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2004 national arts news archive
2004-01-05
St. Louis: Dry Spell For The Arts
In St. Louis, "many arts groups barely have survived the recent lean years. Only five years ago, a 100-page report commissioned by the civic group St. Louis 2004 found that St. Louis boasted a healthy and relatively well-funded arts scene. But that was when arts organizations were reaping the benefits of a flush economy. Since then, foundations have seen their portfolios shrink, and corporations that once generously contributed have moved or have been bought, and the government has collected fewer taxes to share." St. Louis Post-Dispatch 01/04/04
2004-01-05
The New Arts Landscape
Tighter funding, changed attitudes--it's tough to run an arts organization these days. Chicago-area arts administrators reflect on the new cultural climate: "There's a strong current of anti-intellectualism around these days, which becomes antielitism, and arts groups tend to be tarred with that charge unfairly. There should be some recognition of the arts as a socializing force. But at least the historical lack of government support for the arts in America means that we have not become dependent on it." Chicago Tribune 01/04/04
2004-01-06
Nonprofit Blues
The stock market might be up and the economy shaking off the doldrums, but America's nonprofits won't be seeing much relief any time soon. "The nonprofit sector tends to lag the rest of the economy; it is slower to show the distress of a recession or the benefits of a recovery. Analysts say the sector could continue to be weighed down for years, largely by fiscal woes of state governments, including Illinois', and the multiyear budgeting used by many foundations." Chicago Tribune 01/05/04
2004-01-07
San Francisco's New Arts Mayor?
San Francisco has a new mayor, and the city's cultural community is optimistic. "As Gavin Newsom takes center stage in City Hall with his swearing in Thursday, San Francisco's panoramic arts world awaits the new perspectives and conceptual shifts that may come with a new mayoral administration. Fingers are crossed - with some eyes skeptically rolling at the idea - that a kind of arts renaissance could be in the works for San Francisco in 2004 and beyond." San Francisco Chronicle 01/06/04
2004-01-23
Small Town, Big Plans
Butler, Pennsylvania is a former farm town about 40 miles north of Pittsburgh, which in recent years has grown to be a distant suburb of the Steel City, with the result that Butler's residents are now desirous of something more of a civic identity than grain elevators can provide. "In response, the local arts council has designed a five-year plan to develop Butler Cultural Village, a one-block area in downtown Butler" which will bring together the town theater, orchestra, and a new museum in one complex. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review 01/22/04
2004-01-23
No Boost For Florida Arts
Florida arts advocates hoping to rebound from deep cuts in state funding last year got no help from Governor Jeb Bush's 2004 budget proposals. "Buried in general revenue appropriations is $8.5 million recommended for arts grants. That's below Bush's $12 million recommendation last year, although slightly above the $6 million actually approved by the 2003 Florida Legislature." South Florida Sun-Sentinel 01/22/04
2004-01-23
Prairie Art Central
Sedan, Kansas is a prairie town that not long ago looked like it was dying. But the town has reinvented itself as an art colony. "As word spreads, artists have begun arriving. Some are refugees from what they say are overcommercialized art scenes in places like Santa Fe, N.M. One, Stan Herd, a pioneer of environmental art, has built a monumental stone work called "Prairiehenge" on a hilltop outside town." The New York Times 01/22/04
2004-01-23
Austin Arts Outdraw Sports
A new national study reports that "despite a flagging economy and a stubborn reputation for elitism, Austin Texas's performing arts outdraw sports events and live music, while their audiences are more diverse than is commonly assumed. Those are among the findings of a national study on attendance and attitudes toward theater, dance, symphony, opera and related arts in five cities." Austin Statesman 01/15/04
2004-01-27
Now That's a Mayor Who Supports The Arts
The under-construction Dallas Center for the Performing Arts gets a very public boost this week, with a donation of $1 million from the family of late Dallas mayor Annette Strauss. "Supporters of the $275 million performing arts center hope to raise $257 million in private funds for its design and completion, with the rest coming from city bond money. The center's opening is targeted for 2009. The Strauss family contribution brings the amount of private donations to $140 million." Dallas Morning News 01/26/04
2004-01-27
It's Not Just Culture, It's A Smart Investment
"Armed with new custom-created research claiming Chicago-area theaters are worth a whopping $347 million in total economic activity to their home metropolis, the League of Chicago Theatres is on a newly energized mission to convince local corporate leaders that Chicago theater deserves to be taken more seriously by business interests... The study, to be released on Monday, argues that Chicago's live theater industry has doubled its direct and indirect economic impact in just seven years--from $164 million in 1996 to $347 million in 2002." Chicago Tribune 01/26/04
2004-01-27
Boston's Controversial Arts Commissioner Quits
"Boston cultural affairs commissioner Esther Kaplan has abruptly resigned after five years as Mayor Thomas M. Menino's liaison to the city's arts and cultural community. Neither Kaplan nor Menino would discuss what led to the resignation... News of Kaplan's departure surprised many in Boston's tight-knit cultural community, but only a handful expressed disappointment... Over the years, the heads of midsize and large arts groups privately complained that Kaplan functioned more as an advocate than a leader, focusing her energy on grass-roots and neighborhood efforts, sometimes at the expense of those with far bigger audiences." Boston Globe 01/24/04
2004-02-04
Promoting Smoking Through The Arts
In Seattle, the company that makes Lucky Strike cigarettes has become a patron of the arts. The company spreads money around, promoting Luckys in subtle ways - such as hiring attractive young people to sit in bars passing out tickets to alternative arts events (and talking up smokes). "Instead of battering the brain of the target audience, Lucky slides neatly into consciousness, trailing clouds of glory gathered from discreet arts funding. Credit spreads by word of mouth, making the product--which was launched as a brand in 1871--appear modest and friendly." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 02/03/04
2004-02-03
Bush Proposes Smithsonian Budget Increase
Along with proposing to increase the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts, George Bush proposes increasing the Smithsonian's budget by five percent. "The administration proposed giving the museum complex $628 million for fiscal year 2005, an increase of $32 million from the current year." Washington Post
2004-02-03
Denver Arts Institutions Had A Difficult 2003
Overall, Denver's arts organizations saw declines in attendance, membership and fundraising in 2003. It was the second year in a row of declines... Rocky Mountain News 02/01/04
2004-02-03
The NEA Reborn
So George Bush is proposing that the National Endowment for the Arts get a big increase in funding. Roger Kimball writes that while there's still plenty of room to debate whether the arts should be publicly funded, the NEA has reinvented itself into an institution that suddenly matters. "After a couple of decades of cultural schizophrenia, the NEA has become a clear-sighted, robust institution intent on bringing important art to the American people." National Review 01/29/04
2004-02-05
Where The Ahts Are Wicked Populah
"More than three-fourths of metropolitan Boston residents took in a performing arts event in 2002, according to the results of a new national survey to be released today at City Hall. In fact, more Greater Bostonians attend performing arts events (78 percent) than professional sports events (56 percent) each year, according to a report by the Performing Arts Research Coalition." And in Boston, home of some of the country's most rabid sports fans, that's saying something. Boston Globe
2004-02-05
Vandals Hit Detroit Arts High School - Again
The music program at the Detroit High School for the Performing Arts is one of the best in the nation, and has been widely praised for its work in bringing the arts to an inner-city population which might otherwise have been economically frozen out of such opportunities. But the program has apparently also become a favorite target of area vandals, with more than $200,000 of damage caused to instruments and equipment in the most recent break-in. Desiree Cooper is dismayed by the vandalism, but wonders if such rebellions without cause are actually further evidence that Detroit's youth desperately need a chance to experience the arts. Detroit Free Press
2004-02-09
Jumping Hoops To Support Cleveland Arts
In Cleveland, county commissioners are trying to get more money for the arts. "The Cuyahoga County Commissioners resolved that half of the $20 million-per-year property-tax increase would go to arts groups and individuals to protect those jobs, encourage new arts enterprise and stabilize cultural assets that boost the county's image, attracting visitors and investors. But state law prohibits the arts from being named as a beneficiary of an economic development tax. Because voters won't see arts and culture mentioned on the ballot, campaign leaders want to make sure they understand that the levy is about both arts and general economic development, especially jobs." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 02/06/04
2004-02-09
Increase Funding For The NEA? Yeah, Right!
So arts supporters are cheering George Bush's proposal to raise the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts. Big deal, writes Dominic Papatola. "Even if Bush's proposed boost isn't the cynical political maneuver it appears to be—who wants to bet that congressional Republicans don't have a backroom deal to nix the increase?—the NEA budget will still be $37 million less than its high-water mark. And that's in nonadjusted dollars." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 02/08/04
2004-02-09
Really? An Increase For The NEA?
Linda Winer was, like many arts lovers, stunned that George Bush wants to increase the National Endowment for the Arts' budget by $18 million. "So why, when important segments of the GOP are complaining about Bush's election-year spending spree, would the president dare to wave millions of NEA dollars at Congress? Sorry, but I cannot keep from fearing that the new elevated visibility of the NEA will put artists right back in the crosshairs..." Newsday 02/08/04
2004-02-10
Columbia University's Arts Initiative
Columbia University wants to become more involved in the arts. How to do this? First, Columbia has hired director Gregory Mosher. "All of us believe there should be far less separation among intellectual and creative activities. We don't know exactly how we will do this. But we are going to make an effort. We hope to build something quite distinctive, and to make a contribution." The New York Times 02/09/04
2004-02-10
Seattle Rakes In The Music Dollars
A new study measures the economic impact of Seattle's music business. Figures show that the music business generates "more than $650 million in annual revenue and 8,700 jobs for the local economy, according to an economic impact study released last night by Mayor Greg Nickels. When combined with revenue generated by businesses that support the core music industry, the figure tops $1.3 billion." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 02/09/04
2004-02-10
Toledo Arts Groups Painting The Town Red
Arts groups in Toledo, Ohio are selling plenty of tickets these days. But that isn't protecting the bottom line. "Some of Toledo’s best-known regional arts and community assets - from black-tie traditions to avant-garde artists - are working in a new medium: red ink. At least four of the area’s major venues have posted a string of deficit years, according to records they’ve filed with the IRS: the Toledo Opera, the Arts Commission, COSI, and Citifest." Toledo Blade 02/09/04
2004-02-10
Figuring Out Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov is a prodigious talent. But "in all the agony and ecstasy that has surrounded Baryshnikov's every move – the matchless dancing, the seething love-life, the mediocre film career, the downmarket commercial activities – it has taken time to see that his greatest claim to world gratitude is the almost unbelievable generosity with which he has marketed his talent." The Telegraph (UK)
2004-02-12
Sacramento Helps Out Opera, Ballet With Loans
The Sacramento City Council votes to help the city's opera and ballet companies financially. "Both the Sacramento City Council and county Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to grant the Sacramento Ballet a dollar for each dollar it pays of a $362,000 consolidated loan from 1989 and 1995, without interest. Over the next decade, the ballet will donate half that amount in tickets and arts programming to underprivileged audiences. The Sacramento Opera will pay half of a $76,781 loan from the city in the same manner over five years." Sacramento Bee 02/11/04
2004-02-12
Wolfe Leaving The Public
George C. Wolfe is leaving the helm of New York's Public Theatre. "Mr. Wolfe has established something of a cult of personality at the Public, in the tradition of the legendary Joseph Papp. And as the leading black stage director in the country and an openly gay man, he embodied the Public's determination to reach diverse artists and audiences." The New York Times
2004-02-13
Bush's NEA Increase Proposal - Just Hot Air?
George Bush proposes increasing the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts by $18 million. But in arts circles, "suspicion of Bush's motives, however, is widespread. Why in the world is this president offering a palm frond to the arts, even a modest one, while cutting other domestic programs in a $2.4 trillion budget that's heavy on defense and military spending and simultaneously aimed at deficit reduction?" San Francisco Chronicle 02/12/04
2004-02-13
Bush's NEA Increase Proposal - Just Hot Air?
George Bush proposes increasing the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts by $18 million. But in arts circles, "suspicion of Bush's motives, however, is widespread. Why in the world is this president offering a palm frond to the arts, even a modest one, while cutting other domestic programs in a $2.4 trillion budget that's heavy on defense and military spending and simultaneously aimed at deficit reduction?" San Francisco Chronicle 02/12/04
2004-02-18
America's Closing Borders (Artists Too)
"According to organisations connected with film, theatre, music, opera and dance, new American immigration and visa policies are making it extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, for foreign artists of all sorts to come to the U.S. to perform and show their work. No one, it seems, is exempt." The Guardian (UK)
2004-02-18
Ambitious Plans For An American National Theatre
"Today, no one doubts that Lincoln Center Theater is one of the most vital not-for-profit companies in the nation, but its status as a national theatre--indeed, the question of what a national theatre is--is open to debate. So at the dawn of the 21st century, and in the painful, soul-searching aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, a new national-theatre movement is underway." Backstage 02/17/04
2004-02-18
Study: American Participation In The Arts Is High
A new study of audiences for the performing arts in America confirms a high rate of participation and consumption of the arts. "Approximately three-quarters of those participating in the newest survey reported attending one live professional performing arts event within the past 12 months. While this ranged from a high of 78% for Boston respondents to a low of 71% for those in Sarasota, the numbers nevertheless represent a significant level of continuity across a broad swath of the nation." Backstage 02/16/04
2004-02-18
Do Arts Taxes Help The Local Economy?
"Does spending tax dollars on the arts give the local economy any more of a boost? Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) residents will vote in March on Issue 31, a property-tax levy that would raise nearly $21 million annually to help local industries, including the arts. If it passes, what can the voters expect in exchange for their higher property tax?" The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 02/15/04
2004-02-18
How To Save The NEA? Privatize!
Tony Brown writes that it's all well and good for George Bush to propose budget increases for the National Endowment for the Arts. But if he really wanted to do something, he should privatize the agency and give it a real endowment that could sustain its funding for years to come. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 02/15/04
2004-02-18
Americans For The Arts - How To Spend $80 Million
In 2001 Americans for the Arts learned it was getting a bequest of between $80 million-$120 million. And what will Americans for the Artsdo with the money? "The first installment in January 2003 topped $3 million, and a comparable cheque arrived last month. The board is handling the funds with great caution. Newly established committees for investment and planning decided to put most of the income into an endowment to extend the value of the donation beyond 30 years, with a target of $100 million." The Art Newspaper 02/13/04
2004-02-19
Florida Arts Groups Fighting To Restore State Funding Cuts
Last year the Florida State Legislature cut its arts funding by 75 percent. This year Arts and cultural groups are "fighting back to restore money that had been legally set aside for cultural and historic preservation. They have found surprisingly strong support, convincing many legislators that the arts are not just about culture but are also an economic issue important to tourism and jobs." The Sun-Sentinel (South Florida) 02/18/04
2004-02-19
Gioia: Of Arts And Logistics
Dana Gioia says his job as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts is to take charge of logistics. "He points out that it was Nancy Hanks, the endowment's chair during the Nixon administration, who spread the money that helped build dance companies, opera companies, and museums. As Gioia sees it, there is no fight: Most people want the arts in their communities and schools. The only real issues are logistical." Boston Globe 02/18/04
2004-02-20
A Code Of Ethics For Nonprofits
As government officials consider drafting new oversight rules for nonprofits, a Washington group proposes a code of ethics that nonprofits could sign on to. "As a matter of fundamental principle, the nonprofit and philanthropic community should adhere to the highest ethical standards because it is the right thing to do. As a matter of pragmatic self-interest, the community should do so because public trust in our performance is the bedrock of our legitimacy." Backstage 02/19/04
2004-02-20
A Trio Of Jobs
Three of New York's most important cultural institutions have vacancies in their top jobs. Running Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera and the Public Theatre are among the most difficult arts jobs there are. And it's not immediately obvious who the should get the jobs. The New York Times 02/19/04
2004-02-24
Keeping Cuba Out Of The USA
"Over the past few months, the State Department has cracked down on Cuban visitors—specifically artists—seeking to enter the United States. Since November, every Cuban musician who applied for a visa—151 in all—has been turned down, including the five Grammy nominees invited to the recent awards' ceremony. The State Department denies a specific policy against musicians, although officials appear to have raised the bar for performers who want to tour the United States." MSNBC 02/23/04
2004-02-24
In Connecticut - Are Arts Supporter's Troubles Trouble For The Arts?
Connecticut governor John Rowland has been a major supporter of the arts. Now the governor's in trouble, and his "troubles couldn't come at a worse time for cultural groups. The arts are weathering tough economic times locally, statewide and nationally. New initiatives are being downsized or postponed. And a new state super-agency--established by the legislature at the governor's urging last year to oversee the state's interests in tourism, arts, history, culture and film--is still finding its identity, focus and voice. During this time of trials and tribulations for the governor, is the arts agenda lost?" Hartford Courant 02/22/04
2004-02-24
Welcome To The New Houston
"For most of the past half-century, Houston was the proud avatar of freebooting suburban sprawl. You could do anything you wanted in Houston, as long as you did it as God intended, behind the wheel of your car. Downtown sprouted a forest of new office towers in the 1970s, but the old business district along and near Main Street fell into disuse." In the past seven years, however, Houston has transformed itself... San Antonio Express-News 02/22/04
2004-02-24
Making A Case For The Arts In North Carolina
"One out of every eight people in North Carolina is a member, supporter or volunteer of an arts organization. The craft arts make about $538 million a year for North Carolina." Wilmington Star-News (North Carolina) 02/20/04
2004-02-25
Making Miami PAC Whiz Bang
"In a bid to turn Miami's Performing Arts Center into one of the world's whiz-bang wonders, students from the MIT Media Lab are spending this semester figuring out how to incorporate digital technology into the center's opera, concerts and ballet." Miami Herald 02/24/04
2004-02-26
America Gets Its National Opera Company
The US Congress has marked the changing of the name of the Washington Opera to the "National Opera." Congress decided in June 2000 that the 48-year-old company whould be renamed. "According to Placido Domingo, the company's general director, the new name is a reflection of "the fact that it is in the nation's capital and therefore touches a wide national audience." Washington Post
2004-02-27
Challenging The Nea Funding Increase
President Bush's proposal to increase the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts by 15 percent is a good thing, right? So why are so many arts supporters talking down the idea? Backstage 02/26/04
2004-03-01
Cleveland Voters Vote On Arts Funding Measure
Cleveland voters go to the polls Tuesday to vote on a measure that would provide $100 million for economic development. "Half the money would underwrite job creation, worker training and retraining, brownfield cleanup and business start-ups. The other half would go to cultural groups and artists through a county-run grant process involving the review of applicants by panels of community leaders and out-of-region arts experts." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 02/29/04
2004-03-01
Attacking The Idea Of The Creative Class
Richard Florida's "Creative Class" ideas have been widely embraced in America. But there's a backlash, and he is "taking political hits from the right and the left "There is just one problem: The basic economics behind [Florida's] ideas don't work," writes one critic. Another "calls Florida's city-revitalization theory 'so wrong and backward that it reads like satire.' Florida has mistaken the side effects of a booming economy for the causes of growth. After all, 'Potemkin bohemias' are not going to get old steel cities humming again." Boston Globe 02/29/04
2004-05-11
Massachusetts' Billion Dollar Culture Crisis
A new report says that Massachusetts cultural groups pump more than a billion dollars a year into the economy. But the "cultural sector is losing its luster as a tourist destination, and it is in danger of losing ground as a cultural hub as well. Theaters and historic homes are crumbling, and vital museums and arts centers are struggling to pay for basic repairs, maintenance, and expansion planned, the report found. Yet Massachusetts is one of the few culture-rich regions of the country that provides no steady support for capital improvements." Boston Globe
2004-05-17
Cultural Affairs Funding Eyed
New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed his $46.9 billion executive budget. The Department of Cultural Affairs would get $104.03 million. That's $10 million more than the mayor had proposed in January for his FY05 preliminary budget; but it's $15.7 million less than cultural funding for the present fiscal year Backstage 05/12/04
2004-05-17
Minnesota Mayor Wants More $$ For Arts
The mayor of St. Paul has responded to a study which showed the city's arts groups stuck in a cycle of deficits by proposing a new annual infusion of cash into the arts scene. Mayor Randy Kelly's proposal, which was crafted in consultation with several arts leaders, calls for a $25 million bump in annual support for St. Paul's cultural sector, including $6.5 million in new public subsidies. St. Paul arts groups have been struggling in comparison wth those across the Mississippi River in larger, more cosmopolitan Minneapolis. St. Paul Pioneer Press 05/12/04
2004-05-17
He Cuts Because He Loves?
