual or emotional disorders—is positively Victorian. Still, we cling to the fantasy—even if healing in our post-Freud world is less about physical lesions and more about psychological wounds. Americans’ sentimental relationship to art periodically drives us into the suffocating arms of therapeutic culture. The terrorist attacks seem to be doing it again.” Los Angeles Times 11/04/01

CREATIVE COMPUTING: “Could there ever be a day when computers are composers, theoretical physicists, or artists? There are already a number of projects in artificial intelligence that try to recreate creativity in computers.” BBC 11/11/01

CAN’T HAVE THAT: Tessa Jackson, head of the Scottish Arts Council, has been critical of the government’s arts policy. This week she’s likely to get the boot. The Scotsman 11/09/01

Sunday November 11

WHY ART? Douglas Coupland wonders: “Where do ideas come from? That’s the last thing people understand about themselves, if they ever do. I find that if I am really fascinated by something, or if I’m driven to collect something, that you have to follow your instinct and collect it or explore it. If you do that, then whatever it is inside you churning way down deep, if you’re lucky, it will percolate up at the top at a verbal or analytical or critical level.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/10/01

THE DISTANCE BETWEEN IDEAS AND REALITY: Why do deep intellectuals – philosophers – seem so often wrong about political theory? “If by ‘intellectuals’ we mean those devoted to the life of the mind, we can see why they face more intensely a problem all human beings face: that of negotiating the distance between ideas and social reality. What intellectuals are prone to forget is that this distance poses not only conceptual difficulties but ethical ones as well. It is a moral challenge to determine how to comport oneself simultaneously in relation to abstract ideas and a recalcitrant world. The New York Times 11/10/01 (one-time registration required for access)

WHY IDEAS DIE: Britain ruled the world of invention in the 1800s. But that dominance has long since passed, and the UK files fewer patents with each passing year. Why? “We now live in a commercial culture that in many ways is counterproductive to invention. The first thing I teach new engineering and design recruits is that they will learn more from failure than from success. Failure is exciting. It leads to new ideas. And it teaches the process of discovery by making single, small changes. Unfortunately, that spirit requires long-term investment and does not square with an ethos that wants immediate results.” Britain has not made the investment in a long time. The Telegraph (UK) 11/10/01

Friday November 9

LINCOLN CENTER EXPLAINED: Why is Lincoln Center’s $1.2 billion plan for a fix-up so fraught with controversy? “It is clear that the spending on Lincoln Center’s infrastructure is necessary and that some additional expenses are justified. It remains to be seen how much of the ‘wish list’ will ultimately be incorporated into the project — and to what extent, and with what enthusiasm, the constituents will support the inevitable fundraising to be done (in addition to their own development efforts) in this restricted charitable climate.” Andante 11/09/01

BOSTON ART SCENE, GLUM BUT NOT GRIM: “It was only last spring that Boston-area cultural groups had heady hopes of raising as much as $1 billion to rebuild and burnish Boston’s long-neglected museums, theaters, and concert halls. These days, talk of expansion in cultural institution offices and board rooms is reserved. No organization has canceled building and renovation plans outright – yet. But many are delaying or downsizing their dreams and schemes.” Boston Globe 11/09/01

Thursday November 8

INSURANCE AGAINST BAD ENTERTAINMENT: Australia’s New South Wales government announces a review of the entertainment industry. One idea is to require promoters to post funds to be held against claims for refunds. Refunds for what? Poor sound, performers that don’t live up to billing…The Age (Melbourne) 11/08/01

Wednesday November 7

NEW LINCOLN CENTER PLAN: Lincoln Center organizations agree on a $1.2 billion renovation plan to submit to New York’s City Hall. But observers say that “even as the parties shook hands on the submission to the city, elements of the package were still in dispute and could change in the coming months and years.” The New York Times 11/07/01 (one-time registration required for access)

NATTERING NABOBS OF (CANADIAN) NEGATIVISM? Canada’s artists and critics have always had something of an inferiority complex when it comes to comparisons with its much-larger neighbor to the South, but Toronto’s National Post seems to engage in the self-loathing culture bashing more often than most. What exactly does such smirking negativism accomplish? Only the further weakening of the country’s arts infrastructure, according to a rival critic. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 11/07/01

Tuesday November 6

BEATING UP ON SELLARS: Director Peter Sellars said he wants the next Adelaide Festival to be inclusive and about Australia. Some of his critics Down Under (at least those who weren’t included in the programming) aren’t impressed with what they’ve seen: “I just can’t cope with that psychobabble Californian bullshit any more.” Sydney Morning Herald 11/16/01

