Category: issues

“Patronising attitudes and cliches abound: disabled people are brave, struggling to overcome adversity, morally unblemished, devoid of sexuality. Add disability to the list and the fog of preconception becomes that little bit thicker. Are you seen first and foremost as a professional performer or that plucky man with cerebral palsy, that amazing dancer with Down Syndrome or the girl in the wheelchair who sings?”

The ¥15 million (ca. $142,000) award, presented by the Japan Art Association for painting, architecture, sculpture, music and theater/film, is intended as an arts-world equivalent to the Nobels. They go to to Richard Hamilton, Peter Zumthorn, the Kabakovs, Zubin Mehta, Sakata Tojuro.

“Cirque du Soleil will not be part of the Vancouver 2010 opening or closing ceremonies despite high expectations that Canada’s premier entertainment group would appear. A source close to the company blames tight control exerted over the creative process by VANOC and the IOC.”

The celebrations – to take place in 2009-10 amid the complex’s ongoing renovation work – will include a John Adams opera, new dances from Mark Morris and New York City Ballet, movie marathons, never-seen telecasts, and a free concert by Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble.

“When Republicans say that Democrats ‘just don’t get it,’ this is the ‘it’ to which they refer. Conservative positions on gays, guns, god, and immigration must be understood as means to achieve one kind of morally ordered society. When Democrats try to explain away these positions using pop psychology they err, they alienate, and they earn the label ‘elitist.’ But how can Democrats learn to see – let alone respect – a moral order they regard as narrow-minded, racist, and dumb?

Food and eating is probably the oldest aspect of human culture. Food was the first sculpture. It would certainly be strange if artists did not turn their attention to this most basic and profound aspect of life. How far can you go?

Wayne Clough is “charged with nothing less than transforming a 162-year-old bear of an institution — with 19 museums and galleries, a zoo, 9 research centers, and an operating budget of $1 billion — into an ethical, tightly run organization.”

“For almost 15 years, Massachusetts in general and Boston in particular have been places where rising stars of education have come to build charter schools, offering students – mostly from poor neighborhoods – a superior education. But now these leaders are starting to leave, concluding that Boston is just not the place for them to realize their greatest aspirations.”

“The much-derided but nonetheless hugely influential historical narrative that the Museum of Modern Art has been promulgating ever since its opening in 1929 is just as full of holes — and if you peer carefully through them, you’ll see some of the best art of the 20th century, even though it’s nowhere to be found on MoMA’s bright white walls.”

“In 2007, the number of countries with declining freedoms exceeded those with advancing freedoms by nearly four to one, according to a recent report by Freedom House, an organization that monitors global democracy trends. And the villains, surprisingly enough, are the same people who supposedly make democracy possible: the middle class.”