Category: issues

“Film censorship nowadays is a mess: it has neither legal nuance nor intellectual force, and instead it relies on a vague outrage about the unacceptable. Anyway, the new freedoms instituted and exercised right now by the internet are making a mockery of regulation.” – The Telegraph (UK) 11/19/00

In Britain’s “vast, scorched, abandoned” industrial outposts, traditional industries are in full retreat. “What can save these places? Enter the good fairy of the arts with her magic wand and her bag of enchanted lottery dust. Hey presto – cultural regeneration!” But wait just a minute…” – The Sunday Times (UK) 11/19/00

Art museums aren’t the only higher artform to discover Las Vegas. The performance offerings are changing too, and serious artists are beginning to see a new market (and one backed with plenty of cash). – Orange County Register 11/19/00

• NEA chairman Bill Ivey on the NEA’s travails in the past decade: “Our supporters in Congress, in the administration, and around the country in state arts agencies and arts organizations have become a lot more sophisticated and organized around their advocacy efforts. Some of that came from the need to protect the agency when it was under attack a few years ago. In the long run, I think we’ll look back and say [those] attacks were actually beneficial to the Endowment.” – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 11/18/00

It was a dull US presidential election. But the one issue that seemed to get people stirred up was a discussion of violence in the entertainment media. Not such an easy issue to get one’s arms around, though, writes Norman Lebrecht. “For half a century the very word ‘censorship’ was so closely associated with totalitarian regimes that it can no longer be uttered except in inverted commas.” – Culturekiosque 11/17/00

Britain’s lottery funding for the arts has recently come under fire for some of its dodgier projects. But “for the first time since the great days of Victorian self-confidence, Britain has been pouring money into what you might call cultural assets. Museums, galleries, stadiums, botanical gardens, new and refurbished public buildings have been popping up all over the country. The idea behind the National Lottery was that it would finance all those good things that often get squeezed out of government budgets.” – The Economist 11/16/00

It’s election time in Canada, so of course silly season is in full flower. An Alliance Party member says the party believes that the federal government ought to only fund art that at least one-third of Canadians can be proud of. “There certainly is no censorship implied. I would just like to think the money was going to be wisely spent and would benefit the majority of the population.” – CBC 11/15/00

Despite promises made by US TV networks last year to integrate their programming more and include more black, Hispanic and Asian performers, it still has not happened, says a coalition of civil rights groups. – Ottawa Citizen (AP) 11/15/00

The Scottish government announces long-awaited financial aid for Scotland’s arts institutions. But the welcome news of money is overshadowed by a downgrading of the arts portfolio to a lesser position in the government. “The apparent reversal of culture and sport is no accident, but signals a ‘rethink of the administration’s priorities’. Pies, Bovril, and football – you know, the things ordinary people are more interested in – will have priority over Puccini, Beethoven, and Fauré.” – The Herald (Scotland) 11/14/00