San Francisco's new mayor recently announced that the city's arts grant program would be taking a 25% hit in his new budget, infuriating arts supporters. But Gavin Newsom insists that he loves the arts, and plans for them to be a major part of his administration's goals for the city. The mayor got together for a meeting with 200 area artists last week, with author Dave Eggers moderating the discussion. San Francisco Chronicle 05/12/04
2004-05-01
California Arts Economic Engine
California's nonprofit arts groups pump $5.4 billion annually into the state's economy, according to an economic impact study released Thursday by the California Arts Council. This represents a 152 percent increase since the last study was done in 1994. Sacramento Bee 04/30/04
2004-05-01
Arts Funding Outlook Mixed For 2004
If 2003 was the year of uniformly negative news nationwide on the state arts-funding front, 2004 is shaping up to be the year of the definite maybe, with some states looking at boosting funding and some localities considering more cuts. And in Florida, which sustained deep arts-funding cuts last year, well-mobilized cultural organizations may find themselves feeling sorry/grateful for their advocacy efforts. Backstage 04/29/04
2004-05-01
Study: Philanthropic Giving Down By Almost $1 Billion
Charitable giving by America's grant-making foundations -- a universe of nearly 65,000 organizations -- fell from $30.5 billion in 2001 and $30.4 billion in 2002 to approximately $29.7 billion in 2003. A downward shift of $800 million might, arguably, be small change when one compares it to America's multitrillion-dollar economy, but for nonprofits, it is another sign that times have been tough, are still tough, and are likely to remain tough for the foreseeable future. A nearly $1 billion decline in giving in just three years, in fact, stands in stark contrast to the boom years of the late 1990s, when foundations, feeling flush and optimistic due to the dot-com stock market upswing, seemed to forever be moving their giving levels via a northern trajectory. Backstage 04/29/04
2004-05-01
Miami - America's New Arts Capital?
Is it true that experts consider "greater Miami as a potential capital of arts in the Americas?" If so, the state of Florida isn't stepping up to the table to support it happening. Miami Herald 04/29/04
2004-05-01
Officials to Investigate Faltering Arts Center
When Pennsylvania's Mountain Laurel Performing Arts Center closed its doors only five months after opening, arts supporters and state officials were aghast at what appeared to be a classic case of mismanagement and overreach. Now, the state Auditor General's office is getting involved at the request of Pennsylvania legislators, investigating the decisions and deals that led to the construction of the $35 million venue. Mountain Laurel, located in the Pocono Mountains in the northeastern part of the state, was to have been the summer home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and planned to host summer concerts by the Philadelphia Orchestra as well. Scranton (PA) Times Tribune 04/28/04
2004-05-01
Busing In The Artists
Paducah, Kentucky wants artists. And they'll help you move there if you are one. Paducah's "Artist Relocation Program has exerted the same magnetic pull on others who've dreamed of living, working and, most importantly, owning in a neighborhood of like-minded residents. In 2 1/2 years, nearly 40 people have moved here to transform a beat-up area of homes known as Lower Town into a blossoming art colony. Chicago Tribune 04/27/04
2004-05-01
Florida City Bets Future On Arts
The city of Sarasota, Florida has decided that its future is with the arts. "A consultant's proposal would add up to 375,000 square feet of new cultural space and 300,000 to 600,000 square feet for shops, restaurants, galleries, offices and residences. There's also a planned three-acre public park, a 10th Street pier and marina, and a baywalk path along the water. Sarasota Herald-Tribune 04/25/04
2004-05-01
Big Increase For Florida Arts Funding
Florida lawmakers agreed Saturday to boost spending on arts and cultural programs by millions of dollars in the coming year -- but killed a plan that would guarantee future funding." The increase cheers arts supporters, but leaves the arts vulnerable in future budgets. The News-Journal (Florida) 04/25/04
2004-05-01
Protests Over Philly Arts Cuts
Philadelphia cultural leaders are protesting the mayor's plans to cut $4.4 million of cultural funding. "The city now spends just 12 cents per $100 on the city's arts and cultural sector, which in turn supports 11,000 jobs, generates more than $560 million in regional spending and returns $6.5 million in city tax revenue, according to a 1998 Pennsylvania Economy League study. CentreDaily.com (AP) 04/20/04
2004-05-01
Building A Downtown Neighborhood (We Hope)
As mid-sized American cities go, Minneapolis has a fairly thriving urban center. But what the city has always lacked is a heavily populated downtown neighborhood to anchor its impressive cultural scene. A new building spree aims to create that sought-after mix of residential and commercial space, but Minneapolitans have seen this type of ambition before, only to see the grandest plans fall to the budget knife or the wrecking ball. And at the core of the debate is the question of what makes a neighborhood vital: is it upscale boutiques? Affordable housing? Lots of coffee shops and bars? Easy access to theatres and baseball games? The goalposts seem to move with each passing year. City Pages (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 04/21/04
2004-04-20
Two National Groups Fold Into Americans For the Arts
Two national arts groups, the State Arts Advocacy League of America (SAALA) and the National Community Arts Network (NCAN), have agreed to be folded into Americans for the Arts. Backstage 04/19/04
2004-04-20
The Battle For Florida
The state of Florida slashed arts funding last year. But arts supporters were cheered in the past few weeks when members of the legislature proposed a cultural trust fund that would provide long term funding for the arts, restoring last year's cuts. But Governor Jeb Bush has been throwing cold water on the plan: "The priorities of the future should be established by future governors and legislatures. That's the general principle that I support and believe in. Miami Herald 04/18/04
2004-04-20
Old Culture War Fears Bedevil Arts Funding (Still)
The failure of a major initiative to fund arts in Cleveland came down to some very old issues left over from the culture wars of the 1990s: "The reluctance to approve government-administered money for the arts might be due to the two deep-rooted and opposing fears that the Mapplethorpe battle caused: Would the grants pay for art that the public finds incomprehensible, unattractive, obscene or blasphemous? And would the government place restrictions on artists' freedom of expression as a direct or indirect condition of the grants? The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 04/18/04
2004-04-20
Utah's Culture Boom
Utah arts groups are struggling. But voters have recently approved bonds for several big cultural building projects. Indeed, there's a building boom going on in Salt Lake City as about $500 million in new cultural facilities are contemplated. Salt Lake Tribune 04/18/04
2004-04-20
Is New Jersey In For An Arts Funding Increase?
After two years of budget cuts totaling about $4 million, the New Jersey arts community has something to celebrate: a proposed increase of $6.6 million in state funding for arts organizations and projects. New Brunswick Home News Tribune (AJ) 04/18/04
2004-04-20
California Arts Council Director Resigns
Barry Hessenius has resigned as director of the California Arts Council. "During his tenure, Hessenius has overseen Arts Council budgets that reached a high of $30.7 million in 2000-01 and a low of $1 million for the current fiscal year, a drop of more than 97 percent in funding for the arts by the state. The money had been awarded as grants to more than 4,000 of the state's arts endeavors, large and small, rural and inner-city - everything from artists in residence in schools to major orchestras. Sacramento Bee 04/17/04
2004-04-20
Cities Zero In On Arts Budgets
Last year it was state governments that slashed arts funding. This year it's cities. Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York... all are looking at cutting cultural funding as hey struggle to balance budgets. Philadelphia Business Journal 04/13/04
2004-04-20
A Lincoln Center Plan That's "Evolutionary"
After years of debate, finally a plan for a Lincoln Center makeover that works. "What we've got here is the inverse of the Wow Factor: a new plan for the center's public spaces so understated as to seem almost uncanny. It looks just like Lincoln Center, only smarter, more self-aware and amazingly confident in its sense of direction. The plan is evolutionary. It tweaks, here and there, the existing architecture of Lincoln Center, but the overall effect is to enhance the original rather than to negate or override it. It's respectful. This seems to me an invaluable civic lesson at this intemperate moment in our national life. The New York Times 04/13/04
2004-04-20
California City Funds Plan To Lure Artists
The city of Ventura, California has become so expensive to live in that artists moved out. So "last week, the city gave Minneapolis-based Artspace Projects Inc. $400,000 to begin work on a plan to provide homes and studios to at least 25 artists and their families. The company, which specializes in carving airy lofts out of abandoned industrial buildings, aims to raise at least $10 million, mostly from state and federal agencies and private foundations. Los Angeles Times 04/12/04
2004-04-15
Arts Make A Comeback In The Heartland
The post-9/11 focus on national security and the weakened U.S. economy has famously cost arts groups millions of dollars in local, state, and federal funding over the last few years, but in some cities, the arts are starting to rise again. In Indianapolis, where funding cuts hit hard, the city's Arts Council will see its budget rise this year, despite flat levels of government funding. Contributions from foundations and the private sector are up, and there is reason to believe that local officials are beginning to buy into the notion that money pumped into the arts is returned to the local economy in measurable ways. Indianapolis Star 04/11/04
2004-04-15
Gioia Presents NEA Budget To Congress
National Endowment for the Arts chairman Dana Gioia presented the Bush administration's request for a 15 percent budget increase to Congress. "The need for national arts leadership has never been more critical. There is presently a national crisis in state, local, and private arts funding across the United States. Budget cutbacks are nearly universal, and the majority of institutions in most arts fields are currently operating at a deficit with numerous bankruptcies, even among established organizations. Our appropriations -- 40% of which are directly allocated to state arts agencies and regional organizations -- provide much needed stability in this challenging environment." Backstage 04/09/04
2004-04-15
The Death Of American Arts Education
Arts education is quickly disappearing from schools across America. "Art and music classes have become secondary to more traditional subjects such as math and science, which means that when budgets are tight, the arts are among the first to be cut from curriculums. CNN.com 04/06/04
2004-04-15
States Look At New Regulation Of Non-Profits
The battle to force not-for-profits, including arts groups, to strengthen their fiscal accountability has moved from Congress, where it raged during 2003, to the states, where three attorneys general are pushing tough, charity-regulating legislation. Backstage 03/31/04
2004-05-25
Arizona Legislature Passes Arts Funding
The Arizona State Senate and House of Representatives have passed a budget that includes both the $1.8 million appropriation to the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the $2 million deposit to the Arizona ArtShare Arts Endowment. The Governor has 5 days now to sign the budget bill, or it becomes law automatically. Arizonans for Cultural Development
2004-05-25
Durham Debates Giant Clear Channel Theatre
The Durham (NC) City Council is considering a plan for "a 4,000-seat theater adjacent to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park and the American Tobacco complex renovation. Supporters of the proposed American Center for Performing Arts say the region needs a theater of this size, and that it would serve as a permanent home to the American Dance Festival, which has long outgrown crowded Duke University stages." But media giant Clear Channel Communications would manage the theatre, and a coalition of other arts groups is coming together to oppose the plan. Durham Independent 05/20/04
2004-05-25
Whatever Happened To Funding The Arts Just Because We Should?
Economic impact studies are becoming the preferred method of convincing the citizenry to support public subsidies for arts and culture. But not everyone is buying the message: "The arts folks are trying to sell their idea... by using the vehicle the public seems eager to buy these days: It will help the economy. The arts’ pitch is smaller but not dissimilar to the pitch made by the biotech people. We can not only cure diseases, we were told, we can cure downturns in the business cycle... When we make these arguments long enough, other economists will come up with research that shows these are not such good investments. This will lead to more resistance to funding projects we probably ought to fund for the civic good." East Valley Tribune (AZ) 05/23/04
2004-05-25
Remaking Davenport, Heavy On The Arts
Times have not been good lately in Davenport, Iowa, one of the four adjoining Iowa/Illinois river towns known as the Quad Cities. But the city is trying to make its own good luck with a $113.5 million revitalization program focused on making Davenport a cultural center for the region. From the wholesale renovation of a ballpark frequently called the most beautiful in all the minor leagues to a $9 million dollar museum and performance venue celebrating the city's jazz/blues tradition to a spectacular new $34 million building housing the Davenport Museum of Art, civic leaders have unquestionably been putting their money where their mouths are. Chicago Tribune 05/20/04
2004-05-25
NEA Awards $58 Million In Grants
"The endowment announced this week the distribution of $57,958,600 to not-for-profit national, regional, state, and local organizations across the country, funding projects in the categories of arts on radio and television, folk arts infrastructure, heritage and preservation, learning in the arts, and state and regional partnerships. The NEA's budget for the year is $122.5 million." Backstage 05/19/04
2004-05-25
New Deal For Toronto Performing Arts Center A Threat To Some Tenants?
A controversial motion passed recently by the Toronto City Council to change the governance of the St. Lawrence Centre for the Performing Arts, has raised concerns that it amounts to a takeover by primary tenant CanStage." The center's six other, smaller resident tenants charge that their survival would be in doubt under the new arrangement. Toronto Star 05/18/04
2004-05-25
Building A New NPR (That's What Money Can Do)
"At meetings last week in Arlington, Va., a vision of NPR's strategic plans for the future was presented to 100 local station managers from around the country. So far, the unexpected funding has allowed NPR to give an unusual bonus to its 700-member staff (roughly 1 percent of each employee's annual salary), return $2.4 million to member stations to offset rising expenses, and plan for a flurry of hires. The interest income alone will pay for 45 additional reporters over the next three years." Denver Post 05/22/04
2004-05-25
Reinventing the Wheel in St. Paul
One year ago, the musicians of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra agreed to a new contract which would fundamentally change the way the ensemble operates. The position of music director will soon be eliminated in favor of a network of "artistic partners" who the SPCO hopes will bring star power and musical expertise to the organization. "Perhaps even more significantly, decision-making, formerly the responsibility of top management and the music director, would now be the work of two committees, each composed of three musicians and two management personnel, a ratio that puts musicians in the driver's seat." The rest of the American orchestra industry is watching St. Paul closely, if skeptically. Minneapolis Star Tribune 05/23/04
2004-05-25
Art, History, & Politics: Cy Thao & The Minnesota Hmong
Minnesota state legislator Cy Thao is a prominent figure in the Twin Cities' large population of Hmong, a nomadic people of Chinese origin who fled to the U.S. from Laos following the Vietnam War. As a lawmaker, Thao is one of only two Hmong officeholders in America (the other is also from St. Paul,) and is steadily gaining influence at the Capitol. But Thao is also an accomplished artist who is determined to break the thousand-year cycle of lost Hmong history through his work. This week, a series of 50 of Thao's oil paintings goes on display at a Minneapolis museum. City Pages (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 05/19/04
2004-05-25
Library As New Urban Star
"The number of visits made to libraries nationwide more than doubled between 1990 and 2001, according to the most recent data available from the American Library Association. Sixty-two percent of adult Americans surveyed in that 2002 study said they had a library card, and they visited libraries an average of 13 times per year. Part of the draw results from the depressed economy. "Instead of paying $24.95 for a best seller, they say, 'I think I'll get it from the library.' But a bigger increase, some analysts believe, comes from libraries' nimbleness in adopting new technologies. Rather than becoming obsolete in the Internet age, they have expanded their role." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 05/20/04
2004-05-25
Man With The (NYT Culture) Plan
As the New York Times' new culture editor, Jon Landman will oversee a plan to revampt the paper's cultural coverage. "Executive editor Bill Keller, in a staff memo, conceded that Mr. Landman — best known as the Metro editor who tried to warn higher-ups about Jayson Blair—'does not bring to the job a thick portfolio of cultural expertise.' So how’d he become the new culture boss? 'Bill asked me to do it,' Mr. Landman said. 'Sometimes life is simple'." New York Observer 05/19/04
2004-05-25
SF Jewish, Mexican Museums Endangered
In San Francisco, "the proposed Jewish and Mexican museums, once seen as ideal ways to embody San Francisco's racial and ethnic mosaic, are in such financial trouble that City Hall and museum backers worry they may never get built." San Francisco Chronicle 05/21/04
2004-05-25
Seattle Library - Building As Art
Seattle's new Rem Koolhaas-designed central library is winning raves from the critics. "High-end architecture is often a monument to the architect. Rarely is it art. This library is rooted in its functions, blooms where it's planted, is art in itself and is going to be a huge hit with the mass audience that is its principal customer." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 05/20/04
2004-05-27
Bistate package ready for vote
Kansas City civic leaders announced a compromise Tuesday to the bistate cultural improvements package that they said had suburban support and was ready to go before voters this fall. The 1/4-cent bistate sales tax would be collected for about 15 years and would be expected to raise more than $1 billion for sports and arts programming throughout the metropolitan area. Changes from earlier proposals give more bistate money to the suburbs. Kansas City Star, 5/26/2004
2004-05-28
Milwaukee groups ally to tout arts, culture
While the Milwaukee metropolitan area boasts a strong cluster of arts and cultural groups, no single organization has led a coordinated effort to promote and mobilize that industry. A new collaborative aims to change that. Representatives from the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Spirit of Milwaukee, the United Performing Arts Fund and the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts have formed the Cultural Alliance of Greater Milwaukee. The alliance will be similar to a chamber of commerce, such as the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, said Dean Amhaus, president of the Spirit of Milwaukee, a Milwaukee nonprofit which works to promote the city. The new group will serve visual, performing or literary arts organizations, cultural attractions or venues, and museums, as well as individual artists in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington, Ozaukee, Racine and Kenosha counties. Milwaukee Business Journal, 05/14/2004
2004-06-02
NY Arts Groups Protest City Funding Cuts
New York City arts groups are protesting mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to slash city arts funding. "We are sending a distress signal to the mayor and the City Council that if the budget is adopted at this level, it would become the fourth year in a row that the city's cultural institutions have been seriously underfunded. Instead of helping the city to rebound, the proposed cuts risk severely imperiling the fiscal health of our city's most cherished cultural treasures." Backstage 05/27/04
2004-06-02
Bailing Out Orange County
"Chronically behind in their fundraising, Orange County [California] Performing Arts Center officials said Tuesday that they will issue $180 million in bonds to ensure completion of a theater and a 2,000-seat concert hall. Center officials said they have raised $117 million in cash and pledges toward their $200-million goal to pay for the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, the 500-seat Samueli Theater and an education center. Officials previously said they had hoped to raise $130 million by the end of 2003. But in the past 11 months they have raised only about $5 million." Los Angeles Times 05/26/04
2004-06-02
Town Offers Bounty To Bookstore
"In an ever-tougher business environment for independent booksellers, the town of St. Johnsbury, Mass., population 7,571 as of 2000, is offering startup money and a break on rent to a qualified person willing to open a bookstore downtown. The word is out in the book trade, and St. Johnsbury officials say calls are coming in." Boston Globe 06/01/04
2004-06-02
Artist Pension Fund Forming
A company in New York has started a pension fund for artists. "The fund, called the Artist Pension Trust, is designed to offer some retirement security for a fairly select group of up-and-coming visual artists now in their 20s and 30s. Instead of investing money, artists will contribute their own artwork to a trust. The artwork will be held for a number of years, then sold, with the proceeds going into the trust, from which artists will draw their pensions." San Francisco Chronicle 05/28/04
2004-06-08
The Great Arts Confab
Five thousand performing arts professionals are converging on Pittsburgh this week in the first-ever joint meeting of America's performing arts organizations. "The idea behind the project was to give performing-arts people across the country a chance to share their thoughts on important industry problems and pool their strength. There were real, fieldwide issues that were not subject to solution by any single art form. I had the feeling that we would always be minor-league players while we operated in our silos." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 06/08/04
2004-06-08
Crunch Time For Miami PAC
The overdue, over-budget Miami-Dade Performing Arts Center is at a flashpoint this week, as county officials are demanding a final cost estimate from the PAC's designers and builders. "The builder's contract with the county calls for the center to cost $254.6 million, but the builder has asked for $47 million more and estimates that its final extra costs could run as high as $61 million, the county said. The architect's contract is for $25.35 million; it wants more, but won't say how much. County Manager George Burgess vows to hold the line. The county has offered the builder an additional $8.9 million, rejected $26 million and is negotiating over the rest." Miami Herald 06/02/04
2004-06-08
NEA Establishes New Critics' Institutes
"The institutes will be designed for journalists who cover the arts for print and broadcast outlets located outside the country's largest media markets, where professional development opportunities are limited. Institutes for dance critics will be hosted by the American Dance Festival at Duke University; for classical music and opera critics at Columbia University; and theater critics at the University of Southern California." NEA 06/01/04
2004-06-15
The Great Florida Debate
Ever since Richard Florida published his book, The Rise of the Creative Class, urban planners and thinkers around the U.S. have been lining up either to sing Florida's praises or to knock his ideas as half-formed and unrealistic. "Many of Richard Florida's critics try to marginalize his theory of the creative class as being just about a few kooky artists in Austin. They are wrong... As governments take a serious look at his ideas, billions of dollars spent on subsidies of politically-connected industries hang in the balance." So isn't it time for a serious, substantive debate on the issues that Creative Class raised? The Next American City 06/04
2004-06-15
Taxing Sports To Pay For The Arts?
