Category: issues

“The Tate’s Sir Nicholas Serota has spoken out against what he believes to be a lack of passion for the arts in Westminster, saying he could not think of even a handful of politicians who could perform the job of Culture Secretary effectively. But he added that the latest Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Ben Bradshaw, was an exception.”

Issue Project Room’s new Brooklyn space “will become a home for all kinds of experimental music, theater, dance, literary readings and film. ‘A Carnegie Hall for the avant-garde,’ Suzanne Fiol, the group’s founder and creative director, said. … Whether the idea of a big, official institution like Carnegie Hall is antithetical to the spirit of the avant-garde is an open question.”

“I know times are tough and charities have a lot of demands. But I would argue that the arts are essential — and they are under threat. … Why should we care? Because experiencing and creating art is a crucial part of developing young people who can understand the world’s complexity and tackle its problems with a full range of tools.”

It began in lower Manhattan in the early 1980s as the Chinatown History Project, housed in a smallish second-floor walkup shared with other community groups. Now the Museum of the Chinese in America is moving into a nearby space six times as large, designed by Maya Lin.

“More than 600 arts organizations around the country can each look forward to receiving a big fat check in the coming weeks thanks to the latest round of grants announced today by the National Endowment for the Arts. The grants represent part of the $50 million in federal aid to the NEA from President Obama’s economic stimulus package.”

“Royal Opera House chief executive Tony Hall is to be appointed as the new ‘ringmaster’ for the Cultural Olympiad. Hall is in the process of being appointed to the board of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

“The fact is that, whether or not we like it, critics are not, in fact, consumer advocates. … And in fact, such advocacy has never been the role of great critics. Virgil Thomson, Pauline Kael, Andrew Porter: they’re still read, and still valuable, because they were writing about a lot more than whether or not their readers should bother to buy tickets.”

“The issue of arts education brings us to the basic question of what type of society we wish to build. Today’s eighth graders are the next generation of civic and business leaders.”

“The last five years have seen an unprecedented flowering of eco-awareness and activism throughout the arts, at home and abroad. From giant multiplexes to 50-seat fringe venues, from sweaty stadiums to intimate galleries, artist are talking – and singing, and writing, and painting – about the planet’s inexorable drift towards disaster.”

“Orchestras, theaters, museums and other arts organizations in the nation’s suburbs face the challenge to attract customers — and donors — from the same population going to the Chicago Symphony, the Smithsonian or Broadway plays. With the recession cutting into corporate and government funding and making Americans cautious about their spending, the groups are working harder to promote their small-town advantages — especially an easier commute and cheaper ticket prices.”