Category: issues

Just compare us to Paris, Rome or even New York. The arts are cheap – 14 pence a week per taxpayer goes to the arts, a third of what the French spend. It’s a tiny sum of money.” But the subsidy is shrinking. “I don’t use the word ‘subsidy’. It’s a wet, tedious word. I use ‘investment’. ‘Subsidy’ sounds so passive.”

Philip Kennicott on arts in the Obama Administration: “Why has it neglected one of the fundamental tools it has for shaping attitudes to American culture? Why did President George W. Bush manage to use the NEA so effectively while Obama has manifested only indifference? Is this the sad reality of the technocratic mindset, that culture is secondary or tertiary, and not worth the bother?”

“If adopted, the measure would end a streak of 11 consecutive years in which California governors and legislators have allocated just $1 million to the arts council from the state’s tax-fed general fund — a level that consistently has left the Golden State last in the nation in per capita funding of its state arts grant making agency.”

We believe that creativity researchers have been asking the wrong question. We ask, “Is creativity important?” The answer is clearly yes. The real question is, “Is creativity MORE important than all of the other attributes that demand our time, attention, and resources?”

“In our excitement over the creative projects made possible by crowdfunding, we shouldn’t forget that a flourishing creative middle class requires good jobs for arts workers and healthy arts institutions.”

“Executives developing a performing arts center at ground zero have hired a temporary artistic director from the Young Vic theater in London, one of a series of steps to be announced Thursday to advance a project that has long faced political and logistical hurdles.”

David Lan: “What we’re really not doing is transplanting the Young Vic to downtown Manhattan, but we are starting from the same position we started 14-15 years ago. Let’s think about who is there, let’s think about the work we want to make, let’s think who we want to talk to.”

“I’m curious to know what would happen if an organization advertised the fact that it pays its artists and collaborators fees that are respectful of the artist’s work. To me, it would demonstrate a deeper commitment to the arts than any mission statement ever could.”

“Simply put, nobody wants to pay prices in the middle anymore… So the arts have figured out how to play the upmarket game. But what about the other end? Where is the Dollar Tree of the arts?”

Researchers at the University of Toronto investigated how fast food–which they call an “icon of time efficiency”–affects patience levels, and therefore our ability to “savor” the world around us.