For the first time in ages, Canada’s Liberal Party, which dominates national politics, is in serious danger of losing its grip on power, and arts organizations are getting worried about what a Conservative victory could mean for them. The current Liberal culture minister has been fanning the flames, implying that the Tories would adopt “a scorched-earth policy” towards national arts funding, but some independent observers say that such dangers are being grossly overstated. Still, there’s no doubt that the Conservatives are strongly in favor of lower government spending and open markets, which arts advocates fear could further sink Canada into the ocean of American culture.
Tag: 06.15.04
There’s No Irony In The TV Business
An upcoming Canadian TV show depicting the hard life of artists in Toronto is soliciting actual works of art by the city’s actual artists to hang on the set. But there’s a catch: “Although Bang! is a drama about the difficulties of living off one’s art, the producers see no reason to actually pay real artists for their work. The chance to reach a large audience, they argue, is payment enough.”
Troubled Or Not, That’s A Great Name For a Theatre Company
“The Soulpepper Theatre Company broke ground yesterday morning for a new $12-million theatre and school in Toronto’s Distillery District… The 13-acre site of the historic Gooderham’s Distillery has been made over as an arts and entertainment district, which opened a year ago. But the project has been troubled, with disappointing public attendance and financial conflict among its developers.”
A Beijing Bubble Ready To Burst?
“Some compare it to a globe severed at the Equator. To others it resembles a phosphorescent egg floating in a crystal sea. One prominent Beijing architect said that when the desert dust kicks up around Beijing, lathering the expansive glass dome in a pall of gray grime, it resembles nothing so much as dried dung. But the most apt analogy for the $300 million National Theater of China, now nearing completion in the political heart of Beijing, near Tiananmen Square, may be a hot potato.”
Getting Their Day In Court, Sort Of
The Bush Administration has been adamant in its claims that the detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba do not have a legal right to trial, or even a right to have a lawyer question the circumstances of their confinement. But on a stage in London, the issue is being hashed out nightly before sold-out crowds. Guantánamo: ‘Honor Bound to Defend Freedom’, which pits U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld against detainees, judges, and lawyers arguing for due process, is drawn directly from actual statements made by the principals in the debate, and it is intensifying the political debate in the UK.
Will Anyone Care About Ground Zero’s Cultural Tenants?
Now that we know which of New York’s arts groups will be housed at Ground Zero, it’s time to ask an important question: will these art centers really have any significant cultural impact? John Rockwell isn’t sure: “The winners were picked not because anyone gave first thought to their worthiness as art, but because they represented a canny mix of institutions likely to make downtown a better place to live and do business… [but] arts gentrification tends to work best in this city when applied to underutilized old industrial neighborhoods, rather than already-crowded residential districts.”
Thoroughly Modern Met
“Pledging to increase its commitment to modern and contemporary art, the Metropolitan Museum is planning a major reorganization of its departments of European painting and modern art, it announced yesterday. Gary Tinterow, 50, the museum’s longtime curator of 19th-century European paintings, will run a new, expanded modern art department, which will include European paintings from 1800 to the present as well as international 20th-century sculpture, drawings, prints, decorative arts and design.”
New Leadership for NYC Chamber Music Society
Husband-and-wife musicians David Finckel, cellist of the Emerson String Quartet, and Wu Han, the pianist who used to run the La Jolla Festival, have been named the new artistic directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Finckel and Han are also the co-directors of the new California summer festival Music@Menlo. The pair replace clarinetist David Shifrin at the helm of CSM.
Lincoln Center Concerns Affected Ground Zero Decisions
The decisions handed down by New York city and state officials concerning which cultural groups will be allowed to make their home at the Ground Zero site in lower Manhattan was apparently strongly influenced by financial issues at Lincoln Center. The city-owned complex is kept running largely by the rent paid by its various resident groups. That fact made it unlikely that the city would approve any move to Ground Zero by New York City Opera, which went to great lengths to keep its proposal alive in the face of mounting opposition from city leaders.
Where Are The Headliners?
Terry Teachout is perplexed by the selection of a collection of, frankly, second-string arts organization for Ground Zero’s cultural component. The groups selected are “serious and respectable, but they simply don’t add up to anything remotely approaching a world-class center for the arts… What a disappointment. What a wasted opportunity.”