Category: issues

“Non-Europeans wanting to entertain British audiences must endure a bureaucratic nightmare which, combined with rising costs, increasing delays and occasional consular rudeness, is deterring more and more of them from coming here. Britain is taking itself off the cultural map.”

This summer, the unused spaces under the roadways that Brits call “flyovers” are hosting events from summer movie screenings to rock and world music concerts to table tennis tournaments. (The best part: shelter from the rain.)

Nancy Wozny: “There’s work to be done, and if you don’t have a staff to do it, it’s usually you. It gets old. People get tired. Our labors of love can easily shift into labors of dread. As someone who has ceased making art, I want to say it’s OK to stop. … Being an artist is not a life sentence.”

“Demolition began today at the once-venerable – but long-vacant – Ford Auditorium in downtown Detroit. It is hoped that an outdoor concert venue along the riverfront will take its place. … The venue on Hart Plaza was built in 1955 but was plagued from the beginning with poor acoustics.”

“Munira Mirza, the Mayor of London’s adviser on culture, has warned that the arts sector has become ‘very nervous’ about offending ethnic and religious minority communities, resulting in an era of self-censorship.”

“It is disappointing that some individuals chose to make false, inflammatory statements suggesting that this realignment of the Grammy award categories was motivated by race or ethnicity.”

“The right thing is that state government needs to be a fair partner,” Lynch said. “That partnership is how it works in our country, and you can’t take a piece out of that without unraveling or threatening to unravel the structure.”

“The measure would allocate $135 million to the NEH, which would represent a reduction of 13 percent — nearly double what the House panel proposed to cut from the Interior Department and other agencies covered by the spending legislation.”

“Whatever else this story says about the behaviour of Opera North and the primary school in question, it clearly touched a nerve with many people, both performers and audiences.”

“As the Forward has documented in recent weeks, the letter that embedded religious freedom as a core American value has been hidden away in a nondescript arts storage facility in suburban Maryland ever since the museum in which it was housed closed its doors in 2002. And neither B’nai B’rith nor the foundation has offered a convincing reason for why this iconic document has not been allowed to be publicly displayed.”