Category: issues

“Few people realize that the National Mall has never quite turned out quite as its (several) designers intended” – as “a vibrant center of civic and cultural life in the capital.” Instead, it’s a giant lawn with some monuments, surrounded by museums and deserted at night.
“A group of architects, historians, and preservationists has devised a contest intended to remedy that problem: the National Ideas Competition for the Washington Monument Grounds.”

A Lithuanian attraction that’s all about Soviet prison camps. A Chinese park that’s both a tribute to Disney World and a middle finger to trademark law. A place near Mexico City where visitors pretend they’re illegal immigrants being chased by the US Border Patrol. An all-too-apropos amusement destination, unfinished and on indefinite hold, called Dubailand.

“The Wilson Center opened last fall with $6.1 million in cost overruns for construction, a $5 million gap in fundraising and a slowdown in receipt of state money. The center later received a two-year, $8 million loan, which it cannot afford to repay from operating money even if it refinanced its debt.”

“Since a paperless ticket buyer has to show up at the door at the same time as the rest of his or her party, it’s almost impossible for a grandma living at one end of the country to buy a paperless ticket as gift for a grandchild living at the other end.” And groups “can be shut out if the person who bought the tickets on the group’s behalf fails to show up for some reason.”

“In Leipzig, you can wake up one morning and decide, ‘I’m an artist,’ or the next day say, ‘I think I want to be a journalist’.” This palpable sense that anything is possible is due partly to the city’s dirt-cheap rents: grand turn-of-the-century, 600-square-foot, one-bedroom flats go for as little as 300 euros a month (about $360 at $1.20 to the euro).

BP says it will continue to sponsor and support the arts, despite its recent problems.

“It is no longer a new thing in Nigeria of today to see a Nigerian child who cannot speak his native language or the native language of his immediate environment. It is bad to an extent that some cannot even decipher the meaning of words in their local dialect if the language is spoken to them.”

“While education spending increased by about 13% between 2006 and 2009, funding for arts supplies, musical instruments and other equipment fell by 68%, the report by the Center for Arts Education found.”

Artist Richard Wentworth: “I don’t think it’s particularly interesting to point the finger at BP. All money is filthy. Put your hands in your pockets and take out a tenner: while you’re holding it, it’s clean, but something it did yesterday, or what it will do tomorrow – it’s all vile.”

“Your swamped e-mail box is a consequence of a new trend in corporate philanthropy — giving money to the non-profit organization that racks up the most ‘votes.'” The contests are “yet a further example of the rampant cult of the amateur, masquerading as grass-roots movements.”