Category: today’s top story

“The City Council put the finishing touches yesterday on the Museum of Modern Art’s request to build an 82-story tower,” designed by Jean Nouvel, “that would rise as high as the Chrysler Building, granting the project final approval — and leaving Midtown neighbors seeing red.”

“A compromise spending bill approved by Congressional negotiators on Tuesday sets the 2010 fiscal-year budgets for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts at $167.5-million each, a $25-million total increase over the appropriations for the two endowments in 2009.”

“Of the woman who kissed a canvas to ‘warm it up’ we can say at least she is not as dangerous as the man who deliberately ingested different food colouring to vomit in spectacular colours on canvases of his choice…. What makes an otherwise stupid act of vandalism interesting is the reason given in justification.”

“While prospects for women in the independent film world are rosier than for studio films, the number of females employed in key behind-the-scenes roles in both low- and high-budget movies remains piddling. In fact, [a new] study showed, the number of female directors and cinematographers actually has declined over the past decade.”

“The Arts Council is forever subject to criticism, but I’ve seen what happens in countries where major companies have to fend for themselves or cuddle up to politicians. I am often asked why there is no major classical ballet company in Spain. … The causes are political rather than cultural or historical.”

“As Morphoses prepares to open its third season at City Center on Thursday, Mr. Wheeldon is facing a crucial moment in which the viability of his venture seems highly uncertain. His contracts with the Vail International Dance Festival and City Center in New York will end this season, and renewals must be negotiated. In the current economic climate fund-raising possibilities could hardly look more dire.”

The American Booksellers Association argues that Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target’s “steep discounting on 10 hardcover titles by authors including John Grisham, Stephen King and Barbara Kingsolver ‘is damaging to the book industry and harmful to consumers.'”

“A high-profile coalition of artists — including the members of Pearl Jam, R.E.M. and the Roots — demanded Thursday that the government release the names of all the songs that were blasted since 2002 at prisoners for hours, even days, on end, to try to coerce cooperation or as a method of punishment.”

“Google is preparing to add music to its search results, allowing users to listen to songs right from the results page. … [T]he music will come in the form of free, embedded streams from either Lala.com or iLike.com. Those who are interested in buying the music will be able to do so from either of those two sites.”

Alan Davey, chief executive of Arts Council England, told a Conservative arts conference that “he had been alarmed to hear old arguments against arts funding resurrected recently; those that say the best art is produced by starving artists in garrets, and that arts funding only subsidises the pleasure of the rich.”