Category: issues

“Publishers are shelling out big advances for debut novels that promise to lure young adults and adults alike and reach fans of literary and commercial fiction.”

“The scheme will allow high-profile arts figures to come to the UK on special visas for up to three years and four months without having a job lined up. ACE and producers trade body PACT will assess applications in the culture and entertainment sectors, for which 300 visas are available in the first year.”

“In the Internet age, when the line between “happenings” and publicity stunts has blurred, can performance art still resonate with the public?”

“Asking for public donations to get a project off the ground is not a new idea. Even Beethoven pre-sold concert tickets to raise funds for his new compositions. But these days, “crowdfunding” — going to the Internet to ask the public for small financial contributions to support projects — has infiltrated the arts scene and is extending to various causes and charities on a global level.”

“The city remains committed to the 1,000-seat theater project anchored by The Joyce Theater dance venue and says a new board is being formed to oversee its creation. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has allocated $155 million to the project, which is estimated to cost $400 million to $500 million. But construction is at least six years away, [due to] ongoing work at the proposed site.”

Zachary Woolfe: “It’s a term used a lot but one too often skimmed over. When an artist is described as charismatic, I know what’s meant. You know what’s meant. But what is meant?”

“It’s a transfer of wealth from innovators to bondholders and stockholders who have no motivation to innovate. It’s disturbing.”

“America’s postal service is elegant, efficient, even amazing, given the enormous size of the country and the low cost of stamps. But the U.S. Postal Service is a hulking, foundering, money-hemorrhaging bureaucracy. A government watchdog has deemed the whole business unsustainable.”

“Human-rights organisations have criticised the Edinburgh International Festival for using cash support from the Chinese government to help bankroll the event,” which features the National Ballet of China and the Shanghai Peking Opera Troupe. “Campaigners warned that the festival organisers risked endorsing China’s crackdown on cultural figures, including the dissident artist Ai Weiwei.”

“It has been a long, embarrassing and complex process, with deadlines set and missed since the theater closed for renovation in 2005 and with soaring costs, financed by the federal government, that have reached $760 million.” Officials point out that, before this renovation, the Bolshoi building was literally near collapse.