“The model of corporate governance is broken. Arts & Business has been as guilty as any of encouraging corporate leaders to be on the boards. When times are fine, it’s good. When times are bad, a risk-averseness comes into a trustee board and grips like a cold hand on a throat. We are seeing managements terrorised, marginalised and treated with contempt by trustees.
Category: issues
Report: Glasgow Arts Have Grown Substantially Since Its Year Of Culture
While performance is by far the largest area of the cultural sector, with 57 organisations employing 1,485 full time equivalents and boasting a turnover of £87.63 million, the broad details mask strong dependence on the four Scottish National Companies based in the city.
Claim: Sydney is Falling Behind In The Arts
Contrary to the boast by Events NSW that Sydney is Australia’s creative capital, arts company chiefs are critical about the state government’s neglect of cultural infrastructure and the lack of a cohesive creative vision.
Crowd-Funding – The New Arts Funder?
“Before the lawyers come in, intellectual property issues arise, crowd funding-inspired fraud surfaces, there are artists who regard it as utopian, pure autonomous paradise.”
UK Theatres & Galleries Should Give Up Charity Status: Arts Exec
“Arts & Business chief executive Colin Tweedy has called for theatres and art galleries in Britain to consider giving up their charitable status, claiming that charity law is too restrictive and is leading to a risk-averse environment in the cultural sector.”
Burma’s Young Hipster Artist-Activists
“The pro-democracy movement has taken on many forms. Rap musicians and artists slip allusions to drugs, politics and sex past Myanmar’s censors. Last year, a subversive art network known as Generation Wave, whose 50 members are all under age 30, used street art, hip-hop music and poetry to express their dissatisfaction with the regime.”
France Argues With Itself Over Proposed Museum of French History
President Nicolas Sarkozy “has cooked up the Maison de l’Histoire de France, the country’s first national museum of French history, to open in 2015.” But many observers, and more than a few activists, are “appalled by the [very] notion of the museum” and argue that the project is little more than a way for Sarkozy to appeal to right-wing voters.
Arts Teachers Disappearing From NYC Schools – And That’s Before Layoffs
“City schools are already down 135 arts teachers – even before the massive layoffs projected for next year, Education Department data show. … Now an additional 356 arts teachers risk pink slips as part of the proposed layoff of 4,600 teachers citywide.”
San Diego Proposes Cutting Music Ed From All Elementary Schools (But One)
“The district’s visual and performing arts curriculum faces a $2.8 million cut from its $3 million budget this year … If trustees sign off on the budget proposal, it will mean the end of all elementary music education except for the program at” one specialized music school.
Abolish Kansas Art Commission? Not So Fast, Say State Senators
“Senate leaders say Gov. Sam Brownback’s order to abolish the Kansas Arts Commission may have been hastily made and there may be enough votes in the Senate to reject it.”