WAITING TO DEATH: Everyone agrees that London’s South Bank theatre complex needs a major overhaul. But getting all the players together to agree on a plan is something else. A partial list includes: “the Culture Secretary, the Arts Council, the Mayor of London, the Greater London Authority, Lambeth council, the South Bank board, the British Film Institute, the London Arts Board, four architectural practices on two continents, assorted residents’ associations, several London orchestras and dozens of promoters. Finding a date to suit that lot should take us into the early 22nd century. Meanwhile, the South Bank rots on.” The Times (UK) 11/06/01

Monday November 5

THREE REASONS TO END GOVERNMENT ARTS FUNDING: “If we want the arts to thrive, we must largely decommission the Canada Council, and the provincial arts councils, and ask our artists to grow up and learn how the real world works. Then, perhaps we will have a vital arts community, one that lives in the entire community, not at a smug superior distance from that community. And that creates plays, ballets, symphonies, operas, literature that is engaged with the real world, not diddling with the notion of a cockeyed destructive dream of a socialist utopia.” National Post (Canada) 11/02/01

BOLDLY FORWARD IN TIMES OF ADVERSITY: Kennedy Center president Michael Kaiser says cutting back on arts funding initiatives and arts employment in the current economic downturn would be shortsighted. “It is these two very activities that encourage income flow to the arts,” he said. “Donors and ticket buyers are attracted to exciting artistic adventures and the marketing that explains these new initiatives.” Washington Post 11/02/01

AUSTRALIA’S DIFFICULT YEAR: Australia’s cultural season is ending as summer begins. It’s been a difficult year for most arts groups, with sponsorships and audiences down as the economy slow and after September 11. “Next year will be tough. I think it will get better towards the end of next year. It can’t go on forever.” Sydney Morning Herald 11/05/01

WHAT FESTIVALS OUGHT TO BE: This year’s Melbourne Arts Festival was unlike any other. “When the Melbourne Festival officially opened at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on October 11 with a poem for peace read by East Timorese resistance leader Xanana Gusmao, followed by massed choirs singing Berlioz’ Te Deum and fireworks, you could sense this was going to be no ordinary arts festival.” The Age (Melbourne) 11/05/01

Sunday November 4

CAN ART HEAL? – FOOEY: “The idea that art functions as a remedial agent—useful for the treatment of social, spiritual or emotional disorders—is positively Victorian. Still, we cling to the fantasy—even if healing in our post-Freud world is less about physical lesions and more about psychological wounds. Americans’ sentimental relationship to art periodically drives us into the suffocating arms of therapeutic culture. The terrorist attacks seem to be doing it again.” Los Angeles Times 11/04/01

CAN ART HELP US UNDERSTAND? – MAYBE: “We had been wondering how we should respond to these crises. And we realized we were sitting on a gold mine of historical documents that deal with every conceivable kind of crisis. What better time and what better way to learn about past crises and how we lived through them than by visiting a museum?” Philadelphia Inquirer 11/04/01

Friday November 2

MORE MONEY FOR MELBOURNE: This year’s Melbourne Festival had its budget doubled – to $16 million – to help stage celebrations for the country’s centennial. Next year’s festival was to revert to its old funding, but the government has added another $1 million. A festival spokesman says “it would have been very difficult to have reverted to normal funding next year and still organise an important event.” The Age (Melbourne) 11/02/01

A MISSION FOR ARTISTS AND WRITERS: America’s critics abroad are being answered by “tight-lipped or bland remarks offered in rebuttal from American officials, who act as if articulateness or eloquence were some weakness to be avoided.” An alternative: “A friendly, decently informed American, thinking on his feet, listening to the members of his audience, taking them seriously, answering questions — not defending every government policy but defending by his performance a certain idea of the free individual — that is what might work.” Slate 11/01/01

Thursday November 1

BUYING AUSSIE: Director Peter Sellars said he was going to reinvent the Adelaide Festival, and he has. Instead of a showcase for international stars, next year’s festival will present homegrown Aussie and Aboriginal artists. “People want to see what is happening in Australia and this will be an interpretation of where we are today.” The Age (Melbourne) 11/01/01

• SELLARS MISSES THE PLANE: Peter Sellars couldn’t be in Adelaide for the program announccement so he made a taped message. “Sellars’s role from the start has been as a visionary, thinker and facilitator, not a doer.” But “in the interests of being as contemporary as possible, Sellars left his message so late it missed the plane. It was the kind of flaw in execution that has marked the lead-up to yesterday’s festival launch, which in terms of programming is running three months late.” Sydney Morning Herald 11/01/01