Michigan is hoping to restore the 50% of state arts funding that was cut from last year's budget with an unprecedented per-ticket tax on sports and entertainment events. Despite the financial difficulties faced by many of Michigan's arts groups, the state ranks sixth in the nation in arts funding, and the new tax would bump it up to second. But the proposal faces a tough road ahead in the conservative state legislature, and the governor has yet to even take a position. Detroit Free Press 06/14/04
2004-06-15
Hoping For Status Quo
The upscale Marshall Fields department store chain is being purchased from Minneapolis-based Target Corporation by the decidedly cut-price May Department Stores, and the changeover is causing some nervousness in the Twin Cities' top arts organizations. Marshall Fields has a history of being extremely generous to Minnesota cultural groups, and while May insists that it has no immediate plans to scale back Fields' charitable arm, such largesse doesn't seem to fit May's overall business plan. Minnesota Public Radio 06/14/04
2004-06-15
America's Arts Organizations Gather In Pittsburgh
Over the past week, 4,400 arts professionals representing America's arts groups, gathered in Pittsburgh to talk about their work. It was the first time members of Dance/USA, the American Symphony Orchestra League, Theatre Communications Guild, Opera America, and other groups met together... Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 06/14/04
2004-06-15
Report: State Arts Agencies Must Change Their Tune
A new study notes cuts in funding for US state arts agencies in 2003 and suggests that the cuts are not an aberration. "The reason for these cuts is not just a one-time fiscal crisis, but the political weakness of state arts agencies that has arisen because of a growing mismatch between their roles and structures and the cultural and political realities they face. A shift in the arts agencies’ focus and funding may be a solution, but it cannot take place until important conceptual and practical issues are resolved." Rand.org 06/09/04
2004-06-15
SF Plan To Merge Arts Agencies Worries Arts Advocates
San Francisco's mayor says that to deal with the city's deficit, he wants to combine the area's two major art funders. "But in moving the Grants for Arts program under the Arts Commission umbrella, many say, the mandates of the two different agencies could clash and endanger a fragile arts ecology in San Francisco." San Francisco Chronicle 06/09/04
2004-06-15
Baryshnikov's New Art Commune?
Mikhail Baryshnikov has worn many hats over the years, but these days, all his energy is going into the development of the new Baryshnikov Arts Center in midtown Manhattan. The center, for which he is hoping to raise $25 million, is designed to encourage collaboration between artists, and its namesake is clearly excited about the possibilities: "Musicians, artists, costume designers, lighting designers, playwrights, choreographers, actors will meet to work on the same projects. It will be a private place with no pressure from outside, where people can exchange their ideas. It's a bit of a socialist idea, but what the hell!" Contra Costa Times 06/13/04
2004-06-15
LA To Save Animation Studio Buildings
The Los Angeles city council has decided to preserve all three of the buildings that once comprised the historic Hanna-Barbera animation studio, where such TV icons as the Flintstones, Barney Rubble, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and Scooby-Doo came to life. "It was at the studio that Bill Hanna and his partner Joe Barbera perfected 'limited animation,' which is far cheaper than the traditional kind. It also involves far less movement of the animated characters, however, and thus is criticized by some purists. Hanna and Barbera perfected the cheap technique in the late 1950s, a time when the major studios were closing their labor-intensive animation departments, and thus some have credited them with helping save the cartooning industry." Backstage 06/08/04
2004-06-15
Congress Questions Smithsonian Strad Deal
The US Congress is questioning a Smithsonian deal that brought the museum four Stradivarius violins for $50 million. "The high-profile gift, one of the museum's largest ever, allowed its donor, Herbert R. Axelrod, a New Jersey businessman, to claim what his lawyer confirmed was a tax break of around $32 million. Mr. Axelrod fled to Cuba in March after being indicted on unrelated charges of tax evasion." The New York Times 06/14/04
2004-06-15
The Reagan Arts Legacy
Ronald Reagan "was a man of many paradoxes whose cultural legacy is colored in shades of gray," says John Hayes. And while the left-leaning arts world, which is still fuming over Reagan's deliberate ignoring of the AIDS epidemic that decimated the American cultural scene, is unlikely to remember Reagan as one of its favorite presidents, the fact is that under his leadership, public arts funding hit an all-time high. In fact, at a time when many Congressional conservatives were ready to launch an all-out assault on the National Endowment for the Arts, Reagan steered a gentle course between warring parties, and may have saved the NEA in the process. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 06/11/04
2004-06-15
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." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/15/04
2004-06-24
Senate Investigates Non-Profits
The US Senate holds a hearing on the behavior of non-profits. "The U.S. Senate Finance Committee hearing focused on abuses that may occur at up to 10 percent of the nation's 1.6 million charities. The abuses -- ranging from inept oversight by volunteer boards of trustees to the willingness to become partners in tax shelter schemes -- cost the nation billions of dollars each year, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Mark Everson said." Newark Star-Ledger 06/23/04
2004-06-24
Study: Arts More Than Sports
A study on arts participation released at the National Performing Arts Convention in Pittsburgh echoes previous reports. "Once again, as in studies past, more people reported attending a live performing arts event at least once in the past year than reported attending a professional sporting event. Eight out of 10 acknowledging that the performing arts improve the quality of life in their communities. More than that, between 58 and 71 per cent of those interviewed agreed that attending live arts events encouraged them to be more creative. This has traditionally been an argument used to support arts education in schools. It was interesting to find, in this era of diminished arts education, that so many people still subscribe to the belief." Toronto Star 06/20/04
2004-06-24
Arts as Essential Service
Why is the city of Philadelphia cutting its arts funding, when investment in the arts has returned major benefits? "Why, given all of the studies showing how much the arts contribute to a city and region's health, have we not figured out how to fund the arts in a way that they don't have to go begging every year for mere survival. Why is it that we can support transit, education, health and human services, recreation and other line items with the understanding that they are necessary to our existence, but still treat dance, music, theater and art as if they are luxury items - nice if you can find the money, but not essential?" Philadelphia Inquirer 06/20/04
2004-06-24
(Under)Funding The Humanities
"According to the report by the Foundation Center and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, funding for the humanities by a sample group of some 1,000 large U.S. foundations more than doubled, from $134.1 million in 1992 to $335 million in 2002. But total foundation giving tripled in that period, to $15.9 billion in 2002, and the humanities' share of the pie crumbled from 2.5 percent in 1992 to 2.1 percent in 2002. In 2002, education ($4.2 billion) and health ($2.9 billion) were the prime recipients of the sample group's dollars, according to the Foundation Center." Chicago Tribune 06/20/04
2004-06-24
Are Arts Groups Losing The Financial Puzzle?
The strain of trying to keep arts organizations afloat financially is beginning to show. "While theaters, ballets, museums and operas perpetually live hand to mouth, as do most nonprofit groups, fundamental changes in the nature of arts financing suggest that they will continue to struggle even as the economy and capital markets recover." The New York Times 06/20/04
2004-06-24
State Largesse For Long Wharf
New Haven Connecticut's Long Wharf Theatre got a stunning surprise from the state, in the form of major capital funding for a new home. The "$30 million to Long Wharf on the day of its 40th anniversary gala stunned even the most seasoned arts leader. It's not just that the figure is the largest singular grant to a capital arts project in state history (as best that anyone can determine anyway). It's that the state subsidy is expected to make up about two-thirds of the capital project. Estimates for the new theater has it costing anywhere from $35 million to $45 million, depending on the year the question was asked. The final price is yet to be determined." Hartford Courant 06/20/04
2004-06-24
Cleveland Museum Looks For $36 Million In Government Help For Building
The Cleveland Museum is asking local and federal governments to contribute $36 million towards a $225 million expansion project. "The expansion and renovation would enlarge the 389,000-square-foot museum complex by nearly 200,000 square feet, and add 31,000 square feet of new gallery space. The museum hopes to complete its design by January and to break ground in March or April. Construction would take four years." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 06/23/04
2004-06-24
Artist Rights Vs. Owner Rights
Does the Visual Artists Rights Act need to be revisited? "New law often has unintended consequences, and VARA, which was intended to resolve conflicts between artists and private collectors, has set off disputes between the rights of artists and those of building owners. Most of the artwork involved is owned by people who really aren't collectors. They tend to be government officials or the buyers of buildings, who are not aware of the art law's restrictions." OpinionJournal.com 05/27/04
2004-06-25
House Approves NEA Funding
The U.S. House of Representatives has approved an increase in Fiscal Year 2005 funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), upping the ante to $131 million from President Bush's original proposal of $121 million, about $4 million over what he had proposed in FY2004. Backstage.com, 6/23/2004
2004-07-02
Anderson - Fiddling On Mars?
Laurie Anderson is NASA's artist-in-residence. Didn't know NASA had an artist? Yup - the program was started in 1963. But previous a-i-r haven't been performance artists. "The idea of an avant-garde electronic fiddler hanging out with rocket geeks at NASA's research centers may seem like an odd collaboration. The researchers' reaction to their visitor was mixed, according to a NASA newsletter. One confessed to being a huge fan; another doubted the partnership of art and science. 'What's she going to do, write a poem?" Washington Post 07/01/04
2004-07-02
Is Seattle The Nation's Best Arts Town?
"According to a new study by Americans for the Arts titled 'The Creative Industries,' the Seattle-Tacoma area has more arts-related businesses, institutions and organizations per capita than any area of the country... The study is the first to measure not just non-profit arts groups, but also for-profit arts businesses... Eleven metropolitan areas have more than 10,000 arts-related businesses. The New York area leads the list with 54,894. Next is Los Angeles, with 48,862, followed by San Francisco (21,232) and Washington, D.C. (16,360.)" Seattle Post-Intelligencer 07/01/04
2004-07-02
Preemptive Protest in South Texas
It's only a staff recommendation, but a report suggesting that funding for many San Antonio arts groups be zeroed out to help balance the city's budget is drawing early fire. The Cultural Arts Board has recommended killing all funding for the long-embattled San Antonio Symphony, the ballet, and the Josephine Theater, and proposed heavy cuts for several other groups. "The issue of entitlement has been the largely unspoken bone of contention at the core of this funding cycle, with much of the anger from applicants focused on the peer panelists who have been called unqualified at worst and unprepared at best." San Antonio Current 07/01/04
2004-07-02
NYC Increases Culture Budget
Earlier this year, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed cutting the city's culture budget. But this week the mayor and city coucil actually increased the budget by almost 4 percent, from last year's $118.8 million to $123.3 million. The new budget takes effect July 1. Backstage 06/30/04
2004-07-02
Miami PAC Manager Abruptly Quits
Gail Thompson, who was demoted last week from project manager of the troubled Mimai-Dade Performing Arts Center project, suddenly quit her new job Monday. "Building of the center, touted as Miami's cultural centerpiece, is 20 months behind schedule and $67 million over budget. Thompson, hired in 1999 after successfully overseeing the construction of Newark, New Jersey's Performing Arts Center, was pushed aside last week by Miami-Dade County Manager George Burgess in an attempt to get the project back on track." Miami Herald 06/29/04
2004-07-02
Massachusetts Increases Arts Budget
The Massachusetts Legislature has approved a $1 million increase in the Massachusetts Cultural Council's budget to $8.3 million in the 2005. This follows a $12 million cut in arts funding made in 2002. Boston Globe 06/29/04
2004-07-02
The SF Arts Shuffle - Unintended Consequences
San Francisco is facing a $300 million budget deficit, and its mayor, "in an effort to achieve greater efficiency, has proposed merging San Francisco's nationally recognized Grants for the Arts with the San Francisco Arts Commission. Managerially, the merger might seem to make sense, but the unintended consequences could be dramatic." San Francisco Chronicle 06/29/04
2004-07-02
Gioia To Silicon Valley: Where's The Art?
NEA chairman Dana Gioia goes to Silicon Valley and says the area has been a miracle of creativity but that that inspiration has yet to be translated into art. "You've had an economic renaissance but haven't created the visual legacies of that. Florence at the height of the renaissance was smaller than Palo Alto but look what it left behind." San Jose Business Journal 06/28/04
2004-07-02
Beverly Hills To Get New Arts Center
The Annenberg Foundation has announced plans for a cultural center for Beverly Hills. Wallis Annenberg, the "daughter of Walter H. Annenberg, the philanthropist, art collector and communications mogul, who died in 2002, said the center would include a 500-seat theater, a 150-seat studio theater, a rehearsal hall, classrooms and a sculpture garden. The overall project, costing $30 million, is expected to be completed in late 2007." The New York Times 06/29/04
2004-07-02
The Artists Move In, The Artists Move Out
Artists in the Brooklyn neighborhood known as DUMBO are relocating as they get priced out of their lofts. Nothing new about this kind of gentrification - except the speed at which it's happening. "Five years ago, when I first came here, there were no city services, no trash pickup, and it was completely dark and desolate." The New York Times 06/29/04
2004-07-02
Hawaii Governor Proposes Major Arts Funding Cut
Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle proposes cutting state arts funding by 61 percent. "The Legislature allocated nearly $1.2 million for the foundation for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins Thursday. Lingle's plan is to reduce that amount by more than $730,000. The foundation, which has taken budget hits since 1994, when it received more than $6 million in state funding, supports more than 110 nonprofit arts organizations." Honolulu Advertiser 06/28/04
2004-07-02
New Laws For American Non-Profits?
Last week's US Senate hearings on how non-profit organizations work is likely to lead to new legislation in the fall. "Like the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act targeting public companies, the draft seeks to make non-profits' dealings transparent and accountable. It proposes, among other things, increased and timelier financial reporting and auditing, more reliance on independent directors, limits on board size and on pay, and stiffer penalties for violations. It also would create restrictions on donor-advised funds, a fast-growing area of philanthropy not now subject to any special government rules." Chicago Tribune 06/28/04
2004-07-15
Michigan In New Arts Funding Cuts?
A year after Michigan slashed arts funding, another round of cuts appears to be on the way. "Across Metro Detroit, arts and cultural institutions are surviving — if not thriving — in the face of budget cuts, a sluggish economy and shrinking corporate and private sponsorship of the arts. But with another state budget deficit looming, they’re bracing for the state arts budget to be cut again, if not eliminated entirely." Detroit News 07/09/04
2004-07-15
US House Rejects Limiting Patriot Act Library Searches
The US House of Representatives has defeated a measure that would have limited the Patriot Act. "On a vote of 210 to 210 — a roll call that GOP leaders extended for more than 20 minutes to sway dissident Republicans — the House rejected an amendment that would have limited the Patriot Act by preventing the Justice Department from searching library and bookstore records to probe individuals' reading habits." Los Angeles Times 07/09/04
2004-07-15
State Arts Funding Stabilizing?
US state budgets are in better shape this year, and so arts funding may not be targets of cuts this year in most parts of the country. One survey sees "state expenditures growing by a national average of 2.8% during the next fiscal year. And one of the primary reasons why state legislatures and governors have cut arts funding so deeply -- deficits -- appears to be cresting and perhaps even receding a bit." Backstage 07/08/04
2004-07-15
PBS Takes Aim At FCC
Ever since Congress started murmuring about abolishing the supposedly left-leaning and elitist institutions of American public broadcasting over a decade ago, NPR and PBS seem to have been running either to the right or just to blandness. So the fact that an action-packed new cop drama is being produced by public television might qualify as a minor surprise. Even more surprising is that the producers of "Cop Shop" are taking some serious shots at the FCC's recent crackdown on "indecency." Washington Post 07/10/04
2004-07-15
Teachout Named To National Arts Council
Terry Teachout has been named by President George Bush to be a member of the National Council on the Arts. Terry is also drama critic for The Wall Street Journal and music critic for Commentary magazine. Also nominated is "James K. Ballinger, who specializes in American art, has been director of the Phoenix Art Museum since 1982. He has overseen major exhibitions on the works of Diego Rivera, Frank Lloyd Wright and Frederic Remington." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 07/13/04
2004-07-15
Readers = Involved Active Citizens (And Non-Readers?...)
