Category: issues

“This summer could come to be known as the summer when baby boomers began to turn to the obituary pages first, to face not merely their own mortality or ponder their legacies, but to witness the passing of legends who defined them as a tribe, bequeathing through music, culture, news and politics a kind of generational badge that has begun to fray.”

“A prominent movie and television producer, a New York theater producer and a high-ranking university arts scholar are headed to Washington to join the president’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.”

“The new $39.5 million center, … named after the late Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, includes a 486-seat theater, two gallery spaces, a multi-purpose room and a flexible hall for educational programs.”

“Backers of Orlando’s performing-arts center now plan to build it in phases, breaking ground on the largest and smallest of the three planned halls in March and delaying construction of the midsize concert hall until the economy improves.”

“The biggest public charity in New England,” the Boston Foundation, “is changing the way it hands out millions of dollars to a wide range of community groups, giving more money to those it considers to be the most effective and cutting funding to others.”

“The city’s landmark performing arts complex that opens Oct. 12 in the downtown Arts District won’t have ‘Dallas’ in its name but will have a new ring to it. In an agreement announced today, the $354 million facility will be known as the AT&T Performing Arts Center.”

In Pakistan, “even as violence spurs self-censorship and spreads fear, it’s also prompting some artists to push back, sometimes at great personal risk.”

“It’s very easy to complain about the Arts Council – particularly after the apparently scattershot cuts proposed in December 2007.” But things are changing for the better. “Shouldn’t everyone in the arts want us to have the best Arts Council imaginable – rather than a convenient whipping post?”

“The director of the Vatican museums, Antonio Paolucci, said it was hoped [the event] would mark a sort of ‘reconciliation after the great divorce’. The invitation list includes artists from five continents, ranging from painters, sculptors and architects to poets and directors.”

“A global movement is hacking, subverting and critiquing the hardware, software, content, visuals — even the philosophy of the wired world.”