Category: issues

“Two remarkable publishing successes of the past year have pointed towards a growing taste for a period often thought of as difficult, remote and unattractive.”

“Today China has become one of the most important places to create and invent. A lot of Western artists are coming here to live the dynamism and make especially crazy work they could never do anywhere else in the world.”

“Most undergraduates don’t realize that there is a shrinking percentage of positions in the humanities that offer job security, benefits, and a livable salary… They don’t know that you probably will have to accept living almost anywhere, and that you must also go through a six-year probationary period at the end of which you may be fired for any number of reasons and find yourself exiled from the profession.”

“Though incorporation of creative drama… teachers felt that children experienced this familiar material in a deeper way. Acting out a scene required deeper exploration of the meaning of the words, and therefore led to better comprehension.”

“A proposal to slash arts teachers from elementary schools in the L.A. Unified School District has stoked community anger and fomented a grass-roots movement to fight the cuts.”

“[P]ublic backlash against political art has created a situation in which … the idea that artists would actually work with politicians on public issues feels absurd … and the government certainly doesn’t lead art events on issues.  … [Americans] prefer artists not have political affiliation, but pretend to be simply presenting the world as it is.”

“The BBC has been criticised for spending millions of pounds of licence fee payer’s money on art works for its new flagship building including £25,000 on a remote controlled helicopter to fly overhead” and photograph the site.

“The new arrangement will allow City Ballet to present its first uninterrupted fall season of repertory performances since 1965. In exchange the opera will receive $9 million of $100 million donated by the energy magnate David H. Koch for the refurbishing of the theater, which is now named for him.”

“Notwithstanding [Los Angeles Mayor Antonio] Villaraigosa’s hopes of moving in ‘the other direction,’ it appears that the flow of money from the municipal treasury to the city’s $9.6-million-a-year Department of Cultural Affairs will continue to ebb.” The “city government spent $7.99 per capita on the arts in 2009, compared with New York’s $18.52.”

EIF director Jonathan Mills “is planning a fiesta of art this year, focusing on the contemporary cultures of the countries that were colonised by European powers.”