This week's survey by the National Endowment for the Arts "indicates that people who read for pleasure are many times more likely than those who don't to visit museums and attend musical performances, almost three times as likely to perform volunteer and charity work, and almost twice as likely to attend sporting events. Readers, in other words, are active, while nonreaders — more than half the population — have settled into apathy. There is a basic social divide between those for whom life is an accrual of fresh experience and knowledge, and those for whom maturity is a process of mental atrophy. The shift toward the latter category is frightening." The New York Times 07/10/04
2004-07-15
Law: Public Libraries Must Enforce Anti-Porn Act On Computers
In the US "public libraries must begin taking steps to prevent child pornography and other harmful content from reaching the eyes of youngsters using their PCs under the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which went into effect July 1. If they don't, the libraries will lose critical technology funding from the federal government." SearchSecurity.com 07/08/04
2004-07-05
Flamboyant SF Arts Czar Resigns Arts Commission
Stanlee Gatti, the "irrepressible arts advocate and event designer to the rich and famous" has resigned as president of the San Francisco Arts Commission. "He steered the agency during the boom years of the 1990s, when an unprecedented number of public artworks, paid for by the 2 percent cut public art gets from the budget of every new civic project, appeared around the city: 57 permanent pieces, including installations at the airport by noted artists such as Vito Acconci and Ned Kahn, Robert Arneson heads along the Embarcadero and a score of temporary installations by big names like Bill Viola and the late Keith Haring." San Francisco Chronicle 07/14/04
2004-07-15
Met Museum Vs. The Neighbors
"The Metrpolitan Museum has long been the jewel in the crown of the Upper East Side, a sprawling wedding cake of a building celebrating the marriage of art and money. In the past few years, however, some of the museum’s neighbors have begun to see the Metropolitan less as a refined repository of priceless cultural artifacts than as a tacky tourist attraction of idling school- and sightseeing buses, souvenir sellers, and street performers—far more democratic than Fifth Avenue has ever considered desirable. Then, in 2000, the Met threw down the gauntlet, pushing a plan through the Parks Department that called for a 200,000-square-foot expansion" and the neighbors revolted... New York Magazine 07/12/04
2004-07-15
Casino Bill = Philly Design Disaster
Philadelphia is to have casinos under a new measure passed last week. The deal, writes Inga Saffron, is a potential design disaster for the city. "The slots bill, which was rushed through the legislature without the usual opportunities for public comment, strips Philadelphia of planning and zoning powers over its future casinos. Instead, a seven-member, state-run gambling control board will decide the big design issues, from the location of the casinos down to the location of their garage driveways." Philadelphia Inquirer 07/09/04
2004-07-15
Philadelphia Schools Unearth Art Windfall
Philadelphia public schools go on a hunt for artwork in schools and come up with art worth millions. "The artworks -- 1,200 in all, including paintings, sketches, sculptures, murals, tapestries and ancient artifacts -- had been donated to the school system or bought for small sums long ago. Over the decades, many of them were taken down when the walls were painted and were put into storage, where they apparently were forgotten altogether. The collection is probably worth tens of millions of dollars, school officials and art experts said." Washington Post 07/08/04
2004-07-22
New Woodstock Performing Arts Center
Ground was broken thios week for a new performing arts center on the site of the original Woodstock Music Festival. "When completed in 2006, the $63 million center, christened the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, will be the first permanent structure to be erected on the site. It will feature a 4,800-person indoor seating theater that can hold another 12,000 spectators on the lawn." USAToday 07/20/04
2004-07-22
New Pressure Squeezing Out American Arts Education
Under George Bush's No Child Left Behind initiative, "arts education was listed as a core subject for the first time in federal law. But reports released over the past several months have documented that arts classes are getting squeezed out because the law doesn't require that students be tested for proficiency in art, music, dance or drama. Many people also see arts classes as 'academic frills,' so they often are the first ones eliminated when school districts run short of money." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 07/19/04
2004-07-22
Ben Cameron To Silicon Valley Arts Leaders
"Nothing says more about the moment we are in than a report from the Chronicle of Philanthropy that said in fiscal year '02, charitable giving in this country fell 1.2 percent overall to all causes. Charitable giving to arts and culture fell 26.5 percent in the same year. And as a result, we are facing a moment of unprecedented stress and urgency." San Jose Mercury News 07/15/04
2004-07-22
Berkeley Commits to Arts
The city of Berkeley, California has decided to make a major new commitment to the arts. "Affecting thousands of artists and 130 nonprofit organizations, the plan restructures Berkeley’s arts policy, setting a goal of eventually doubling arts grants and improving local artists’ chances of winning further grants." The Daily Californian 07/15/04
2004-07-22
Congress "Cleaning Up" Movie Legislation
The US Congress is considering two bills this week that will impact the entertainment industry. "The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the Family Movie Act, which would exempt from legal liability anyone who uses filtering software to "clean up" purportedly indecent, violent or pornographic movie content. The following day, the Senate Commerce Committee will decide whether to renew the satellite TV industry's right to transmit network programming." Backstage 07/20/04
2004-07-22
A Pension Plan For Artists
Artists often live in poverty, and old age is tough. Now there's a new plan to help out. "The Artist Pension Trust invites up-and-coming artists to contribute 20 pieces of their work to a tax-protected fund over a 20-year period on the theory that some of the art will appreciate significantly. All the artists will share the profits, even if their initial promise never translates into increased value. It's a way of taking advantage of the capitalistic nature of the market and mix in a healthy dose of socialism to create a hybrid form." The New York Times 07/20/04
2004-07-22
Millennium Park Makes Its Debut
One of the most controversial civic art projects in recent U.S. history opened to the public this weekend, and Blair Kamin was bowled over. "Remember the dusty pit that sat for decades amid the beaux-arts splendor of Grant Park, Chicago's front yard? Well, it's gone, turned into a joyful park that's sprinkled with smile-inducing sculpture and mind-bending 'wow-chitecture.' This is the miracle of Millennium Park, the $475 million fusion of old-fashioned world's fair and newfangled cultural spectacle that opened Friday. Yes, there have been huge cost overruns and delays, and they have resulted in some less than ideal park spaces. But get real: Did anyone ever ask Eiffel whether he busted the bud-get on his tower? The park is found ground -- a no place that is suddenly a someplace." Chicago Tribune 07/18/04
2004-07-22
DC Gives $40 Million To Corcoran Gallery
The District of Columbia city council has voted to give $40 million to the Corcoran Gallery to help finance its new Frank Gehry wing. Yahoo! 07/15/04
2004-08-04
Art And The Business Of Art
There is "an emerging camp of artists who see today's shifting marketplace as one that can support the lives and work of artists—business-savvy artists. And their idea could change the face of fine arts higher education. 'This is not just about getting artists to sell their work; this is about helping artists live a life with art in it, which can mean anything from starting neighborhood arts projects to placing one's work in corporate settings to attract attention'." Village Voice 08/04/04
2004-08-04
The Art That Changed Minds...
"Many artworks have sparked ideas, shaped sensibilities. The list of mind-changers in our history is a long, familiar one, from Machiavelli's The Prince and Monet's Impression: Sunrise to Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. But to have a direct, political effect – provoke a war, shape a law, inspire a cause – is much rarer." Here are six works of art that had immediate impact on their times... Dallas Morning News 08/02/04
2004-08-04
NJ Arts Cash In On Hotel-Motel Taxes
"New Jersey, whose Legislature approved the creation of a hotel-motel occupancy tax last year to provide a dedicated stream of arts funding for the cash-strapped state, will have over $22 million available to give to not-for-profit arts groups during the next fiscal year, a $6 million jump over the current fiscal year." Backstage 07/28/04
2004-08-04
Syracuse Gets In To Arts Journalism
Syracuse University launches America's first arts journalism degree program. "Graduates of the one-year, 36-credit program will receive a master's degree in arts journalism from SU's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in one of five concentrations: architecture, film, fine arts, music and theater." Syracuse Post-Standard 07/27/04
2004-08-04
The Politics Of Art Of Politics
Should Linda Ronstadt have been able to express her politics at a Vegas concert? John Rockwell: "Art exists in a context inevitably conditioned by politics, and politics and the values behind it express themselves in art. There is an obvious linkage between mass commercial art and politics, quite apart from individual actors and directors and pop musicians espousing a political view. Popular art makes money by reflecting what its producers think people want. But given the leftward tilt of Hollywood and our coastal cultural elites, the right has reason to complain that commercial television, films and music often advance a left-leaning political agenda." The New York Times 07/30/04
2004-08-04
Radio Giant Cuts Ad Time On Stations
Radio giant Clear Channel is cutting back on ads on some of its stations. "This is not because CC has become community-minded. It's because, like a lot of mainstream media (including newspapers), they're losing customers, especially younger ones, to 'new media' - cable and satellite television, the Internet, MP3, satellite radio, iPod." Denver Post 08/02/04
2004-08-04
Actors Union Sues Its Exec Director
"Members of the Screen Actors Guild have begun legal action against the executive director of their union, Robert Pisano, saying his membership on the board of an online DVD rental company creates a conflict of interest that makes him unable to negotiate on their behalf in critical coming labor talks." The New York Times 08/02/04
2004-08-04
Buy The Channels You Want?
Consumer advocacy groups have been asking Congress to look into why cable companies won't let subscribers pick the channels they want in their subscription packages instead of being forced into accepting dozens of channels they may never watch while still paying for them." Cable companies say such a system would wreck the econbomics of the current TV business. The FCC seems skeptical... Wired 07/30/04
2004-08-04
FCC Vs. TV Violence
The Federal Communications Commission wants to take on violence on TV. "Hundreds of studies over decades document the harmful impact that exposure to graphic and excessive media violence has on the physical and mental health of our children. Wanton violence on the people's airwaves has gone unaddressed for too long." Backstage (AP) 07/29/04
2004-08-04
Musicians Union Exec Charged With Embezzlement
"A former executive of the American Federation of Musicians has been charged with embezzling at least $400,000 from the union and spending some of it on clothes, jewelry, a trip to Cuba and a bottle of expensive champagne for Fidel Castro." Newsday 07/29/04
2004-08-04
Struggling Philly Gets Another 7-Figure Grant
"The Philadelphia Orchestra has landed yet another seven-figure gift. This time the largesse comes from the William Penn Foundation, which has pledged $2 million over three years. The grant was awarded for general operating support, some of the hardest money for non-profits to find these days, and is meant to assist the orchestra until its endowment grows to the point that it is generating substantial interest every year." The gift comes in the midst of increasingly contentious negotiations between the orchestra's management and musicians over a management demand either to cut musician salaries by 10%, or eliminate 10 musicians from the orchestra's full complement. Philadelphia Inquirer 07/26/04
2004-08-04
NEA: Writing In A Time Of War
The National Endowment for the Arts' new writing program for soldiers "seeks to address a seeming cultural paradox. War stories, after all, occupy one of literature's longest, weightiest shelves, and American fighting men, from Ulysses S. Grant to Anthony Swofford, have set down their battle-forged memoirs, but these days the military and literary worlds barely overlap. The program, called 'Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience,' is aimed at preserving stories from the battlegrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan. The endowment expects to hold 20 or so workshops at American military installations between now and next spring." The New York Times 08/04/04
2004-08-04
A New Progressive Book Club
"The 75,000-member Conservative Book Club, founded in 1964, is responsible in the past couple of years for a dozen bestsellers. Thanks to the CBC's success, earlier this year media giants Bertelsmann Inc. and AOL Time Warner launched a right-wing book club of their own, American Compass. Yet despite the popularity of recent books by lefties like Michael Moore, Al Franken, and Tom Frank, there hasn't been a book club for progressives." Until now... Boston Globe 08/01/04
2004-08-04
Saving A (Decrepit) Landmark
"Eighteen years after [Denver's] Bonfils Theater was shuttered, it no longer matters who was the bad guy responsible for the decay of the once-great venue. The important question is whether anyone will take responsibility for the building's reclamation before it's too late... In the past two decades, many plans have been put forward to save the theater. Most were done in not by the modest purchase price but the daunting task of rehabilitating a theater that has grown decrepit from lack of use and maintenance." Denver Post 08/01/04
2004-08-04
A Line From Shakespeare To Clinton?
In watching this week's Democratic National Convention, Anna Deveare Smith is struck by the theatricality of the political show. "Four years ago, I would have pooh-poohed the notion of politics as theatrical. If theater is anything, it is life made urgent. We don't waste words, gestures or time on stage. But politicians can learn from us and we can learn technique from them. In this election year, none of us can waste a moment. The theater could afford to be more political and politics needs to be a lot more theatrical." The New York Times 07/30/04
2004-08-04
Philly Theater Gets A Cash Infusion
"The Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, an annual program funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, has awarded $530,000 in grants to 12 Philadelphia-area theaters and three theater artists... The largest sums, $80,000, will go to three major Philadelphia theaters: the Arden Theatre Company, the Philadelphia Theatre Company, and the Wilma Theater." Philadelphia Inquirer 07/29/04
2004-08-04
Harlem Apollo Deal Under Strutiny
"A new deal to help renovate Harlem's Apollo Theater has come under scrutiny from federal development officials, who are concerned the financing may violate the rules of $4 million in government grants the famous venue has already received." Yahoo! (AP) 07/28/04
2004-08-04
US Rethinks Venice Biennale Representation
American representation at next summer's Venice Biennale is in jeopardy. "The committee that recommends an artist to represent the United States at the Biennale has been disbanded by its overseer, the National Endowment for the Arts, which is rethinking its involvement with federal advisory committees. And the State Department, which is responsible for American representation at this and many other international exhibitions, is not only looking for someone to run it but also to help pay for it." The New York Times 08/03/04
2004-08-04
Denver Airport Removes "Stressful" Art
Denver Airport has removed three pieces of art from its terminal after six employees complained. The art - called "The Luggage Project" consisted of suitcases made by artists around the world. One of the suitcases is "splattered with glossy red and black paint and contains bricks. A bumper sticker inside the suitcase reads, 'Blood for oil. Billionaires for Bush'." Airport officials deemed the art "too stressful for passengers and workers to view in light of the heightened security following 9/11 Rocky Mountain News 07/30/04
2004-08-04
Madison PAC Fully Funded (By One Donor)
Wisconsin philanthropist Jerry Frautschi is even more popular in Madison's arts community today than he was previously. Back in the late 1990s, Frautschi agreed to pay the entire cost of designing and building a new performing arts center in the capital city. But no one was sure of exactly how much that cost was, until this week, when the Overture Center announced that Frautschi's gift would total more than $200 million, more than double previous press estimates. Frautschi agreed to pay for the center because he believes that such projects should not be built with public money. Wisconsin State Journal (Madison) 07/28/04
2004-08-05
The Scramble to Finance Arts Courses in City Schools
Since New York City's fiscal crisis in the 1970's, critics have complained that art, music, drama and dance have been neglected in the public schools. But in early June, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced plans to introduce a new arts curriculum in all 1,200 of the city's schools.
Many teachers and school administrators have hailed the plans, but critics have said a crucial element is missing: more money. "Maybe in the opera you can get a blood from a stone, but not in schools," said Randi Weingarten, the teachers' union president, who said she did not know how the Department of Education expected the city's already overworked teachers to find the time or resources to teach the new curriculum. New York Times, 8/4/2004
2004-08-05
Hoping Art Can Rise Like, Well, You Know
The city of Phoenix has announced a multi-pronged strategy aimed at nurturing the arts in the urban core. Under the terms of the proposal, a loan fund would be created expressly for the purchase and renovation of downtown buildings by artists, artists would be given economic incentives to locate downtown, and a portion of the city center would be designated as an official "arts district." Arizona Republic 07/30/04
2004-08-20
US Arts Funding Still Wobbly
It's been three years of cuts in arts funding at the state and local level in America. So are things about to get better? A look around the country doesn't give much reason for optimism. Back Stage 08/20/04
2004-08-20
Artists Against Bush
There is an awful lot of anti-Bush art making the rounds these days. "You don't need a conspiracy theory or an imminent Republican convention to explain why there is so much Bush-bashing entertainment today: Mr. Bush is in power. The opposition is generally more motivated, but perhaps not as galvanized as it seems to be this year." The New York Times 08/20/04
2004-08-20
Culture Disobedience (Will Anyone Be Swayed?)
"Artists are mobilizing in historic numbers for the Republican National Convention, volunteering for duty in the Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues, and Ideas, the Unconvention, and other specially organized programs that offer opportunities to sing, act, dance, joke, and otherwise comment on the current state of the disunion. Progressive culture vultures may thrill at the gargantuan menu of politicized performances, screenings, exhibits, stand-up marathons, and concerts planned around the four-day coronation of George W. But if Michael Moore's $100 million-plus blockbuster can't breach the country's red-state/blue-state mental divide, what can we reasonably expect from an army of fringe acts sprinkled with mega-star cameos?" Village Voice 08/17/04
2004-08-20
Balancing Books In The Desert
For a trio of Arizona arts groups, the news is good: "The Phoenix Symphony, Arizona Opera and Ballet Arizona all announced last week that they closed fiscal 2003-04 with surpluses." Arizona Republic 08/15/04
2004-08-20
Gotta (Commercially) Dance!
"Dancers are used to sell products and entertain visitors in a startling number of ways. There is work performing and choreographing on cruise ships, at theme parks, with live pop music acts, and for television, film and music videos. There's even the more obscure world of "industrials" – conventions and conferences at which dance routines are used to market everything from computers to shoes. This is the world of commercial dance, which is generally distinct from the modern dance and ballet performances in a traditional theater space, known as "concert dance." While plenty of little girls dream of becoming a prima ballerina, many others dream of being a Laker Girl. For a commercial dancer, the emphasis isn't so much on the art of dance – it's on the fun of it all." Orange County Register 08/15/04
2004-08-20
File-Sharers Win Huge Victory
A US court has ruled that peer-to-peer file-sharing services Morpheus and Grokster are legal. "The decision is a blow for record labels and movie studios which sued the peer-to-peer operators claiming that the services should be held liable for the copyright infringement of their users." Wired 08/19/04
2004-08-20
New York - Where We Subsidize Movies?
"State lawmakers have approved the first tax credit to benefit film and television productions in New York, and many in the industry say the incentive will help lure more film productions to the city and the state and counter the flight of film jobs to Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. ... In addition, the measure would permit New York City to contribute as much as an additional $12.5 million annually to the tax credit program." The New York Times 08/17/04
2004-08-20
A Coconut Plan
Miami's Coconut Grove Theatre hosted the first American production of Waiting for Godot. Now it looks like some major changes may come to the historic building. "In recent years, the operative plan was to renovate the existing building and add a third theater and a parking garage. Then came a newer scheme suggested tearing down all but the façade and building anew. Now there are other options that have enormous implications for history and preservation and the community at large." Miami Herald 08/15/04
2004-08-20
Georgia Science Museum To Close
After years of declining attendance and contributions, the Science and Technology Museum of Georgia is suspending operations this weekend. SciTrek has struggled financially for years, although its recent tax forms show a balanced budget of about $2.6 million. About 70 percent of its financial contributions came from local businesses, with the rest from city and state government. ABCNews.com 08/20/04
2004-08-20
Filling The American Indian Museum
Native Americans have had a big role in deciding what will go in the new National Museum of the American Indian, due to open in Washington DC next month. "What they did not want, museum officials found, was the static display of 10,000 years of tribal life and culture. Their ideal museum would celebrate the glories of the past, to be sure, but they also wanted their artifacts and their contemporary culture to be accessible. 'This is an important opportunity to show tribal people as participants in a living culture, not something in museums or in history books."
