Oxford University is one of the world’s great universities. “Yet today there is also a sense of malaise, both inside and outside the university: a belief that Oxford finds it difficult to adapt to changing educational and social needs, a fear that it can no longer maintain its pre-eminence.” – Prospect 12/00
Category: issues
WHO NEEDS ART CRITICS?
Here and there in a few major periodicals one can find art critics who realize they are writing for a mass medium and general audience, and not for a rarefied elite of cultural academics, museum docents and fellow critics. But then there are those who conduct themselves as though the masses who have lined up in such volume for recent Vermeer, Monet and Cezanne exhibitions were beneath contempt for their lack of art history degrees. – Chicago Tribune 12/07/00
CONTROLLING THE CRITICS
It’s tough to intimidate theatre or art critics. But Hollywood and the fashion industry have so much control over their products (stars) that an indiscreet word (or even question) can put your access (and your job) in jeopardy. – The Globe and Mail (Canada) 12/07/00
BEATING UP ON UNCLE SAM
At an international conference in Ottawa on arts issues, delegates slam “the Uncle Samming of the world, noting that movies and TV have now displaced aeronautics as America’s number-one export industry. America’s trade negotiators are less likely than ever to understand that culture, for most nations, is about identity, not dollars. Bill Ivey, head of the National Endowment for the Arts, and Jonathan Katz, the well-informed head of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, let it be known that they were feeling a little beaten up.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada) 12/06/00
LEARNING TO GIVE
In this unprecedented age of philanthropic generosity (a recent study found US arts donations up 43% last year), Europe still lags way behind the US in private support of the arts. “There are two indigenous deterrents. The first is a woeful lack of professionalism in the field of fund-raising. The second, more serious, impediment is the composition of the boards that govern arts institutions.” – The Telegraph (UK) 12/06/00
THE ARTS COMPLEX
“As an architectural expression, the Canadian arts complex is an expression of madness. Envisage the entrance to the National Arts Centre in Ottawa – or rather, try and find it. I can’t. I have performed for paying audiences at the NAC intermittently for 25 years, and I’ve never been able to figure out how they get in. No sign. No lights. No visible box office. To a stranger, the NAC might be the American Embassy, where every visitor is a potential terrorist.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada) 12/06/00
ART IMITATES LIFE (OR NOT)
Last year a London artist won a £1,500 grant. But rather than spend the money on supplies or even food, she invested in the dot-com stock market. The stocks trade under the ticker symbols ART and LIFE. “They’re both doing really badly. But ART is doing better than LIFE, which is a good lesson for me.” – Red Herring 12/05/00
THE DEVALUED CRITIC
Where do those amazingly obscure rave blurbs for this or that movie come from? With a proliferation of easy-to-access opinions on the internet, how does one sort out who’s credible and who’s not. – *spark-online 12/00
INTERNATIONAL ARTS
At a world conference on the arts in Ottawa, 50 “arts councils and funding bodies from around the globe voted unanimously yesterday to establish an international federation to foster the arts.” – CBC 12/04/00
STILL ROOM FOR TEACHERS?
As the internet rises and distance learning increases, is there still room for old-fashioned teachers? “Perhaps it is inevitable that those whose business it is to flog Rabelais, Montaigne, and Neo-Platonic poetics to technology-savvy, career-conscious, and heavily indebted students should begin to wonder whether their role as teachers is superfluous. After all, teachers, in general, are the apotheosis of human inefficiency.” – Chronicle of Higher Education 12/04/00