Category: today’s top story

“Although it comprises only .032 percent of South Carolina’s $6 billion state budget, funding for the arts commission helps the state to develop its creative industries, which return more than $9.2 billion to South Carolina and support more than 78,000 jobs, according to Americans for the Arts, a lobbying group.”

“Across the country this is a tough time for small arts groups because state grants have largely shriveled up. Thirty-one states, still staggered by the recession, cut their arts budgets for the 2012 fiscal year, which began on July 1, continuing a downturn that has seen such financial aid drop 42 percent over the last decade, according to data compiled by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.”

“As time passes and revolutionary momentum fades in the broader public, a new current of thought is arising among the protesters who still occupy Tahrir Square, demanding civilian rule and accountability for former regime figures. Many are now asking an unsettling question: What if nonviolence isn’t the solution? What if it’s the problem?”

“After surviving Hurricane Katrina, the gulf oil spill and an economy that has battered the tourist trade,” the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art “is almost out of cash, hurt by fewer visitors than it had hoped for, higher operating costs than it expected and less city support than it had counted on.”

“A pilot scheme that will allow high-profile actors and artists to enter the UK on special visas without jobs lined up will open for applications next month. … This will allow people who are ‘internationally recognised as world leaders in the arts’ to stay in the UK for up to three years and four months.”

“A debut novel chronicling gang warfare in Peckham has joined efforts by a former Man Booker winner, Alan Hollinghurst, and Julian Barnes … on this year’s longlist for the prestigious prize. Stephen Kelman, who was a warehouseman, care worker and local government administrator before taking up writing in 2005, was … one of the more eye-catching additions to a lineup that includes four first-time novelists.”

“In an era of iTunes and Amazon, Spotify and Pandora, album sales don’t tell you what they used to. With so many routes to our eardrums, how do we measure the actual popularity of pop music? It’s something various companies are scrambling to figure out.”

“China’s ever-higher profile as global arbiter of matters artistic–commissioning major work from international architectural stars; giving the nod to a booming market in contemporary Chinese art; and all the while drastically restricting the freedom of artists and writers–leaves us honor bound to explore the tangled old alliances and misalliances between artistic power and political power.”

“Over a career that spanned 50 years, Freud became famous for his intense and unsettling nude portraits. … [In] 2008, his portrayal of a large, naked woman on a couch – Benefits Supervisor Sleeping – sold at auction for £17m, a record price for the work of a living artist.”

“Borders had long lost its competitive edge on many fronts, from corporate strategy to coffee. It died by a thousand – OK, maybe just four or five – self-inflicted paper cuts.”