The New York Times 08/19/04
2004-08-20
Denver To Build Clyfford Still Museum
"After years of searching for a home for her husband's estate and realizing that time was running out, Patricia A. Still, 84, agreed to give 750 paintings and more than 1,400 works on paper to Denver on the condition it build and maintain a $7 million museum for them." Denver Post 08/15/04
2004-08-20
A Revolutionary Image Library Goes Online
"A vast digital library of world art has gone online with its first 300,000 images. The project — known as ARTstor and financed by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation — could eventually revolutionize the way art history is taught and studied. It is available for nonprofit institutions only." The New York Times 08/14/04
2004-09-07
Building Support For The NEA, One Vote At A Time
National Endowment for the Arts chairman Dana Gioia has spent the last year building political support for his agency, one politician at a time. "Conservative support for the agency is among the little-noticed political developments of this election year. In January President Bush asked Congress to increase the endowment's budget by $18 million for the 2005 fiscal year, the highest percentage increase in a quarter-century." The New York Times 09/07/04
2004-09-07
Republicans And NYC Artists: Worlds Apart
With thousands of Republican conventioneers flooding the streets of Manhattan this past week, a cynic might have predicted that it would be a slow week in the New York art world. The cynic would have been right: one gallery, owned by conservatives from Georgia, held a blowout party for Senator Zell Miller, but other than that, the city's galleries and museums were left out in the cold by a political party which is increasingly cut off from the art world. "While there were 4,853 delegates and alternates at the convention, only 133 delegates and their family members checked in at a desk set up in the [Metropolitan Museum of Art's] lobby to offer them special tours." The New York Times 09/04/04
2004-09-07
Non-Profits Wait As Congress Mulls Oversight Changes
The US Congress is considering serious reform in the oversight of non-profit organizations. "The overall drive to nonprofit reform began after the passage of the federal Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which Congress enacted in the wake of Enron and other accounting scandals. After revelations that a small number of charities, such as those handling the millions received after Sept. 11, 2001, had engaged in similar abuses and administrative waste, the drive quickly intensified." Backstage 09/03/04
2004-09-07
Homeland Security vs. The 12-Year-Old Choirboy
"Some Oakland boys who like to sing are taking on the Department of Homeland Security over the fate of a 12-year-old Polish kid who, in all likelihood, does not have terrorist designs on the United States. Earlier this year, the 7-year-old Pacific Boychoir was contacted by the Youth Choir Foundation in Boston to gauge its interest in accepting 12-year-old Adam Kutny, a gifted alto who found himself somewhat stranded artistically after the choir he belonged to dissolved." The choir was interested, but the Department of Homeland Security has flatly denied Kutny a student visa, saying (bizarrely) that it cannot be certain that the school is, in fact, a school. Two senators, a congresswoman and the choir are battling the decision. San Francisco Chronicle 09/01/04
2004-09-07
Between Rock And A Hard Political Reality
The touring rock concert/John Kerry fundraiser being led by Bruce Springsteen, R.E.M., and other leftist musicians has sparked confusion nationwide among radio stations, consumers, and media conglomerates who are worried that purchasing tickets could run them afoul of complicated campaign finance laws. In Minneapolis, one Clear Channel radio station pulled out of an agreement to distribute free tickets to its participants after the parent company concluded that it could not buy the tickets, because the company sponsoring the concert is a so-called "527 organization," involved in political affairs. In fact, the purchase would have been legal after all, but Clear Channel still isn't buying. City Pages (Mpls/St. Paul) 09/01/04
2004-09-07
IRS To Investigate Nonprofit Salaries
"The IRS has announced an aggressive program to investigate the salaries of [nonprofit corporations'] executives and board members, some of which exceed $1 million annually. The government's interest is twofold: It grants tax-exempt status to nonprofits, and the public contributes billions of dollars to those groups each year." The $1 million salary figure will apparently serve as the unofficial red flag to investigators, who will then compare such salaries to those of comparable individuals in comparable organizations elsewhere. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review 09/01/04
2004-09-07
SEC: Chicago Symphony Benefitted From Corporate Crime
A scathing SEC report on the activities of the leadership of Hollinger International Incorporated has concluded that chief executive Conrad Black and his right-hand man David Radler looted the company of more than $400 million in profits to which they were not entitled, all with the tacit approval (or at least, without objection from) a board which included such high-profile names as Henry Kissinger and Richard Perle. The money appropriated by Black and Radler frequently found its way to organizations favored by the two men, and one of the biggest beneficiaries was the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, "which received a total of $436,164 from 1996 to 2003." There is no suggestion that the CSO knew that the source of the donations was unlawful. Chicago Tribune 09/01/04
2004-09-07
Pittsburgh's New Cultural Center On The Rise
Cultural forces in Pittsburgh are teaming up to turn a 26,000-square foot vacant warehouse into an arts center in the heart of the city's business district. The center would house a theater, a coffee shop, and studios for various local artists. The partners have already come up with $800,000 in community funding for the project, but are estimating that the renovation will cost $4 million overall. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 09/01/04
2004-09-07
Study: Music Lessons Boost IQ
A new study shows that children who study music score higher on IQ tests. The University of Toronto study also tested students who studied drama and found an increased IQ but not as big an improvement as in those who studied music. Science Daily 08/20/04
2004-09-07
Lack Of Kids' Shows Violates Law, Watchdogs Say
Watchdog groups have petitioned the Federal Communications Commission not to renew the licenses of two Washington, D.C., television stations. "The groups argue that the two stations have not complied with the FCC's 1996 guidelines regarding the Children's Television Act, which require stations to air at least three hours of educational programming for children per week. The act has never before been cited in a petition to revoke a license." The Washington Post 09/02/2004
2004-09-07
Warner Bros. Nixes Antiwar Documentary
"Warner Brothers has decided not to distribute the director David O. Russell's new antiwar documentary when it re-releases his 1999 Gulf War movie, 'Three Kings,' this fall, judging it 'totally inappropriate' to do so in a political season." The New York Times 09/02/2004
2004-09-07
Going Back To The Drawing Board
Mark Hanson took over as president of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in January 2004, and it didn't take him long to decide that what the financially strapped organization needed was a completely new way of doing business. Whereas previous administrations tried to patch deficits by dipping into the endowment, and sought to downplay the importance of dramatically slumping ticket sales, Hanson is apparently seeking to face the MSO's problems head on, and in public. Still, that means more deficit spending for the next couple of seasons, and an uphill battle to convince local donors that the symphony is worth their investment. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 09/05/04
2004-09-07
Extension And Mediation In Chicago
The musicians and management of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra have agreed to extend the musicians' current contract through October 31, and are bringing in a retired judge to mediate further negotiations. The extension will insure that the CSO season will run for at least six weeks without interruption by strike or lockout, and the joint selection of a mediator suggests that, while the talks remain contentious, there is at least a desire on both sides to avoid the public relations disaster that a work stoppage would likely precipitate. Chicago Sun-Times 09/04/04
2004-09-07
Cincinnati Orchestra Contract Talks
The Cincinnati Symphony is racing to negotiate a new contract with its musicians. "The talks are among the most difficult in memory because of the symphony's $1.8 million budget deficit over the last two years. An anonymous gift wiped out that deficit, but the orchestra is facing increased pressure to balance the budget this season." Cincinnati Enquirer 09/03/04
2004-09-07
How To Spend $100 Million
The Chicago-based Poetry Foundation has finally announced a plan for how it will spend the $100 million bequest which was dropped in its lap two years ago by pharmaceutical heiress Ruth Lilly. The foundation's new initiatives will include a national study to determine current public attitudes towards poetry, an "online, electronic anthology of poetry, available to the public at no cost," and the creation of two new annual cash prizes recognizing overlooked poets and humor in verse. Chicago Tribune 09/05/04
2004-09-07
What Would Shakespeare Say?
At the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Nicholas Kristof ponders what Shakespeare would tell the Republican National Convention and President George W. Bush. "The paramount lesson in Shakespeare's plays is that the world is full of nuances and uncertainties, and that leaders self-destruct when they are too rigid, too sure of themselves or - Mr. President, lend me your ears - too intoxicated by moral clarity." The New York Times 09/01/2004
2004-09-07
In Hartford: A Museum Solution Across The Street
Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art had ambitious plans to shut down for two years and "create a spectacular new $100 million building." But when that plan was abandoned, it opened new possibilities and a bit of reinvention of the museum's operation... Hartford Courant 09/06/04
2004-09-07
Culture Wars Revisited
Fourteen years after landing at the center of the American culture wars, the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati mounts a show of controversial art from the 1980s. "Cincinnati remains a conservative redoubt in a battleground state. But the selection of paintings, sculptures, videos and photographs in this show — on view through Nov. 21 in Zaha Hadid's acclaimed new building — feels like a brave attempt by a rejuvenated institution to confront its local audience, and perhaps at the same time begin to repair the city's reputation for cultural provincialism." The New York Times 09/05/04
2004-09-07
Lynching The Confederate Flag
An exhibition examining the Confederate flag has not yet opened at Gettysburg College, but it has already attracted the ire of a Confederate heritage group with a flag-lynching piece called "The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate Flag"... Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 09/02/2004
2004-09-07
NY's Penn Station Revival Spins Off The Tracks
On the surface all looks like a go for rebuilding New York's Penn Station within the old US Post Office across the street from Madison Square Garden. "Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the project, with its soaring glass-enclosed great hall, was originally unveiled in 1999. It has been a pet project of politicians from both sides of the aisle, including Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, for whom the proposed station is named, and Gov. George E. Pataki. Most of the $800 million needed to complete the project's construction has been in place since 2001. And the post office abandoned the space this summer, in part to make room for the news media covering the convention." So why has the project stalled out? The New York Times 09/02/04
2004-09-07
Native Hawaiians Protest Bishop Museum Plan
Native Hawaiians are protesting the Bishop Museum's plan to "define itself as a native Hawaiian organization under the terms of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. NAGPRA was enacted to provide procedures for museums to return ancestral bones and four classes of objects to Native Americans and Hawaiians." The museum believes it can claim ownership of Hawaiian artifacts if it is considered a native organization. Critics disagree: "This is extremely colonial and paternal."
Honolulu Star-Bulletin 09/01/04
2004-09-20
Philanthropists To Fly Coach
"The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, one of several major philanthropies to take heat this year over high-end travel by board members, said it will no longer pay for first-class flights by its directors or most trips by their spouses." Directors will now fly business class or coach, depending on the length of the flight. Recent media reports had questioned the use of foundation funds to pay for first-class travel. Chicago Tribune 09/20/04
2004-09-20
Suing To Save Orphan Art
"Valuable resources are being lost to students, researchers and historians because of sweeping changes in copyright law, according to digital archivists who are suing the government. These resources -- older books, films and music -- are often out of print and considered no longer commercially viable, but are still locked up under copyright. Locating copyright owners is a formidable challenge because Congress no longer requires that owners register or renew their copyrights with the U.S. Copyright Office." The plaintiffs in the lawsuit want the right to create a digital archive of such "orphan works" for public use. Wired 09/20/04
2004-09-20
New Liability Law May Sail Through Congress
Tech companies and consumer groups are trying to persuade the U.S. Congress to hold public hearings before it adopts the so-called Induce Act, which would hold companies that manufacture file-trading software liable for the illegal actions of its users. The issue of secondary liability is far more complicated than many of the bill's sponsors seem to realize, but Congress's desire to pass some sort of serious copyright reform quickly may trump the need for further debate. Wired 09/18/04
2004-09-20
SoCal's Arts Center, Ten Years In
The California Center for the Arts, in Escondido (near San Diego), is a beautiful 12-acre monument to culture, a $75 million dollar investment in community spirit and quality of life. Unless, of course, you take note of the millions of dollars in operating deficits, poor attendance figures, and occasional lack of direction, in which case you might consider the center a financial albatross around the city's neck. The center is ten years old this month, and a decade of varied success and failure has done nothing to quell the debate over the project. San Diego Union Tribune 09/19/04
2004-09-20
Taking The Artistic Temperature Of 9/11
More and more artists are making art about difficult events of the past few years. "In the week of the third anniversary of 9/11, it's worth asking how they're doing. For, ever so slowly, writers, film-makers and dramatists have begun to address the twin events that have dominated the start of the 21st century: the attacks on New York and Washington and the subsequent Iraq war." The Guardian (UK) 09/15/04
2004-09-20
Famed Harlem Troupe Shutting Down For The Winter
"The Dance Theatre of Harlem, one of the most acclaimed dance troupes in the world, plans to disband its 44-member company and shut its doors for the rest of the 2004-05 season until its finances can be restructured." The shutdown will not be officially announced until this Tuesday, but officials from both the company and the union which represents dancers are confirming the story. The company's dance school will remain open during the hiatus, but some in the dance community are doubtful that the company's fiscal situation is fixable. Boston Globe 09/18/04
2004-09-20
Writing Their Own Election Script
"By Tuesday morning Hollywood screenwriters, working without a contract for the last half year, will have decided whether they are ripe for revolution. Under the eye of the Labor Department, the 8,000-member Writers Guild of America, West, is to conclude on Monday night a mostly mail-in election to choose a president and 8 of 16 board members. The presidential contest is between a ferocious reformer... who not only wants to fire the group's paid executives but is also assisting a legal assault on the guild's high-stakes system for settling film and television credits disputes - and the incumbent... who believes the members need institutional peace." The New York Times 09/18/04
2004-09-20
It's State Vs State For Movies
American states are battling one another trying to lure entertainment projects. "In recent years, as more state legislatures have enacted tax incentives designed to encourage film, television, and commercial production in their states, the battle between bordering states has intensified." Back Stage 09/15/04
2004-09-20
Anti-Induce Protest
A big protest is planned against the so-called "Induce" act under consideration in the US Congress. "Critics believe the Induce Act conflicts with the landmark 1984 Betamax Supreme Court decision, which ruled that home videotape recorders were legal because they have "substantial non-infringing uses," even though some people might use the machines to infringe copyrights. Though the entertainment industry opposed the machine at the time, the ruling paved the way for the development of the enormous home video and DVD market, and other technological innovations of the past 20 years." Wired 09/14/04
2004-09-20
Where Is The Right Hollywood?
A TV documentary goes in search of political bias in Hollywood. "There is no studio ban on Republicans, of course, but certain conservatives have been dining out for decades on what they describe as a Hollywood witch hunt." The New York Times 09/14/04
2004-09-20
This Year's Kennedy Center Honorees
They are: Elton John, soprano Dame Joan Sutherland, composer John Williams, and actors and producers Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, who have been married for 56 years, and actor, director and producer Warren Beatty. The awards will be presented December 4. Washington Post 09/16/04
2004-09-20
The Radical Librarians
US librarians are getting radical in their fight against the USA Patriot Act. "What got many librarians' dander up was Section 215 of the law, which stipulates that government prosecutors and FBI agents can seek permission from a secret court created under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to access personal records -- everything from medical histories to reading habits. They don't need a subpoena. In fact, they don't need to show that a crime has even been committed. And librarians, stymied by a gag order, are forbidden to tell anyone (except a lawyer)." Wired 09/15/04
2004-09-20
Fleeing The Fringe
"Leah Cooper, who helped the Minnesota Fringe Festival become one of the largest such events in the country, will step down as executive director next August, following the 2005 festival. Cooper announced her departure after a four-year tenure in which the attendance has grown 72 percent. The 2004 festival hosted a record 902 performances of 175 shows at 24 venues, drawing more than 50,000 people. Cooper also was instrumental in professionalizing the management of the festival and in bringing stability to the fast-growing festival's financial organization." St. Paul Pioneer Press 09/16/04
2004-09-20
Philly Theatre Cuts 3/4 Of Season
Philadelphia's Freedom Theater has cancelled three of the four shows it planned to mount this season, citing the pressures of a $4 million debt. The company, which is "one of the city's foremost African American cultural organizations", has struggled to stay solvent while dealing with cost overruns on the construction and maintenance of its 300-seat theater, which opened five years ago. The theater plans to resume its full schedule in fall 2005. Philadelphia Inquirer 09/18/04
2004-09-20
NY Fringe's Record Year
The New York Fringe Festival had a rough year financially. But then, the festival opened and produced "record ticket sales for this year's 17-day, 200-production endeavor, up at least 20% from 2003. If the numbers hold, it would be a record high for the eight-year-old festival." Back Stage 09/16/04
2004-09-20
A New Model For New Plays?
The National New Play Network aims to make it easier for playwrights to get new work produced. "The economics are very challenging, and looking for national attention is part of everyone's goal. We're trying to find the best way to share and maximize resources. We're using the model of the new Europe instead of a feudal system where companies build walls around themselves." Miami Herald 09/14/04
2004-09-20
Cleveland Theatre Turning Point
This fall marks a turning point for Cleveland theatre. "One of the most important such dramatic dialogues in Cleveland this fall isn't at one particular theater, it's at all our theaters. It's about the theater. What kind of theater are we willing to support? To what degree do we value our theatrical institutions and artists? Enough to keep them around and performing at the same level?" The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 09/12/04
2004-09-20
Imagining Denver's New MCA
Architect David Adjaye's design for Denver's new Museum of Contemporary Art won't be unveiled until October, but details are trickling out slowly. Plans for the museum have expanded since Adjaye was engaged to design it, with the latest projections showing an increase in both square footage and price. It was decided early on that "the building should not contain one or two large spaces that could be partitioned and adapted to all kinds of art. Instead, they're opting for an array of distinctive galleries, each serving certain types of work better than others." Denver Post 09/19/04
2004-09-20
Staying Afloat By Selling Off The Stock
Times are tough for art institutions and foundations across North America. And one of the dirty little secrets of the business is that such organizations frequently keep themselves afloat fiscally by selling off bits of their collections. But is it ethical to do so? The answer depends on whom you ask, and there doesn't seem to be any general agreement. But for foundations which refuse to give up any piece of their collections, (such as Philadelphia's notoriously strapped Barnes Foundation,) the alternative can be serious financial hardship and even insolvency. Philadelphia Inquirer 09/19/04
2004-09-20
A Connecticut Copyright Conundrum, On Canvas
A provocative painting by Damien Loeb has been removed from an exhibit in Connecticut after copyright issues were raised. The painting, like much of Loeb's work, contains photographic images appropriated from other artists' work, and worked into Loeb's canvas. The artist has faced legal challenges to his appropriation before, and has vehemently defended his right to employ the technique. Hartford Courant 09/18/04
2004-09-20
DIA Struggles For Solvency
The Detroit Institute of the Arts is midway through a decade-long fundraising campaign intended to put the museum on firm fiscal ground for the foreseeable future, and many in the community had assumed that the DIA was well on its way to success. But last week, executives announced that its original goal of $331 million was not nearly enough to cope with structural issues and unforeseen costs (such as $40 million for asbestos removal.) The new goal is $410 million, to be raised within the next ten years. Detroit Free Press 09/18/04
2004-09-20
Two New Museums Bent On Changing Perceptions
This week the Nationa Museum of the American Indianopens in DC. Last month the The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center opened in Cincinnati. "It's a particularly American irony that two groups that have struggled since our nation was formed to find their place in its cultural fabric now have national institutions that are uniquely their own. Both museums offer much more than history..." USAToday 09/17/04
2004-09-20
The Smithsonian's Ocean Of Expansion
The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is to undergo the biggest renovation in its history. "Ocean Hall will cost $60 million and cover 28,000 square feet -- 3,000 more than the successful makeover of the Hall of Mammals last year. It will bring together for the first time all 50 of the museum's marine scientists and government specialists in what's being called the Smithsonian Ocean Science Initiative." Washington Post 09/16/04
2004-09-20
There's Art In Them Thar Schools
There's art in Philadelphia public schools - as much as $30 million worth of art. "The school district had commissioned a survey of school buildings over the past year to see what art existed. It expected to find a few interesting pieces in odd places, but nothing like this. There may be as many as 100 museum-quality pieces in the Philadelphia schools' collection." Washington Post 09/16/04
2004-09-20
Seattle's Big New Sculpture Park
The Seattle Art Museum announces art for its ambitious new $85 million sculpture park. Works by Calder and Serra will anchor the park, on the shores of Puget Sound. The park is scheduled to open in 2006, after several years of delay. Seattle Post-Intelligencer 09/15/04
2004-09-20
The Met's New President
"For the first time, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has chosen a woman as president: Emily Kernan Rafferty, the Met's current senior vice president for external affairs. Ms. Rafferty will succeed David E. McKinney when he retires in January." The New York Times 09/15/04
2004-09-20
A Closer Look At Denver's Still Deal
Denver is trying to raise money to build a museum to house 2000 works from the estate of Clyfford Still. But the terms of the deal are very restrictive. "None of that art can be sold, and some question whether Still’s name will attract a wide audience. Few would question the viability of a Pollock, de Kooning, or Rothko museum, but those artists are much better known. If marketing abstraction to the masses weren’t challenge enough, the artist’s will forbids the display of work by other artists in the museum, so the institution cannot create a varied schedule of temporary exhibitions to lure return visitors." The Art Newspaper 09/14/04
2004-09-20
A Whitney Audit
"The Whitney Museum’s new chief financial officer is conducting “a vigorous review of all financial controls to ensure that the highest standards of accountability are met”. Bridget Elias was appointed in June, and her audit follows the arrest of two Whitney employees in late July, charged with embezzling nearly $1 million since January 2002." The Art Newspaper 09/14/04
2004-10-12
The Singing, Dancing, Acting Irish?
The University of Notre Dame is known for two things: Catholicism and football, not necessarily in that order. With a new, $64 million performing arts complex intended to be a presenting and teaching space, the university is seeking to become known for prominence in a third area: the arts. The New York Times 10/12/04
2004-10-12
Where Is This Generation's "Guernica"?
