Category: issues

As of July 1, there are no artists on current UK banknotes. But “there was a time in the early 1990s when the arts were represented on three of the four notes: Dickens on the £10, Shakespeare on the £20 and Wren on the £50. They were spared the ignominy of the fiver.”

“The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens is announcing Monday that it has raised an estimated $243 million – surpassing its target of $175 million – during a six-year campaign that was the most comprehensive in its history. In addition, the San Marino institution says it has received more than $100 million worth of donations of other types, including works of art and rare books.”

Novelist Porochista Khakpour: “If pop culture is a measure of cultural visibility, then Iranian Americans have been invisible for decades. Of course, there was Iran itself, hardly invisible. But as a teenager, I knew my reality, one far from hostage crises and contra trials, was never going to make it pop culturally; in fact, I would have bet my little hyphenated life against the very moment of pop cultural breakthrough we’re finally reaching now.”

Brooklyn’s own Walt Whitman “will get an all-star tribute in his own former backyard on Thursday when dozens of artists, rockers and writers convene in the new Brooklyn Bridge Park for an evening-long Walt-a-palooza called ‘I Do Not Doubt I am Limitless: Walt Whitman’s Brooklyn’.”

Lincoln Center’s president points out: “Thousands of New Yorkers will go by the Koch Theater, whereas the number of people who actually go into a wing of a hospital is relatively small, and passersby don’t see it. Universities are not tourist attractions; hospitals aren’t. The arts are a tourist attraction.” Quips another observer: “What’s sexier? An oncologist or a ballerina?”

ACW “plans to award core annual funding to 71 organisations, including four that have not had [revenue-funded organization] status in the past. … But under the plans, 32 arts bodies including Beaufort Theatre, Gwent Theatre and the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts will lose their regular core funding at the end of next March.”

“If supporting Tate is meant to associate BP with cool art, it is a failure. I must have seen the BP logo a thousand times on press releases and it never lodged in my mind. I have never thought Tate=BP, let alone Tate=BP=oil is good.”

“It’s clear that something odd is about to happen, but everyone is peculiarly frozen to the spot. Only when the first protester throws the contents of his bucket forward down the steps of the entrance do the assembled crowd realise that what is happening is molasses. About five gallons of it.”

“Little more than a decade ago, tobacco companies were seen as respectable partners for public institutions to gain support from – that is no longer the case. It is our hope that oil and gas will soon be seen in the same light.” The letter is signed by Caryl Churchill, John Keane, Gordon Roddick, Rebecca Solnit and scores of others.

“BP is known to be one of the least demanding sponsors and one with expectations which tend to be more realistic than most. But for many, the company is now damaged goods, its reputation as spoiled as the Gulf of Mexico. What should the arts institutions do?”