Category: issues

Michael Kaiser: “It seems disingenuous for major funders to chastise or ignore organizations with poor management when these same funders have avoided funding programs to improve the quality of arts managers. We spend billions of dollars to train singers, dancers and actors, and insignificant amounts to train the people who employ them.”

“In our Law & Order, ripped-from-the-headlines times, why has the American entertainment machine been slow to turn the financial drama of 2008 into prime drama in 2010?”

“Scotland’s five national performance companies achieved audiences of more than a million on a combined turnover of £70.3 million in the last two years, according to a Scottish Government report published this week.”

“Compensation for executives at cultural organizations has long been something of a delicate subject. On the one hand, the executives are often highly educated people running important institutions that face complex problems. But they are also at the helm of nonprofit organizations that depend on the generosity of others and, often, on government support. And, as a group, the leaders are expected to be more concerned with elevated matters of beauty and the spirit.”

“Spending for the Department of Cultural Affairs and related maintenance, utility and employee benefits included in separate budget categories would drop from $14.5 million to $10.9 million. Staffing would fall from 70 authorized positions to 41, Cultural Affairs officials said Wednesday, including 10 from encouraged early retirements.”

“The end of French political power has brought the end of French. Now even the French elite have given up. They don’t care anymore. They all speak English. And the working class, I’m not talking just about immigrants, they don’t care about preserving the integrity of the language either.”

Alain de Botton envisions elders recounting how “passengers, who had only paid the price of a few books for the privilege, would impatiently and ungratefully shut their window blinds to the views, would sit in silence next to strangers while watching films about love and friendship … Those who had known the age of planes would recall the confusion they had felt upon arriving in Mumbai or Rio, Auckland or Montego Bay, only hours after leaving home.”

“More than a third of UK arts organisations consider Gordon Brown to be the political leader most in touch with the needs of the culture sector, new research has revealed. The Labour prime minister has, with 36% of votes, come out on top in a survey designed to gauge the industry’s views on the upcoming general election.”

“More than half the organizations” in Concord, Mass., “responded to the town’s request by outlining the many ways they already contribute to the community; some didn’t respond at all. Many of the organizations … cited their own fiscal hardships; others were philosophically opposed, and some were put off by the town’s demanding approach.”

“The 46-year-old school closed indefinitely last month because it needed at least $500,000 to stay open. Kate D. Levin, commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, said her office intervened and asked foundations and individuals to help save the school from closing.” Another development for the school: a new board.