Category: issues

“When roughly 5,000 museum professionals from across the country descend on Philadelphia this week for two conventions, they will represent institutions that exhibit everything from Old Masters to old rocks. But despite the multiplicity of interests and the range of institutional sizes and locations, there will be one thing on everyone’s mind. Money.”

“Almost two-thirds (63 per cent) of small and medium-sized arts organisations – which are more likely to be located outside the capital than large ones – have experienced falls in private funding so far this year, the research found. Four in 10 have experienced a drop in public funding, while the same proportion has been forced to scale back projects.”

“The new funds have been made available by the arts council significantly reducing its Lottery cash balances over the next two years. These balances have traditionally been kept in reserve in case large projects – such as capital building projects – need unexpected injections of cash.”

“Ontario’s artists and arts organizations are essential players in Ontario’s new creative economy. Investments in the arts help to stimulate economic development, strengthen tourism to the province and create jobs.” The extra funding brings the government’s annual bankrolling of the council to nearly $60 million for 2009-2010.

“Etiquette is not, these days, a growth industry. The Internet is inundated with bile in the name of free expression. Television reality shows encourage a thumbs-up, thumbs-down mentality. The allure of instantaneous reaction makes Twitter the talk of the town. Meanwhile, the economic meltdown is melting down manners: More than ever, people who pay good money to see a show feel they have every right to express righteous anger.”

“For us, today, how art behaves in evil times requires a code of practice, an ethical consensus of what to do when a ruler with blood-stained hands calls for cultural distraction. The lesson of the Hitler era is that artists must take responsibility for their actions, and inaction. But how? We need a kind of Geneva Convention, which protects prisoners of war, to define the rights and duties of an artist under duress. Seventy years after the outbreak of the Second World War, that debate has barely begun.”

“Take a place like Grinnell or Swarthmore or Amherst, which had more than $1 million-per-student endowments — what were they doing? They’ve hit a tough time because their budgets are completely dependent — 30 percent, 33 percent or 40 percent — on the income from this endowment. Now the endowment has collapsed 30 or 40 percent and they’re in a jam.”

“The Woodruff Arts Center’s rooftop conversion completed Phase 2 on Wednesday, as a crew laid down 5,250 square feet of vegetation.” Who’s paying for this? The law firm whose offices overlook the roofs.

The modern British folk revival has always had a leftish slant, influenced by American stars such as Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. But lately the quasi-fascist British National Party has been trying to move in on the folk scene, and now London’s Conservative mayor, Boris Johnson, has organized a folk extravaganza in Trafalgar Square for St. George’s Day (he’s England’s patron saint). Some top folksingers aren’t happy with this new audience.

Last year the magazine published an “Annals of Anthropology” piece by Jared Diamond titled “Vengeance Is Ours,” in which “a blood-thirsty warrior [in the New Guinea highlands] bent on avenging his uncle’s death … touched off six years of warfare leading to the slaughter of 47 people and the theft of 300 pigs.” Said warrior is now seeking $10 million in damages for libel – and one researcher is backing the plaintiff up.