Among artists and intellectuals onstage at last weekend's New Yorker Festival, "questions were repeatedly raised about the political potential of art and the role of intellectuals to be socially responsible. There was an urgency to the question that reflected the reality of time and place, of a presidential election four weeks away and of the inescapable reminders of Sept. 11." But the answers remained debatable. San Francisco Chronicle 10/06/04
2004-10-12
Selling The KC Arts Tax
"People may not always agree on what art is, but Kansas City area voters will be asked Nov. 2 to pay for lots of it. Residents of five counties will consider a quarter-cent sales tax to raise $500 million to $600 million for arts projects over the next 12 to 15 years, including $50 million for a downtown performing arts center... Arts supporters say the issue is quality of life. Does Kansas City want more and better theater, art galleries, museums, concerts and other entertainment?" But opponents are saying that the arts are no more culturally relevant than a tractor pull (seriously, someone said that,) and that tax money should stay out of the mix. Kansas City Star 10/10/04
2004-10-12
Reaching Out In A Big (And Highly Visible) Way
It's a major year for the arts in Minnesota's Twin Cities, and not a bad year for construction companies, either. The Guthrie Theater is putting the finishing touches on a massive new riverfront home designed by architect Jean Nouvel, and major expansion projects are well underway at the Walker Art Center, the Children's Theatre Company, and the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. "Most of the institutions are expanding their missions or reaching for new audiences with their new facilities. And all are trying to redefine what it means to be a home for the arts." St. Paul Pioneer Press 10/10/04
2004-10-12
Actors' Insurance An Ever-Dicier Proposition
"Living the actor's life often means uncertainty. Your job, working environment, and level of income are constantly in flux. While most actors are happy to choose this sometimes thrilling, sometimes terrifying existence over the grind at a fluorescent-lit cubicle, the very nature of it also means that certain necessities aren't a given. Like rent money. Or health insurance. The process of getting and maintaining reliable coverage is a chief worry for the working actor." Back Stage 10/06/04
2004-10-12
Supreme Court To Decide Where File-Swapping Blame Lies
Several major Hollywood studios and record labels have filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court of a recent federal court decision which held that the makers of file-swapping software are not liable for the illegal actions of their customers. Free speech advocates are encouraging the high court not to review the case, saying that it represents a direct attempt to intimidate software makers and the public. There are also timing questions surrounding the petition, which was filed after the controversial Induce Act stalled in the U.S. Senate last week. Wired 10/08/04
2004-10-12
Want Musical Kids? Surround Them With Sound
"Educators and others agree that early and regular exposure is the key to developing a child's true appreciation for music. ... The music appreciation process should be fun, too, experts say. But whatever form of music you seek to promote with your children, there are time-tested rules: expose them to the music early and often; make music a recurring positive experience; and be creative." Washington Post 10/12/04
2004-10-12
Quietly, Competently, The Phil Gets A Deal Done
In a year when orchestra negotiations in many American cities have turned quite publicly ugly, the New York Philharmonic's new deal was inked with a minimum of acrimony. The contract is also a departure from the recent trend of major cutbacks and artistic compromises that have plagued some ensembles, and though the NY Phil musicians will lose their place as the highest-paid ensemble in the country, they will take no wage or benefit cuts, and are hopeful that their deal will set a precedent for other groups. The New York Times 10/11/04
2004-10-12
Letting The Music Speak For Itself
The Delaware Symphony is not an ensemble most people would think of as cutting edge, but a new marketing technique is being pioneered in Wilmington which larger orchestras probably should have thought of years ago. "Instead of the traditional orchestra pamphlet simply listing programs and prices, which is often geared toward listeners who already know what they want, the Delaware Symphony's "Guidebook" takes potential ticket buyers gently by the ear and leads them through the season's repertoire." The season brochure is accompanied by a 30-minute CD which features musical samples, and the orchestra's music director talking about the music. Philadelphia Inquirer 10/10/04
2004-10-12
Return Of The Protest Song
This election year has focused the entertainment industry like nothing since the Vietnam era, and after decades of staying out of such debates, pop musicians have penned a stunning number of protest songs and partisan anthems. From classic rocker John Fogerty to blues man Keb' 'Mo to a metal band called Lamb of God, everyone in the music biz seems to be getting political, and a lot of what's out there is actually good music. The New York Times 10/10/04
2004-10-12
Mediation For SF Chorus
The management of the San Francisco Symphony and the union representing the professional members of the orchestra's chorus have agreed to mediation in an effort to avoid a work stoppage which could have begun this coming week. San Jose Mercury News 10/08/04
2004-10-12
LA Phil Boosts Endowment
Less than a year ago, the endowment of the Los Angeles Philharmonic was barely as large as its annual operating budget, and the lowest among major U.S. orchestras. But this week, the Phil announced that it has raised $75 million for its endowment, and plans to raise $25 million more over the next three years. The largest single gift in the endowment drive is from the Disney Foundation. Big News Network (Australia) 10/09/04
2004-10-12
How To Run A Concert Venue: Don't Rely On Ticket Sales
St. Paul's Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, which is the main home to the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the secondary concert site of the Minnesota Orchestra, has balanced its books for the second year running, after years of red ink. "The Ordway embarked on an austerity program and stepped up its fund-raising efforts for the 2002-'03 fiscal year, raising $3.6 million. The theater nearly matched that figure this year... as the Ordway seeks to decrease its dependence on box office revenues." St. Paul Pioneer Press 10/07/04
2004-10-12
Axelrod Extradition Set
"Herbert Axelrod, the fugitive philanthropist who sold suspect violins to the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and fled the country to avoid tax fraud charges, will soon land back in New Jersey to stand trial. Federal authorities are completing extradition proceedings against Axelrod, 77, who has been jailed in Germany since his arrest June 16 at a Berlin airport on a U.S. warrant." Newark Star-Ledger 10/10/04
2004-10-12
If The Novelists Got To Choose The President
In a survey of 31 prominent American novelists, Kerry supporters, unsurprisingly, vastly outnumbered Bush supporters. Still, the writers' choices differed. "Authors cited a range of reasons, from a vote for Kerry 'because I have a brain and so does he' (Amy Tan), to a vote for Bush because 'we're at war, and electing a president who is committed to losing it seems to be the most foolish thing we could do' (Orson Scott Card)." Slate 10/11/04
2004-10-12
GoogleLit On The Way
Google is launching a new search engine which would allow anyone to search the content of books online, and observers are saying that the move "could help touch off an important shift in the balance of power between companies that produce books and those that sell them." The service works by searching the scanned pages of books provided to Google by publishers, and offering links to online sites where the books could be purchased. Publishers are giddy over the concept, which could allow them to eventually sell books directly to consumers, but the whole enterprise may be yet more bad news for traditional booksellers. The New York Times 10/08/04
2004-10-12
$100 Million Buys A Lot Of Verse
Two years after a $100 million bequest fell unexpectedly into its lap, the formerly tiny and obscure Poetry Foundation has revealed just what it plans to do with the money. The group is planning "a host of projects, from a national recitation contest for high school students to 'the biggest and baddest Web site for poetry out there.' The projects are likely to comprise the most sweeping effort to promote poetry in the history of the United States or any other country. They may also make the Poetry Foundation a major force on the American cultural landscape." The New York Times 10/07/04
2004-10-12
Standing Room's Looking Like A Pretty Good Deal
Movie theaters figured out years ago that patrons like to be able to watch a film without requiring major physical rehabilitation when they pry themselves out of their seats at the end of the evening. So why are so many newly refurbished Broadway theaters still sporting totally substandard seating with zero leg room? The answer is a combination of historic preservation restrictions and profit-driven decision making. The New York Times 10/08/04
2004-10-12
Copyright, Coincidence Led To Loeb Fracas
A Damian Loeb painting titled "Blow Job (Three Little Boys)" that was removed from a University of Hartford exhibition does, in fact, depict the sons of a wealthy businessman with ties to the school, staff and faculty say. "And Douglas S. Cramer, the collector who lent the works for the show, said the university had informed him that the boys' family was distressed by the painting. ... But by every account, from the curator to Mr. Cramer to Mr. Loeb, the painting's removal was less a clear censorship case than it was one of copyright and surprising coincidence." The New York Times 10/12/04
2004-10-12
It Always Happens So Fast
Boston has a thriving new alternative gallery scene in the city's South End, with new galleries opening weekly and loft-style condos suddenly infesting a previously downscale neighborhood. "But while gallery owners wonder if the burgeoning South End neighborhood will mean business, residents wonder whether the neighborhood is going upscale too rapidly." Boston Herald 10/11/04
2004-10-12
A Museum That Will Be All It Can Be
The U.S. Army is planning a $200 million museum in Virginia, to be funded entirely by the government. "After a competition among many elite architects, the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill has been chosen to design the 255,000-square-foot museum complex. Opening day is planned for June 14, 2009." The Army insists that recruitment is not the aim of the museum, although the video-game aspect of warfare will apparently have a role, with plans including "a parade ground for simulated battles and an annex for 4-D simulators like those found on the most advanced new amusement park rides." The New York Times 10/10/04
2004-10-12
D.C. City Museum To Close
Washington, D.C.'s City Museum, which was designed to showcase the history and heritage of the city's neighborhoods, has announced that it will close its exhibit galleries next spring, less than two years since the museum opened to the public. The materials exhibited at the space will remain available for viewing by appointment, but the museum was forced to acknowledge that it had failed to develop any sort of audience for itself. "It [had] hoped to be a gateway for tourists whose interest in the city would be whetted by the materials there and who in turn would discover areas off the Mall by themselves." Washington Post 10/09/04
2004-10-12
Public vs. Expert Opinion: Who Should Judge Public Art?
The massive sculpture that stands in front of Baltimore's train station is, to put it mildly, unpopular. In fact, nearly 100 locals gathered at a public forum recently to demand the removal of Male/Female, sculpted by Maine resident Jonathan Borofsky. But the forum turned out to be mainly an opportunity for art experts to tell the unhappy citizenry that they'd "get used to" the piece, and to highlight other examples of public art that were initially reviled. Baltimore Sun 10/09/04
2004-10-12
Hotel's Big Budget Benefits Colorado Artists
"Colorado artists are set to get a windfall worth nearly $1 million as decorators for the new $278.5 million hotel across from the Colorado Convention Center go shopping for art. ... Another $1.5 million worth of artworks will be purchased through the city's long-running percent-for-art ordinance, which requires that 1 percent of city-funded construction budgets be set aside for art." Denver Post 10/07/04
2004-10-12
A Troubled Museum Comes Of Age
The Los Angeles museum created by billionaire Armand Hammer to house his personal art collection got off to a terrible start when it opened in 1990. First, Hammer himself died only days after the opening, and lawsuits over the money used to build the museum followed. The organization "limped on with no clear identity, serving chiefly as a venue for staid traveling shows. [But] no more. Today the Armand Hammer, on Wilshire Boulevard in the Westwood section of Los Angeles, is considered one of the city's hottest cultural attractions, with a keen eye for emerging artistic talent and a busy schedule of 'destination evenings' that routinely draw crowds to the museum for readings, concerts and films." The New York Times 10/06/04
2004-10-25
Better Times For Fundraising?
Giving to America's 400 most successful fund-raising organizations was up 2.3 percent last year. So does that mean we're out of the fund-raising hell that has dried up contributions in the past several years? Not necessarily... Chronicle of Philanthropy 10/28/04
2004-10-25
Pittsburgh - Steeling For The Arts
Think of arts and you think of... Pittsburgh? Absolutely. Over the past 20 years the city has transformed itself from rust bucket industrial to cultural Mecca. "We're the town of Mr. Rogers and Andy Warhol, which speaks of what we are and what we're becoming." Christian Science Monitor 10/21/04
2004-10-25
Lincoln Centre's $1.5 Billion Impact On NY
A new study measures the economic impact of Lincoln Centre on New York City. It's significant. "Direct spending on operations by Lincoln Center and all of its resident organizations, the report says, totaled $530 million in 2003; fully $350 million of that figure represented spending on employee wages and benefits. This translated into 9,000 full-time, part-time, and contract positions, equal to approximately 5,500 full-time employees." Back Stage 10/20/04
2004-10-25
DC Arts Finally Recover Post-9/11
After 9/11, arts institutions in Washington DC struggled to find audiences (and income). But the post-9/11 slup is officially over, with attendance (and income) on the rise. "The upturn is attributed to the rise in tourism, resumption of school field trips, economic security enjoyed by the theater-going public, and rise of the Internet as an easy way to buy tickets, according to managers of many of the region's 60-plus theatrical companies." Washington Post 10/19/04
2004-10-25
Texas Artists Against Bush
A group of Texas "writers, musicians and arts patrons are placing newspaper ads against President Bush this week, declaring 'the Texan in the White House doesn't speak for us'." Dallas Morning News 10/19/04
2004-10-25
Mrs. Schwarzenegger Takes On California Museum
California's State History Museum is nearly broke, and could close in the next few months if a sudden influx of cash is not found. The state's first lady, former journalist Maria Shriver, is proposing to convert the institution into a museum celebrating the contribution of women to California's history, but a backlash began the moment Shriver stepped into the fray, with detractors accusing her of strong-arming the museum board. Shriver insists that the board approached her, and that she is "happy to help." Sacramento Bee 10/16/04
2004-10-25
The Chinese Are Coming
Chinese tourists haven't been much of a factor worldwide. But that is changing. Quickly. "Nationwide, more than 500 million tourists poured into airports, highways and train stations last year. Outbound travel by Chinese tourists reached 16.6 million people in 2002 and is expected to double this year to 32 million. The World Tourism Organization predicts 100 million Chinese will be travelling the world by 2020. The Pacific Asia Travel Association believes that figure will be reached within six years, based on current trends." Toronto Star 10/22/04
2004-10-25
The Rise of The Right-Wing Film Festival
"Conservatives do not have a reputation for making good documentaries, mainly because they do not have a reputation for making them at all." But a fledgling movement is aiming to change that, as intensely conservative film festivals have begun to spring up around the country in response to the commercial success of left-wing films like Fahrenheit 9/11. Screenings frequently begin with group prayers and recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance, and the only thing the crowds seem to enjoy more than a good sympathetic portrait of President Bush is a film that carves up Michael Moore like a Thanksgiving turkey. New York Times Magazine 10/24/04
2004-10-25
Will Movies Change Politics?
This has been the year of the political film in America. "Beyond the partisan bickering and charges that these films are merely political propaganda or media manipulation, some observers even see them signaling a new era in the way Americans choose to be politically informed. Such films, they suggest, may represent a seismic shift in American journalism." Christian Science Monitor 10/22/04
2004-10-25
Wait, It's Not Harassment! I'm A Writer!
Comedy is a dirty business, and for comedy writers working on a sitcom, ordinary workplace rules simply don't apply. Or do they? A lawsuit filed by a former assistant on the TV show Friends "contends that while doing her job, which was to record anything any of the writers said, [the assistant] was subjected to her bosses' dirty, personal and just plain weird banter, so much so that it constituted sexual harassment." The defense being mounted is a novel one, and it could have far-reaching ramifications for the joke-writing business: the studio insists that comedy writers can't possibly do their jobs without such inappropriate chatter. The New York Times 10/17/04
2004-10-25
A Jazz Beachhead
Will Lincoln Center's new jazz temple revive interest in the art form? "No one will doubt the scope and ambition of the venture, which marks the first time a cultural center has been conceived from the ground up to honor jazz, a music now virtually ignored by the country that invented it. Whether future generations will look upon the grand edifice as a turning point for indigenous American music or a glorious last stand for an art form that's slowly slipping from public consciousness (at least in the U.S.), Jazz at Lincoln Center clearly showed no hesitation in making its plans." Chicago Tribune 10/24/04
2004-10-25
It's Not Who You Teach, It's How Many Senators You Know
In Philadelphia, the new music-focused Orchestra 2001 is looking (so far, unsuccessfully) for a $20,000 grant to fund a groundbreaking music education series for underprivileged children. Meanwhile, Philly Pops got $150,000 in government funds last year for educational activities that were not exactly the height of creative engagement. Worse, the pops orchestra hasn't even used the vast majority of the money. Why the inequity? David Stearns says that it has little to do with artistic integrity, and a whole lot to do with political connections. Philadelphia Inquirer 10/24/04
2004-10-25
Philly Mayor Deep In The Orchestral Trenches
It was something of a surprise when Philadelphia mayor John Street, who has never taken a leading role in the city's arts community, stepped into the middle of the acrimonious Philadelphia Orchestra contract negotiations last week. But apparently, Street means to stay involved in the delicate contract talks: after brokering a new extension of the existing agreement, the mayor and his Commerce Director have taken a direct role in the process, and hope to use their combined clout to avoid a work stoppage. The intervention means that both musicians and management will likely have to stop posturing and actually make a good-faith attempt to settle their differences. Philadelphia Inquirer 10/24/04
2004-10-25
Starbucks Brews Up New Music Biz
Starbuck's has unveiled its new music business, which lets customers select and burn CDs while they sip their brew. "Coffeehouse customers use computer tablets to select from 150,000 tracks, which include reggae, world music, jazz and religious songs. The tablets transmit the selections to the CD-burning machine, which can burn two discs at a time." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 10/19/04
2004-10-25
The Most Loved/Hated Man In Public Radio
Bill Kling is the man behind Minnesota Public Radio, the broadcasting juggernaut that is, by its own admission, hoping to change the landscape of public broadcasting across the country. Once a mild-mannered regional network best known for producing A Prairie Home Companion, Kling's MPR has become the 800-lb. gorilla of the industry, acquiring competing stations like a for-profit company would, and expanding its reach well outside the Upper Midwest. Whether these are positive or negative developments in the genteel world of pubic radio depends entirely on whom you ask. Minneapolis Star Tribune 10/24/04
2004-10-26
A Mayor Who Transformed Her City's Landscape
How much can a mayor affect the landscape of the city they serve? Quite a bit, writes Randy Gragg. Portland, Oregon's Vera Katz has transformed the city during her time in office. "She helped lay the foundation for a new Portland, newcomers and prospering longtimers in equal parts." The Oregonian 10/18/04
2004-10-25
The Met's New Top Woman
For the first time, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has named a woman as its president. Emily Kernan Rafferty, 55, has been with the Met for 28 years, "and is credited with leading the creation of the Met's Web site, and building its membership." She will take over in January, and will oversee the Met's $155 million renovation. Crain's New York Business 10/15/04
2004-10-25
The Rise Of Wynton
At some indeterminate point in the last decade, Wynton Marsalis became the official spokesman for serious jazz. It's an unlikely position for a man who had previously split the jazz world down the middle with his lofty pronouncements about the form, and his dismissal of many modern performers and their influences. But today, "with Jazz at Lincoln Center as the most powerful nonprofit jazz institution in the world, with a responsibility to its donors for the $128 million it took to build the halls, his declarations, and his answers to criticism, have become temperate and more like coalition-building." The New York Times 10/18/04
2004-10-25
Are Young Adults Exiting Stage Left?
"Is theater failing to attract a new generation of enthusiasts to replace those who, on the opposite end of the chronological scale, die off or become too frail to go out at night?" There's certainly no question that the predominant audience at your average mainstream theater is decidedly, um, mature, but some in the industry insist that the overall audience has expanded, regardless of demographic shifts. Still, "in the decade between 1992 and 2002, the percentage of young people in the overall theater audience shrank significantly." Chicago Sun-Times 10/24/04
2004-10-25
A Handful Of New Theatres For NY
New York gets five new Off-Broadway theatres, carved out of a former movie multiplex. Ambitious, but how do they work for the live stage? The New York Times 10/22/04
2004-10-25
Iraq Explosions Causing Damage To Ancient Site
Contractors exploding ordinance at an ammo dump in Iraq are causing damage to an important ancient site that is on Unesco’s World Heritage list. "Since May, controlled explosions of recovered munitions and mines are conducted at a nearby US military base. These are believed to take place twice daily. This constant seismic activity is damaging the stone arches of the main temple and the outer wall of the ancient city, which could lead to collapses." The Art Newspaper 10/25/04
2004-10-25
Don't Forget To Make It Look Nice
Like so many other American cities, Washington, D.C. has struggled to create what its former mayor called a "living downtown" with a distinct core of urban dwellers. But a new round of downtown residential construction is offering a chance at architectural revival, with the hope that a unique urban look will attract new residents. But for every great new building that goes up, it seems that four more uninspired, boxy concrete blobs rise as well. Are the city's architects abandoning creativity in order to insure that their buildings have the requisite exercise rooms, rooftop pools, and other amenities supposedly demanded by today's urban residents? Washington Post 10/23/04
2004-11-02
Voting On The Arts (Tuesday)
Alongside the national races Americans will be voting on Tuesday, numerous communities will be deciding on local arts-funding initiatives... Backstage 10/29/04
2004-11-02
Cleveland's Arts Problem
"While the arts and cultural base clearly falls among Cleveland's top three comparative advantages, we haven't adequately embraced this area in our region's economic strategy. Arts and culture have an enormous impact on our economy, and yet our region has one of the lowest rates of public support for this sector in the country." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 10/31/04
2004-11-02
Per-Capita Spending Falls in NYC Arts Education
The New York City public schools' revised arts curriculum has yet to reach all students. "The Education Department has a spanking-new arts and music program this fall - but nearly 200 schools lack a full-time arts teacher and more than 500 do not have a music room, it was revealed yesterday. Meanwhile, arts funding has dropped to $57 per student from $63, school officials said yesterday after a City Council hearing on arts education." New York Daily News 10/27/04
2004-11-02
Dancing In Chicago
"Dance Chicago began 10 years ago to showcase about 40 local dance companies and foster new audiences for dance. Still based at the Athenaeum but featuring more than 200 Chicago troupes in every imaginable genre, from ballet to hip-hop, the festival could easily be known as Choreography Chicago." Chicago Tribune 10/31/04
2004-11-02
Politics? That's So Last Week
Hollywood's brief dalliance with political filmmaking appears to have been short-lived. As the election season steamrolls towards its conclusion, big-budget studios are turning back to that old Hollywood standby, escapism, to sell tickets. While left-leaning documentaries have done big business this year, "politically oriented films like Paramount's Team America: World Police, which has taken in only about $23 million so far, and The Manchurian Candidate... with about $66 million in ticket sales, have been disappointments at the box office." The New York Times 10/28/04
2004-11-02
How Do You make New From Old?
