Category: issues

“Margate and Hastings breathlessly await swanky new galleries, Folkestone has set up a ‘creative quarter’, and Bexhill is sprucing up its prom. For many of Britain’s faded resorts, art and architecture are now seen as the path to renewed prosperity, while others are trying a humbler, homegrown solution.”

“Facing drastic budget reductions this year, UCLA has begun implementing cuts across its departments to make up for an estimated $131-million shortfall. Among the proposed victims is one of Los Angeles’ largest cultural resources – the arts library on the Westwood campus.”

Christopher Knight: “Today, a coalition of 21 national arts organizations entered the healthcare reform debate with three really good prescriptions – and one really bad one.”

“While a large minority is taking advantage of a golden age for the arts, Jonathan Mills, the director of the Edinburgh International Festival , said that many Britons were missing out on ‘incredible experiences’ because of an entrenched suspicion of anything serious, highbrow or experimental.”

“I caution the film community to step back and look at LACMA’s history of support for the arts in general in recent years. … Saving the film program at LACMA without significant institutional support won’t be enough. LACMA has to first care as much about once more bringing together a broad arts community as it does about getting its hands on Eli Broad’s bank account.”

“Buoyed by its diversified economy and wealth, O.C. has powered through past recessions relatively damage-free. Not this time.” The financial crisis facing the arts institutions in Orange County “holds a mirror to our singular way of doing things: our maverick entrepreneurial spirit has been both a strength and a weakness for the arts in O.C. … This time around, munificent millionaires and their splashy gifts of money might not be the answer.”

“The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which hands out the Globes, handed out its annual round of financial grants at a luncheon on Tuesday. And the goody bag was full again. Total grants to 29 film schools and nonprofit organizations were $1,249,000, the association said, up from about $750,000 last year.”

“Antony Gormley’s fourth plinth project in Trafalgar Square has played host to a man dressed as a giant turd and a woman performing the Time Warp, but today it was subjected to the cream of literary fiction when a photographer took to the heights to read extracts from the 13 books longlisted for this year’s Man Booker prize.”

“The new Fringe Society structure is expected to be in place in time for next year’s festival. [Edinburgh’s] Fringe Society was set up in the late 1950s, when a constitution was drawn up, setting out the policy of not vetting or censoring shows. … However in 1959 there were 19 companies attending the Fringe; this year there are more than 2,000 shows.”

It’s a myth. “It remains a mystery how Broadway glommed onto the movie truism about the industry being immune to the economy’s woes. During recent recessions, Broadway has suffered, as evidenced by playing weeks — i.e., the number of shows multiplied by their weeks in performance, always a better indicator of economic health than inflation-jiggered B.O.”