Category: issues

Did Feng Xiaogang delay the film – a romance set against the Cultural Revolution and China’s brief war against Vietnam – himself, because of poor ticket sales, or did party officials make a decision to delay it in advance of the Communist Party congress? Probably the latter: “Youth had already passed the scrutiny of Chinese censors, and was shown at the Toronto Film Festival this month. But the memories and themes evoked by the film may have prompted senior officials to reverse approval for its release during this sensitive political season.”

Anaheim is fed up, too. For instance: “The Burbank company masterfully works the political system, sometimes deploying aggressive strategies that belie its carefully cultivated image. Support for various deals benefiting Disney has come from Anaheim City Council members who have received generous campaign contributions through a byzantine network of political action committees funded by the company.”

Davis and her husband, Julian Tennon, set up a production company in 2011 to do just that – but, Tennon says, “When I go to meetings, it’s generally not African Americans that I’m talking to about getting something greenlit. Folks at the top are going to have to make decisions about trying to make systemic change. That’s the only way it’s going to happen.”

“Selected cities in 28 European Union (EU) countries plus Norway and Switzerland have been ranked in a new report and online tool called the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor. It uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative studies to give a comparative assessment of the cities’ levels of engagement with culture and creativity.”

For decades, Seattle has been a good arts town, with theatres, dance, music and visual artists prospering in a healthy arts scene. But rising rents, a huge influx of new residents and a changing culture are changing the city’s culture.

We need a cultural plan matching the scale of the crisis, proposing bold, courageous action — but Mayor de Blasio’s “CreateNYC” Cultural Plan disappoints, with its cosmetic and feel-good narrative. Where’s the activist mayor who pledged to fight Albany so that New York City could collect higher income taxes? Where are the City Council members who faced arrest protesting the 2015 expiration of the rent laws?

“Here in the ‘City of Arts and Innovation,’ I’d like to see UNCSA lead the branding and development of a vibrant ‘Arts Quarter’ to complement what Wake Forest University has done so brilliantly and beautifully in the city’s Innovation Quarter,” he said.

“If there was ever a time that the world needed artists, it is now. We need their radical ideas, visions, and perspectives in society. … The world [can] only be changed by those willing and able to conceive of reality in a holistic and intuitive manner.” Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries in London, sounds the call, with reference to artists from Joseph Beuys and John Latham to Theaster Gates and Tania Bruguera to Edi Rama, they mayor who had the dingy old buildings of Tirana, Albania repainted in bright colors and transformed the mood of the city.

Classical music writer Janelle Gelfand was the last of the Enquirer’s arts writers to go. At its peak, the Enquirer had a theater, art, movie, food, classical, pop, and books critics, each with their own beats. The move comes only weeks before the city’s Music Hall was to reopen after a major makeover. Gelfand was leading coverage of the reopening.

“The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts has started work on a 277-seat hall that, in addition to being a venue for PAFA’s own activities, will host concerts, lectures, and other events by PAFA’s partner arts groups … and will be offered as a rental space to others seeking a small state-of-the-art venue.” Peter Dobrin talks to people with several organizations who believe that there’s an empty niche for a hall that size.