There are no new sounds in music - just musicians using familiar notes in new ways. But. "It is rare that governments and the industry at large are ahead of the curve when it comes to cultural trends, and recent legal rulings have made the creation of new music from appropriated sources problematic. It is a sensitive issue because while intellectual property needs to be protected, new intellectual properties can only be born in a nurturing environment and appropriation has become such an important element in a substantial body of new work." NewMusicBox 11/04
2004-11-02
NY City Opera Negotiating On New Home
Rebuffed in its attempts to move to lower Manhattan, New York City Opera is negotiating to build a new home near Lincoln Center. The New York Times 10/29/04
2004-11-02
Chicago Still In The Red, But Improving
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra ran a deficit of $2.3 million on a budget of nearly $58 million in its 2003-04 season. That's the bad news. But the good news is that the red ink is about $1.7 million less than the CSO had anticipated, and significantly less than the $7 million deficit of a few years ago. Still, the orchestra was forced to withdraw more than $9 million from its endowment in the past year to cover operating costs. The CSO's management team has pledged a return to balanced budgets by the 2006-07 season. Chicago Sun-Times 10/28/04
2004-11-02
No Good Idea Goes Unpunished
Ever since Richard Florida published his groundbreaking book, The Rise of the Creative Class, in 2002, cities have been embracing his formula for success. But the backlash against Florida's arts-first agenda has been brutal, and has come from both sides of the political spectrum. "The one side accuses Florida... of having a 'gay agenda' or an 'arts agenda' and of undermining the Judeo-Christian foundations of our society. The other asserts that he has abandoned the working class in favor of promoting a group of elites." For his part, the author claims that his work has been over-simplified and misinterpreted, and is getting tired of knee-jerk reactions. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 10/30/04
2004-11-02
Book-Buying For Idealogues
There have been lots of political books in this election season. Do their sales foretell any political direction? "Informal polls taken by our store managers indicate that some 70 percent of our customers say they have no intention of reading these books; 15 percent say they will; and 15 percent are undecided. One Kansas City customer said, 'I'm buying this book to show people where I stand.' Another in New York said, 'I'm buying this book because the author agrees with me'." The New York Times 11/02/04
2004-11-02
Nobel-Winner Sues America To Publish In US
When Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi went to publish her memoirs in the US she discovered that "doing so would be illegal, under a trade embargo intended to punish repressive governments such as the regime in Tehran that once sent her to jail. Last week, Ms. Ebadi and her American literary agency, the Strothman Agency of Boston, sued the Treasury Department, which enforces the sanctions, in Manhattan federal district court. The suit says the regulations ignore congressional directives to exempt information and creative works from the trade sanctions, and more broadly violate the First Amendment rights of Americans to read what they wish." Wall Street Journal 11/01/04
2004-11-02
Bookstore Customers Burning Out On Political Books
As the American election gets close to resolution, "many independent, Chicago-area booksellers are yanking the most partisan books out of their store windows and off their most visible shelves. The reason? It's just not worth the grief." Too many customers were complaining. "I don't remember this four years ago. I think everybody feels the stakes are higher this year on both sides." Chicago Tribune 10/29/04
2004-11-02
Reading About Vietnam, Thinking Of Iraq
With U.S. forces embroiled in Iraq, thousands of people in Philadelphia will be reading and discussing a novel about the Vietnam War, written by a Vietnam veteran. Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" is this winter's timely choice for the One Book, One Philadelphia program. Philadelphia Inquirer 10/27/04
2004-11-02
Theatre Of Politics
"No doubt that may be the feeling of some people who believe theater should be uplifting and inspiring rather than critical and political. They may believe theaters should focus on uncontroversial classics by dead playwrights rather than rabble-rousing by decidedly live and lively ones. But in this election season, there are some who like their theater on the hot side." Hartford Courant 10/31/04
2004-11-02
The Bricklayers And The Shakespeare
Washington's Shakespeare Theatre has joined forces with the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers to build and a new building that will house a theater and offices for the union.
Washington Post 10/29/04
2004-11-02
Eustis To Lead Public Theatre?
Who will be the next director of New York's Public Theatre? "Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, R.I., is the leading candidate after an eight-month search, a process that included nearly 100 candidates and eventually involved interviews with about a dozen finalists." The New York Times 10/29/04
2004-11-02
O'Neill Center Postpones Director Search
The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut has temporarily suspended its search for a new director and will concentrate for now on hiring someone to run its annual National Play Conference, "one of the most esteemed professional development programs in the nation." Backstage 10/28/04
2004-11-02
For Sale: Broadway Dress-up
Broadway's Theater Development Fund "began selling 20,000 costumes from its collection of nearly 85,000 in preparation for a move to a smaller space. The nonprofit Theater Development Fund, perhaps best known for its low-cost TKTS booth at Times Square, runs arts education programs and rents professional costumes at discounts to nonprofit theater groups and schools nationwide. Much of the development fund's inventory comprises donations from the Metropolitan Opera, Broadway and private collections." The New York Times 10/28/04
2004-11-02
China's New Accessibility
The Metropolitan Museum's big fall Chinese show would not have been possible a few years ago. "Behind this prodigious exhibition is a story of curatorial obsession and adventure, as well as a glimpse at how China's internal bureaucracy has subtly opened up recently, at least vis-Ă -vis the art world. American specialists found their Chinese museum counterparts accessible in a way that would have been unheard of just a few years earlier." The New York Times 11/02/04
2004-11-02
A New Virtual Tourism?
"A European Union-funded project is looking at providing tourists with computer-augmented versions of archaeological attractions. It would allow visitors a glimpse of life as it was originally lived in places such as Pompeii. It could pave the way for a new form of cultural tourism." BBC 11/01/04
2004-11-02
Demolishing A Decade
"In a society otherwise enamored of the styles of the 1960's, the architecture of that decade is rarely loved and frequently reviled. All over the country, 60's buildings are being torn down while much older buildings survive. Functional problems, like leaky roofs and inadequate heating systems, are often to blame. But just as often, the buildings are simply disliked by institutions that have enough money to replace them." There is a burgeoning movement afoot to save the structures, but the "so-bad-they're-good" logic doesn't seem to be attracting many supporters for the boxy, concrete buildings that dominated the '60s. The New York Times 10/31/04
2004-11-02
U.S. Makes Venice Biennale Selection
"A committee of American museum curators has selected Ed Ruscha, a leading painter, to represent the United States in June at the Venice Biennale, putting an end to a year of questions about whether the country would participate in the prestigious art festival." Washington Post 10/30/04
2004-11-02
A Museum Closes, But Does Anyone Care?
When Chicago's Terra Museum of American Art shuts its doors this weekend, it will represent a major loss in the city's cultural landscape. Or will it? "The Terra Museum's failure to draw crowds even after effectively eliminating its admission charge a few years ago led to the decision to close... [but] most Chicagoans, including members of the city's art establishment, have greeted the closing with a collective shrug, even though it leaves the city with only two major art museums." The New York Times 10/30/04
2004-11-02
How To Buy Art Without A Second Mortgage
New York's Affordable Art Fair is a rarity - a major art event aimed squarely at ordinary people who have always assumed that collecting is outside their monetary means. "More than 130 galleries will offer original work by some 500 artists at the fair, and every piece is between $100 and $5,000. There will also be art demonstrations and tutorials on how to buy." New York Post 10/30/04
2004-11-02
Adjaye Unveils Denver MoCA Design
The design of the new permanent home of Denver's Museum of Contemporary Art has been unveiled, and it stands in stark contrast to the flashy, eye-catching architecture that currently dominates the museum scene. "[Architect David] Adjaye's concept puts the emphasis on dramatic interior spaces. Rather than jutting angles, the 25,000-square-foot building offers a placid interplay of light... Most of the exterior will be sheathed in glass, its color yet to be determined. About a foot inside the glass will be walls of translucent plastic, which will... allow in some diffused light during the day and radiate a glow from inside at night." Denver Post 10/30/04
2004-11-02
Tennessee Museum Cancels Show Because Of Sexual Images
Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts has "canceled an upcoming show featuring sexual images and containing racially charged language — a move the artist terms a 'form of censorship'." The Tennessean 10/26/04
2004-11-02
UN Creates Culture Warriors (Peacekeepers)
The United Nations is setting up an international force prepared to fly in and protect culture treasures threatened by war or natural disaster. "The cultural blue berets, as they are already being called, will initially be formed entirely of Italians and could include members of Italy's paramilitary police, the carabinieri. Yesterday's move followed international outrage over the looting of priceless antiquities during the US-led coalition's invasion of Iraq last year." The Guardian (UK) 10/28/04
2004-11-02
D.C. Curator Fired For Bad-Mouthing Public Art
"Curator Philip Barlow's policy on automatically excluding PandaMania and Party Animals participants from consideration for Washington Project for the Arts\Corcoran's 2005 Options exhibition has cost him his position. The survey of emerging Washington area artists will now be curated by Libby Lumpkin, an art historian and critic who lives in California. The move came after [the Washington Post] reported Sept. 23 that Barlow did not regard the city-funded sculpture projects as art... WPA\C Executive Director Annie Adjchavanich issued a statement last week announcing Barlow's resignation and condemning his stance as a violation of 'basic ethical norms of curatorial practice.' Barlow calls the statement a 'complete distortion.'" Washington Post 10/28/04
2004-11-02
Terra Looks For Extended Life Online
When Chcago's Terra Museum of American Art closes forever this Sunday, it will represent a major loss for the city's art scene, but the Terra Foundation's extensive collection will not simply be dispersed to the winds. "The entire collection is soon to be made available on the foundation's new Web site, www.terraamericanart.org. And 50 of the major works, as well as the museum's complete collection of 350 works on paper, will be temporarily loaned to the Art Institute of Chicago in January." Chicago Sun-Times 10/28/04
2004-11-02
U.S. Seizes Nazi-Looted Picasso
"FBI agents have seized from a prominent Chicago art collector a Picasso painting that European authorities say was looted by the Nazis. The government is allowing 'Femme en blanc' ('Woman in White') to remain in the possession of the collector who bought it nearly 30 years ago until the courts can resolve questions about its legal ownership. The oil painting, valued at more than $10 million, has been in legal dispute since 2002." Chicago Tribune 10/27/04
2004-11-08
Bloom: Key To Cleveland's Renaissance
"In 1915, Cleveland's city fathers had the foresight to recognize that if Cleveland was to become a major business center, its citizens would require a first-rate cultural environment. In that year, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cleveland Play House were established. At this critical juncture in Cleveland's history, we desperately need arts, corporate and civic leaders to come forward and demonstrate the same understanding. The arts are one of Cleveland's great success stories. But even a newcomer such as myself knows it is one of America's best-kept secrets." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 11/06/04
2004-11-08
Miami Voters Approve Big New Arts Bond Issue
Even though Miami's new performing arts center is way over budget and behind in its construction schedule, voters in Mimai/Dade County approved a huge new $552.7 million property tax bond issue for cultural facilities. "It includes $100 million toward a $175 million Miami Art Museum and $175 million toward a $267 million Museum of Science and Planetarium -- both probably in Bicentennial Park. It also funds 59 other projects..." Miami Herald 11/04/04
2004-11-08
Ailey's New Digs
This week, the Alvin Ailey Company moves in to a new home. "To passersby, 405 West 55th Street may well seem just another sleek new building in New York. But to the dancers who will be moving into it on Friday, it represents something far more significant: the Ailey's first permanent home and what the company is billing as the largest building in the United States devoted exclusively to dance." The New York Times 11/08/04
2004-11-08
Who Watches Dance, And Why?
A major study of dance audiences has been completed in Chicago, with researchers attempting to quantify the impact of dance on the average citizen, and to further determine exactly who is likely to attend a dance performance and why. Among the study's findings: women are a whopping 71% of dance attendees; intellectual stimulation finishes behind aesthetic beauty on the list of reasons that attendees enjoy dance; and very few audience members can tell the difference between modern, classical, and jazz dance without labels to help them. Chicago Tribune 11/07/04
11/12/2004
Fund Seeks To Fund Bay Area Creativity
"The Ford Foundation's Leveraging Investments in Creativity initiative, which conveniently spells LINC as an acronym, surveyed Bay Area artists over a 15-year period and came up with some important and distressing findings: Sixty-three percent of artists earned less than $7,000 from their art. Seventy-eight percent of artists worked more than one job, and all artists surveyed had a median gross income from all sources of $35,000. In 2004, artists have less time to spend on their art than they did 15 years ago."
San Francisco Chronicle 11/11/2004
11/29/2004
A Portrait Of Chicago Arts
Chicago is a city of the arts. But what does the arts community look like? A new survey takes the measure of what the arts in Chicago look like.
11/29/2004
Arts Community Protests NYT Ax Of Sunday Listings
Waves of protest have greeted the New York Times' decision this fall to discontinue the comprehensive Sunday arts event listings that had been featured for decades. The Times' public editor takes up the case: "Editors reacted to the petition, I soon learned, the way editors almost always react when readers rise against a long-planned, well-intended innovation: a little dumbfounded, a little defensive, a little dismissive..."
11/29/2004
America's Biggest Philanthropists
Arts groups may have a tough time prying much money out of the government these days, but 2004 has been a record year for private giving, with enormous single gifts dominating the philanthropic landscape. The biggest donors of the year were Bill & Melinda Gates, who pumped a whopping $3 billion into their own foundation, and while most of the truly outsized gifts went to universities and foundations, arts groups got their share of the largesse as well.
11/29/2004
US Senate Passes New Copyright Bill
The US Senate passed a scaled-back version of a controversial copyright bill Saturday, keeping a provision that imposes severe penalties on people caught with camcorders in movie theaters but scrapping other provisions that copyright-reform activists had criticized.
11/29/2004
America's Top Arts Private Fundraisers
Which American arts organizations raised the most money from private donors last year? Carnegie Hall came first, bringing in $82.7, and the Met Opera was second with $68.6 million. But No. 7 was the Nashville Symphony?
Chicago Tribune 11/22/2004
11/29/2004
Iraqi Art's Coming Out
Artists worked in Iraq during the Saddam years, but the art being made in Iraq now is different. "Artists are emerging from the atrophied, censorious Saddam years, from the distortions of taste provoked by state patronage and control and the horizons foreshortened by sanctions, and are beginning to document what is around them."
The Guardian (UK) 11/22/2004
11/29/2004
Newspaper: SPAC Must Change Its Corporate Culture, And Fast
The blistering audit of New York's Saratoga Performing Arts Center that was released this week offered stunning revelations of mismanagement and near-criminal conduct by those in charge of the popular summer venue. Still, SPAC cannot be allowed to wither further on the vine, says its hometown newspaper: "The public trust has been understandably shaken. But to turn away from SPAC would be a grave mistake. SPAC is too wonderful a venue and too valuable to the community."
The Saratogian (NY) 11/28/2004
11/29/2004
Saratoga Center Dinged For Poor Management
The Saratoga Performing Arts Center, which last summer tried to end a longstanding summer residency by New York City Ballet, has been cited for bad management by an audit of the organization. "Over the last few years, the Saratoga arts center has struggled with an annual deficit of $400,000 to $500,000 on an operating budget of $13 million and been forced to dip into its $7 million endowment to cover operating expenses."
The New York Times 11/23/2004
11/29/2004
Big Cuts At Interlochen
Interlochen Center for the Arts, the northern Michigan-based arts academy which runs a full-time arts high school as well as a massive summer camp program, has made some big cuts to its summer offerings. 37 faculty members received notification this week that they would not be brought back in 2005, and the summer camp will be shortened from eight weeks to six. Interlochen administrators say that the cuts were necessary to insure financial stability and allow for basdly-needed raises for the remaining faculty. The summer program had 247 instructors and more than 2000 students this past summer.
Traverse City (MI) Record-Eagle 11/27/2004
11/29/2004
The More The Merrier In Denver
Nothing strikes terror into the hearts of planners of local holiday shows like the news that the Rockettes are coming to town. The touring version of the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular has been a mass-marketing juggernaut in many cities, severely cutting into ticket sales for local productions of The Nutcracker and other holiday favorites. But in Denver, where the Radio City show is debuting this year, "the show's ubiquitous advertising and numerous public appearances have brought earlier and increased awareness to all consumers of their impending holiday entertainment choices. And early returns indicate everyone seems to have benefited."
Denver Post 11/27/2004
11/29/2004
Putting The Public Back In Public Art
Chicago artists have long complained that the city's public art program is unnecessarily secretive and unresponsive to public concerns. A corporate lawyer named Scott Hodes has been fighting to get the program's inner workings open to scrutiny for years, and now, he appears to have won. Among other accusations of impropriety, Hodes "alleged that $20,600 in program funds were improperly channeled to artists and apprentices through a charity directed by [Chicago's First Lady Maggie] Daley." The city, which has always maintained that the program operates completely above board, has now agreed to meet with Hodes and, presumably, to satisfy his demands for a more transparent process.
Chicago Tribune 11/27/2004
11/29/2004
Seattle Opera, PNB Caught In Funding Fight
Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet are on the hook to pay for a shortfall in funding for their new home. The companies agreed two years ago that the city might finance the shortfall with their rent. Now the bill is due, and both the opera and ballet companies say paying would be a big hardship.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (AP) 11/29/2004
11/29/2004
Tapping A Diverse Array of Pocketbooks
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre is known far and wide not only for the skill of its dancers, but for the fundraising acumen of its management and board. The company's annual gala alone raised 11% of its annual budget last year, and this year's event is expected to do at least as well. "The Ailey company's success at raising funds is due in part to its special cachet. Ailey always insisted on having a multicultural group of dancers, even as his works celebrated his own African-American heritage. So the Ailey has always been both an ethnic institution and a colorblind one."
The New York Times 11/28/2004
11/29/2004
Chicago Troupe Loses Five
Five veteran performers -- nearly one fourth of the troupe -- are leaving Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and will not be on hand for Hubbard's spring engagement. They are among the company's best and brightest, and they're leaving for a variety of reasons, some of them moving into other fields... The changes represent the most dramatic shift in troupe personnel since the arrival of Jim Vincent as artistic director in 2000.
Chicago Tribune 11/24/2004
11/29/2004
Defecting From Havana
Forty-three members of the Cuban dance troupe Havana Night Club defected last week in Las Vegas. "The decision to defect didn't come easily or suddenly, but it was almost unanimous - with just three of the dancers saying they may want to go back to Cuba. The reasons involve freedom and opportunity, but this mass defection also hinged on their close kinship as a troupe and a rebuff from the Cuban government."
Christian Science Monitor 11/23/2004
11/29/2004
Is Liberal Arts Education Endangered?
Ivy League educators got together recently to worry about the future of liberal arts education. "The fact that professors at Harvard, Princeton, and Dartmouth are worried about the health of liberal education is noteworthy. If the liberal arts are perceived to be struggling at these institutions, does liberal education stand a chance anywhere?"
