Category: issues

“If the bill, AB 2446, passes the state Senate and is signed into law by the governor, students, starting in the 2011-12 school year, will be able to substitute a ‘career technical education’ course for arts or a language.”

“[I]n what is partially a sign of the growing clout of U.S. Latinos both as voters and cultural consumers, a number of prominent artists, both Latino and non-Latino, are urging fans to protest Arizona’s controversial new statute that requires law enforcement officials to determine the status of people they suspect are illegal immigrants.”

“[S]ince March, 24 visual artists and 4 performing groups have been making art in a former munitions storehouse there, rising early to catch one of the first ferries from Manhattan for workers on the island (they start running at 6:45 a.m.) and then rushing at the end of the day to catch the last boat, at 5 p.m.”

“New Yorkers envy Angeleno artists their free-form flamboyance. We’ve imported the extroverted architecture of Southern Californians like Frank Gehry” et al, while “for years, critics here used the L.A. Phil’s venturesome spirit to attack the New York Philharmonic’s oppressive sense of dignity.” But look which city is edging ahead.

“Although President Obama’s NEA chairman, Rocco Landesman, has made noises about reinstating individual artist grants, the NEA no longer gives them, and Finley worries about the harm that does to the next generation. … ‘The difference is, unless you come from a family with means, and I didn’t, you’re going to not be an artist.'”

“Is a year enough? How about five years? Or a dozen years? Should there be a 90-day evaluation? It make have taken God only seven days to create the universe. But it took Michelangelo four years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.”

“A former head of Scotland Yard’s art and antiquities squad has warned that “virtually nothing” is being done to secure Britain’s cultural and religious sites against criminal attacks which he claims could be sparked by the London 2012 Olympics.”

“Long the province of churches and school auxiliaries, bingo has broken through to the realm of high culture. With many traditional revenue sources declining or flattening out, an innocent game of chance looks better all the time.”

“Then the artist decides how much money to ask for, and within what time frame. If the set amount of money isn’t raised by the goal date, then the project receives nothing. If the goal is met, then the funds come through in about 48 hours, with Kickstarter taking a fee of 5 percent.”

“Familiarity doesn’t always breed contempt, but sometimes it leads to exhaustion.”