Brazil Halts Guggenheim Plans

A Brazilian court has blocked construction of a new Guggenheim Museum in Brazil. “The ban follows public outcry that the $US250 million project is a luxury the city cannot afford. Many of Rio’s citizens said the money should be spent on fighting crime or improving education and health care in the city’s teeming shantytowns. Billboards have appeared showing a photograph of a homeless girl drinking from a puddle on the sidewalk with the caption, ‘Does Rio need such a museum? and the Guggenheim name encircled in red.”

Misunderstanding Orwell

“In the 53 years since his death George Orwell has become a secular saint, acclaimed by the political left and right and many in between, revered as a seer and truth-teller, honored for his moral courage, his razor-sharp intellect and his diamond-hard prose. Somewhere along the way, however, amid all of the hero worship, the real man – the idiosyncratic, squeaky-voiced, tubercular Englishman who dressed like a pauper, rolled his own cigarettes, chased after women and practiced a wobbly but sincere brand of socialism – seems to have gotten lost, and perhaps the real writer has as well. Orwell has suffered the famous author’s ultimate fate: He is revered and invoked more than he is read.”

The Substance Behind Hip-Hop

“In ever-evolving forms, hip-hop rules planet Earth, or at least the global entertainment economy from Japan to Cuba. But is there something deeper going on than the flash of 50 Cent’s platinum chains and Eminem’s silver tongue? Where is hip-hop’s artistic vanguard, its intelligentsia? Wasn’t this $1.6 billion-a-year industry once rooted in resistance?”

Competing For Exposure

“The New York International Ballet Competition – founded 20 years ago and offered every three years – has established itself as one of the world’s premiere dance contests. It can pull promising dancers up from relative obscurity, enhance their professional education and boost them into career opportunities that would be difficult to achieve otherwise. And, with 48 dancers from 23 nations (and Puerto Rico) participating, it sets for itself the rather lofty goal of promoting international understanding and goodwill. All this in an intensive three weeks of class, rehearsal and performance.”

America’s Opera Companies Prepare For Cutbacks

America’s opera companies got together last week to talk about business. The news isn’t good. “To keep the most expensive of the performing arts alive in a slumping economy, opera companies are cutting services, staff and productions, dipping into cash reserves and adjusting their budgets for lean years ahead. Administrators from two of the three midsize opera companies at a breakout session said they were dropping works from next season’s schedule. The wolf’s at the door, and opera folks have no place to hide.”

Florida’s 80 Percent Arts Cut

Florida’s new budget was signed into law this week, and it means an 80 percent cut in arts funding. “The budget, signed into law Monday, provides nearly $5.9 million for the state’s arts organizations, down from the $28 million they got last year and a far cry from the $35 million they’d requested for the coming year. Add to deep budget cuts the difficulty arts groups have raising money, and the result is a collective gasp.”

Battles At Ground Zero

Daniel and Nina Libeskind are battling with the various competing interests who want to control what goes up on the site of the World Trade Center. “At issue is their measure of control over what is built at Ground Zero—whether what goes up there reflects Mr. Libeskind’s vision, or the maelstrom of competing interests that has come to define the story of the World Trade Center. If the Libeskinds have one thing going for them, it is themselves. The two—with matching salt-and-pepper hair, glasses, sharp eyes and black clothing—have a way of refracting off each other. They finish each other’s sentences. They interpret each other for their audience. But they are complementary rather than similar.”

Neighbors Who Oppose Met Museum Plans (And The Neighbors Who Oppose Them)

A group of the Metropolitan Museum’s neighbors is mobilizing to oppose the museum’s expansion plans. Museum foes are circulating a letter: “If the Museum goes ahead, it will own our lives until at least 2015. We have a window of opportunity to act now, before the first jackhammer bursts or the first blast shakes. Can you imagine the negative impact on the value of your home if trying to sell during the 12-year assault? We could stop the whole magilla.” But now a group of opponents to the Met’s opponents has sprung up, charging self-interest…