Category: issues

With federal funding so key to arts and culture in Canada, it seems odd that this importance is not reflected in an election campaign. It almost makes you pine for 2008 and that nonsensical Stephen Harper quip about galas for rich, whining artists. (Okay, maybe not.)

“Throughout New York’s history, Times Square has served as a bellwether of … perceptions of the city, both for those who live here and those who don’t.” High glamour in the 1920s, bawdy burlesque in the ’30s, grime grit and vice in the ’70s, cleaned-up and “Disneyfied” through the ’90s and ’00s. And in 2015? Cartoon characters and topless women in body paint hustling endless hordes of tourists for selfies (and tips), and those tourists taking pictures of the selfies they just took, transmitted onto a billboard.

“The collaboration will create the University of Maryland Center for Art and Knowledge at the Phillips Collection and launch joint programs in art, music, research and technology. Eventually, there will be a new gallery and open storage facility bearing the Phillips Collection’s name on or near the university’s College Park campus in Prince George’s County.”

“The Arch of Triumph was one of the most recognizable sites in Palmyra, the central city affectionately known by Syrians as the “Bride of the Desert,” which the IS group seized in May. The monumental arch sat atop the famed colonnaded streets of the ancient city, which linked the Roman Empire to Persia and the East.”

“Mr. Perelman is stepping down this week as Carnegie’s chairman after just eight months; Mr. Gillinson remains in charge but under an internal investigation; and Carnegie, the most important concert hall in the nation, if not the world, finds itself facing an unusual public crisis in the midst of a $125 million fund-raising drive. It is not how the hall expected to be starting an anniversary season.”

“On its face, it’s insane that the biggest e-retailer in the world, looking at the stunningly lucrative consumer electronics market, would stop selling some of its biggest sellers. As of this writing, Google Chromecast was the sixth-best seller in Amazon’s US electronics store, and Apple TV was 14th — two of just a handful of non-Amazon products at the top of the list. What is the endgame here?”

“Ms. Alexander is a well-qualified teacher, and we have the utmost confidence that she will provide quality art instruction to our nation’s students as she rotates through each of the 98,000 public schools in this country,” said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who explained that Alexander will teach a 40-minute studio art course to each of the grade levels at a different school each day, beginning with Colby High School in Denver on Wednesday, until she eventually visits every school in the nation, at which point she will cycle back to the beginning and start again.

“While it’s hard to know exactly how many artists have left San Francisco in the last several years, there’s a consensus that the city is facing an emergency. In September, the arts commission released the results of its first ‘artist eviction survey’” Of nearly 600 local artists, 70% had been or were being displaced from their studio space, their home, or both.”

Robert De Niro and Zaha Hadid are just the most recent examples of high-profile artists to angrily end a session when (rightly or wrongly) they don’t like the drift of the questions. Observer writer Barbara Ellen and Channel Four presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy discuss the question (their answer won’t be a surprise) and their own experiences with walkouts.