Boston Globe 11/21/2004
11/29/2004
KC Center Gets Three Big Anchor Tenants
Kansas City's new $300 million performing arts center will be home to three of the city's biggest arts groups when it opens in 2008. The Kansas City Symphony, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and Kansas City Ballet have all signed letters of intent, promising to take up residence in the PAC for at least 20 years, and have agreed to rental terms with the center's management. "The commitments let the Missouri Development Finance Board add $12.5 million each year over 2005-2006 to the annual allowable tax credits. The board currently has a $10 million annual cap." The PAC suffered a funding setback this November, when voters rejected a bistate tax which would have created a significant new source of arts funding.
Kansas City Star 11/27/2004
12/05/2004
Chicago Sued For Intentional Mutilation of Flowers
A 72-year-old Chicago man who designed, planted, and maintained a massive wildflower garden on the city's North Side, is suing the city for destroying his creation to make way for the increased foot traffic to the new Millenium Park. The lawsuit contends that the wildflowers were not merely a garden, but a work of art, and as such, they should have been protected under the Visual Artists Rights Act, a federal law prohibiting "'intentional distortion, mutilation, or other modification' of public artwork without permission of the creator."
Chicago Sun-Times 12/01/2004
12/05/2004
Giving Ground - Arts Philanthropy In Canada
A new portrait of philanthropic giving to the arts in Canada points to some big challenges. "Less than 2% of the population make financial donations to the arts sector. The average donor is described as being over 45 (57% of donors), university-educated (38%), and with a household income exceeding $50,000 (71%). Nonetheless, while the value of donations is increasing – 22% from 1997 to 2000 – the number of donors has actually decreased, a worrying trend for the future."
La Scena Musicale 11/29/2004
12/05/2004
New Lobbyists Lobby For Fairer Copyright
A new lobbying group has been formed to argue for copyright laws that are fairer to consumers. "IPac pledges to support candidates and elected officials who fight for a balance in copyright law: The group will support those who advocate for laws that will pay creators without limiting political expression, innovation or research and education, and back laws that foster new creativity. The group says it believes that intellectual property laws should be clear so technologists can innovate without being sued."
Wired 11/30/2004
12/05/2004
Fund All You Want, We'll Make More
Canada has a long history of government support for the arts. But "over the past 20 years, as activity in the arts has grown, federal funding has remained fairly stable. The result has been that the proportion of federal funding in the revenues of Canadian arts organizations has dropped by half." It's an uncomfortable situation - can you ever really have too much art, and even if you can, how do you decide who is worthy of support and who isn't? Governments don't generally like to be in the business of making value judgments, but without a serious increase in arts funding, many fear that Canada will soon have no other choice.
Toronto Star 12/01/2004
12/05/2004
Bigger May Not Be Better For The Arts
The city of Richmond, Virginia, is contructing a beautiful new performing arts center as part of an effort to revitalize its downtown. But not everyone is happy about the project - two local writers have created a weblog called SaveRichmond.com, which takes aim at the PAC as an expensive plaything for the elite, and asserts that the city "should work with its artists, musicians and entrepreneurs to build a vibrant and diverse 'street-level' arts scene." The critics also claim that the planners of the PAC don't know anything about arts administration, and accuses the center's board of using "dodgy finances" to hide its inability to raise money.
Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch 12/01/2004
12/05/2004
Congress Rebuffs Bush Effort To Boost NEA Funding
new appropriations bill is set to be approved by the U.S. Congress without an $18 million special allotment to the National Endowment for the Arts that President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush had specifically lobbied for. "'American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius,' was meant to be a chance to reacquaint people with the best of American dance, theater, jazz, classical music, literature and other arts, extending the NEA's reach into communities all over the country, giving members of Congress bragging rights about how they were bringing home artistic pork and insulating the agency from political critics." But Congress has allotted only $2 million for the project, which will have to be scaled back considerably.
Washington Post 12/01/2004
12/05/2004
Arts Funding, Jersey Style (It Helps To Have Connections)
Three New Jersey arts groups split $1.2 million from special allocations determined by members of the state legislature. The grants did not go through the traditional arts funding process. "The politicians conferred with members of the Treasury's Division of Administration to decide the grants. The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the state agency that already distributed $22.7 million to arts organizations this year, was not consulted."
Newark Star-Ledger 12/01/2004
12/05/2004
Arkansas - Where Arts Education Matters
Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has made arts education a priority of his administration: "It’s a critical part of the education of any child. A part of what I feel like I have to do is help superintendents, school chiefs and other governors realize that they’ll be leaving a lot of children behind if they don’t put a focus on arts education."
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 12/01/2004
12/05/2004
Do Culture Wars Mean Ignoring Science?
In Pennsylvania and elsewhere in America, culture wars are heating up in schools. A drive to include creationism in textbooks is emboldened by the recent election. Some schools also propose censoring school reading lists of "immorality" or 'foul language' and to allow the distribution of Bibles in schools. "In Texas, the nation's second-biggest school textbook market, the State Board of Education approved health textbooks that defined abstinence as the only form of contraception and changed the description of marriage between 'two people' to 'a lifelong union between a husband and a wife'."
San Francisco Chronicle 11/30/2004
12/05/2004
Cheating The Arts In KC?
Plans for Kansas City's huge new performing arts complex stalled recently after the city manager proposed moving the center's parking garage one block east. The center's backers claim that the new location, which is down a steep hill from the entrance, will be a major inconvenience for patrons, and several outside experts are now claiming that the move wouldn't actually save the city any money, either. "Some arts leaders are feeling like the poor cousins of downtown development: Making the garage more convenient to sports and entertainment and less convenient to the arts, they say, points to the city's relative lack of interest in the role of the arts in downtown's resurrection."
Kansas City Star 12/05/2004
12/05/2004
Finally, Some Good News From Florida
It's been a rough few years for the arts in South Florida, but recent trends seem to be signaling that better times are ahead. The state legislature has begun "rebuilding arts appropriations stripped during last year's cultural cleansing. Private and corporate philanthropy increased significantly this year... [and] the Miami-Dade County populace voted on Nov. 2 to spend nearly $553 million for arts and culture."
Florida Sun-Sentinel 12/05/2004
12/05/2004
The Lighter Side of Contract Negotiations
Lots of arts organizations negotiated new contracts with their musicians, dancers, and stagehands this year, and while the resulting documents usually make for fairly dull reading, there are a few notable contractual oddities scattered across the vast union landscape. The San Francisco Symphony notes that "the music of Ludwig van Beethoven need not be performed at Beethoven festivals." Cleveland Orchestra musicians taller than 6'4" are entitled to exit-row or bulkhead seating on tour flights. And dancers at the Houston Ballet Theater get a $47 bonus if they are required to simulate diving into a lake.
The New York Times 12/05/2004
12/05/2004
Attack Of The Killer Logo
The new Connecticut uber-agency on culture and tourism needed a logo. So a design firm came up with an abstract logo meant to evoke the agency's diverse mandate. Now there are big protests. "Instead of criticizing the art ("Have a conversation about art? Not me!") they attacked the cost. "This thing cost $10,000!" Of course, focusing on the final price tag disregards that such designs can cost much more (Hartford Stage's new logo went well above $10,000); that the fee included months of meetings with state committees; that this was a Connecticut designer with a world-class reputation giving a deep discount.
Hartford Courant 12/04/2004
12/05/2004
Why Copyright Matters
America's major entertainment unions and associations are taking a hard line on copyright infringement. "The question is not whether the technology is good or bad -- it simply is. The question is how we create a model which allows consumers the widest access and choices while ensuring that individual artists can sustain a career and continue to create. It is easy to attack the 'establishment' and the litigation-based solutions they are employing to try and deal with piracy. What is harder is to reconcile the fact that free access has a direct link to loss of income for individual actors and recording artists which, in turn, can result in everything from the loss of health and retirement benefits to the inability to continue to support a family or pursue a chosen career. "
Back Stage 12/03/2004
12/05/2004
A Loss For Copyright Challenge
Internet archivists have lost a case in American courts challenging recent copyright laws. ""The plaintiffs claim that removing registration and renewal requirements and expanding the term of copyright have made it virtually impossible for works to enter the public domain. Now, out-of-print albums and books -- many of which are not commercially viable -- are simply rotting away unused, but are still protected by copyright." The activists promise to appeal.
Wired 12/02/2004
12/05/2004
The No. 1 Threat To Creativity Today
"At just the moment when the technologies of borrowing, sharing, repackaging, and reinventing -- technologies such as blogs, wikis, peer-to-peer file sharing, full-text searching, digital video, and off-the-shelf music mixing software -- have become so powerful as engines for creative expression, copyright law permits, in effect, nothing at all. Just when the future of creative expression looks so promising, argues Lawrence Lessig, the claims of the past have been shored up, and they block the way."
Reason 11/29/2004
12/05/2004
Fox Appeals Record FCC Fines
Fox TV appeals record $1.18 million FCC fines for "indecency" on one of its shows. "Fox said the show was not indecent, and it argues that over-the-air broadcasters are now treated as "second-class citizens" by a Federal Communications Commission that unfairly holds them but not their rivals to decency standards."
The New York Times 12/03/2004
12/05/2004
Public Radio's Record Year
Public radio in America had a record year last year, with more listeners and more money raised than ever before. "The cumulative audience, those that tune it at least once per week, grew by 1.4 million listeners, to a national total of 27.2 million." This follows two years of growth.
Station Resource Group 12/01/2004
12/05/2004
Powell: FCC Has To Step In On Broadcast Indecency Complaints
FCC Chairman Michael Powell says chill. Take a breath. "We are not the federal Bureau of Indecency. We do not watch or listen to programs hoping to catch purveyors of dirty broadcasts. Instead, we rely on public complaints to point out potentially indecent shows. In recent years, complaints about television and radio broadcasts have skyrocketed, and the F.C.C. has stepped up its enforcement in response."
The New York Times 12/04/2004
12/05/2004
Should NPR Go Private?
Should National Public Radio be privatized? Its listenership is big enough to compete with commercial radio. "`Morning Edition' and `All Things Considered,' NPR's two signature news shows, are now the second and third most popular nationally distributed shows on U.S. radio (after Rush Limbaugh). Public radio is no longer in the business, or the anti-business, of serving minority tastes."
Bloomberg.com 11/30/2004
12/05/2004
History As A Selling Point
The New York Philharmonic is obsessed with its own history, to the extent that it keeps a running count of all the concerts it has ever performed in its program book. The continual focus on the ensemble's venerable status has a purpose, though: in a city as culturally rich as the Big Apple, it takes a lot to impress the populace, and the Phil counts on its status as an American original to bolster its modern reputation as one of the country's top orchestras.
The New York Times 12/05/2004
12/05/2004
More Red Ink In Minnesota, But Less Of It
The bad news for the Minnesota Orchestra is that it ran a $1.5 million deficit for the 2003-04 season. The good news is that the orchestra shaved a million dollars off the previous year's deficit, increased ticket sales, reached agreement on a cost-saving contract with its musicians, and launched a major new organizational strategic plan designed to eliminate the red ink within three years, all without looting the endowment. The orchestra's leadership says that this year's deficit could have been eliminated completely through extra endowment draws and accounting tricks, but they are trying to send a signal to potential donors that they intend to operate completely above board in turning their organization around.
Minneapolis Star Tribune 12/04/2004
12/05/2004
Milwaukee Symphony Posts Another Deficit
The Milwaukee Symphony had another bad financial year. The orchestra reports an "operating deficit of $2.9 million and a $169,000 decline in ticket revenue for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31. The accumulated debt now stands at $9.8 million. It could have been worse. The orchestra was projecting a $3.5 million operating deficit last January," but office staff was reduced by 17 positions, about 30%, to save the bulk of the $600,000 difference.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 12/02/2004
12/05/2004
Another Surplus In SF, But Red Ink In Sight
“The San Francisco Symphony finished its 2003-04 fiscal year with an unexpected $700,000 surplus on an operating budget of just over $50 million, according to a report presented at Monday's annual board meeting. The black ink was the result of some timely cost-cutting combined with stronger-than- anticipated ticket sales… But management isn't expecting the good times to last: The budget for the current year includes a planned deficit of more than $2 million.”
San Francisco Chronicle 12/01/2004
12/05/2004
Union Performers Sue San Francisco Opera
Union performers are suing San Francisco Opera in part over performances at a birthday party for music director Donald Runnicles. "The suit, brought by singers, dancers and production staff members, accused the opera of refusing to go to arbitration or to follow grievance procedures over the charges. 'They blatantly ignore us. They just kind of do what they want to do, and if it happens to violate the contract, 'Oops!' "
The New York Times 12/01/2004
12/05/2004
Minnesota Orchestra Signs New Contract With Musicians
Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra have ratified a new three-year contract that begins with a wage freeze. "Extraordinary circumstances in recent years require extraordinary gestures on our part. This will be an unprecedented second consecutive contract with a wage freeze in the first year and containing an overall salary increase significantly below the cost of living."
The Star-Tribune 11/30/2004
12/05/2004
Alabama Legisator Proposes Banning Gay Books
An Alabama legislator is proposing legislation that would ban books with gay characters or themes from libraries in the state. "Our culture, how we know it today, is under attack from every angle," Gerald Allen says. "Allen said that if his bill passes, novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed. 'I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them'."
Birmingham News 12/02/2004
12/05/2004
Requiem For A Bookstore
Boston's independent WordsWorth bookstore closed this fall, offering yet one more reminder of how much is lost to a community with the failure of an institution that everyone had assumed would always be there. "Sitting among the litter, among posters of authors such as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jack Germond and not far from a dracaena that looked dried out and defeated, [the store's owners] pondered what they'd lost to bankruptcy -- the bookstore at 30 Brattle Street that had led to their meeting and, eventually, their marriage, their two children, and all the exhilaration derived from nearly three decades of doing what they loved, which is living among, or... just touching books."
Boston Globe 12/01/2004
12/05/2004
Independent Bookstore Takes Aim At Manhattan
With small independent bookstores being squeezed out of business all over America, a new private venture aims to succeed in lower Manhattan...
The New York Times 11/30/2004
12/05/2004
Denver Center Theatre Chooses New Leaders
The Denver Center Theatre for the Performing Arts has tapped Kent Thompson as its new artistic director and Bruce K. Sevy as associate artistic director. Thompson and Sevy currently hold the same positions at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery.
Denver Post 12/03/2004
12/06/2004
Leading By A $10 Million Example
The chairman of Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center has donated $10 million to the arts complex, with all the money to be earmarked for theatre programming. Stephen Schwarzman's gift, which was intended partly to spur other contributions, is the largest the Kennedy Center has received 2004.
Washington Post 12/05/2004
12/06/2004
Afghanistan On Stage
Three years ago theatre was banned in Afghanistan. Now there's a national theatre festival - and even a play written by a woman, "The current revival is taking place in a climate of creative freedom. Many plays at the national festival have themes that are daring in Afghanistan - star-crossed lovers, hypocritical mullahs, corrupt provincial governors, smugglers of ancient cultural artifacts, and drug lords. But Afghans have not forgotten how to laugh - several plays take digs at doctors, policemen, and busybodies."
Christian Science Monitor 11/26/2004
12/06/2004
Will Las Vegas Be The New Broadway?
"About 2,500 miles to the west of Times Square, another major U.S. tourist Mecca, Las Vegas, is now being referred to by some as "Broadway West." Could a growing live-theatre industry in this glittery playground for gambling aficionados and lovers of flashy thrills pose a threat to the Great White Way and to the national theatre-tour market?"
Back Stage 11/30/2004
12/06/2004
Basel Miami Fair Opens Big
This year's Art Basel Miami Beach opens, bigger than ever. More galleries, more artists, more media, more collectors and even more celebrities are participating in the fair than ever before -- creating an energy unlike any other art fair in America."
Miami Herald 12/03/2004
12/13/2004
Art School Grant Raises Eyebrows
A new art school in Philadelphia has scored a major grant from the Delaware River Port Authority, and some officials are asking how a small-scale start-up operation could be awarded a quarter of a million dollars in bridge toll proceeds (nearly twice the school's entire annual operating budget) while other, more established arts groups go begging. The answer appears to be that school officials have friends in very high political places - friends who lobbied hard for Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell to approve the grant quickly and quietly.
Philadelphia Inquirer 12/12/2004
12/13/2004
Up In The Sky! It's A Billboard! It's A Beer Ad! No! It's Art!
When Minneapolis's Walker Art Center closed for a full year in order to renovate and expand, it launched "Walker Without Walls", a series of events and installations intended to keep the museum's name on everyone's lips. The most constantly visible example of the museum's efforts has been a large billboard on one of the city's main downtown streets, which has featured a new specially created artwork by a different artist each month. But what is the public actually getting out of the billboard, which offers no explanation of what it is or why it's there? One passer-by mistook the latest billboard for a beer ad - "Red Stripe, I think. Definitely not Budweiser" - and another thinks she sees "dried-up death on one side."
City Pages Minneapolis/St Paul 12/12/2004
12/13/2004
LA City Audit Reveals Missing Art
An audit of artwork owned by city agencies in Los Angeles suggests that hundreds of pieces of art are missing. "The city has maintained its own art collection since at least the 1920s. There was a person who was supposed to be the curator of this collection, and he allowed city entities to borrow pieces to decorate city buildings. The problem was that over the years, the artwork that had been checked out was not really followed up on."
Los Angeles Daily News 12/04/2004
12/13/2004
A Place At The Architectural Table
Washington, D.C. is experiencing a theatre building boom, and the designs reflect not only an impressive devotion to audience comfort, but a revolutionary new way of looking at the building process. "For the first time, many theater artists are sitting at the design table, shaping the spaces in which they'll practice their craft."
Washington Post 12/12/2004
12/13/2004
Changing Patterns In NY Theatre
How are people deciding to go to the theatre in New York? It's changing: "Our research shows if you're a young person in your 20s and you want all New York has to offer, you read Time Out New York or The Village Voice. In other words, the Times is less important, and nothing beats word of mouth. Well, one of the things we're interested in is how to build word of mouth as news coverage shrinks."
Back Stage 12/09/2004
12/13/2004
Computer Model Predicts Book Sales
A new computer model is proving accurate in predicting how books will sell. "Information about a book travels through the network of potential buyers in two possible fashions: exogenous and endogenous. Exogenous shocks come from sources outside the system they affect, like billboards or newspaper articles; endogenous shocks are made up of very small exogenous shocks that happen in a coordinated fashion, like word-of-mouth recommendations. The model predicts how sales will decline after they peak according to how the peak occurred."
MIT Technology Review 12/12/2004
12/13/2004
Arts Prize Gets A New Chief
The Cleveland Arts Prize, which recognizes local artists who have attained national attention for their work, has named Terri Pontremoli as its new executive director. Pontremoli had previously managed a jazz festival in the city, and had raised $6 million for local jazz groups.
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 12/09/2004
12/13/2004
Michael Kaiser - Mr. Fix-It
During the last 20 years Mr. Kaiser has made a minor art form of turning around troubled ballet and opera companies, including American Ballet Theater, the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation and the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London. His latest accomplishment - resurrecting Dance Theatre of Harlem. "Within five or six weeks, Mr. Kaiser helped the company retire its debts, find a new executive director, expand its board and begin facing the future. 'I needed to show troubled organizations around the country that you can fix your problems. I take very little credit for the actual implementation. They've done it'."
The New York Times 12/09/2004
12/13/2004
Axelrod Pleads Guilty In Tax Case
Herbert Axelrod, the New Jersey businessman famous for selling a collection of rare violins to the New Jersey Symphony, "pleaded guilty to a federal tax fraud count yesterday in a deal that spares the elderly millionaire from the threat of prosecution on a panoply of other dubious acts... The count, aiding and abetting the filing of a false tax return, carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison, but prosecutors have agreed to seek a term of 12 to 18 months."
Newark Star-Ledger 12/09/2004
12/13/2004
Suing Wal-Mart For Obscene Lyrics
The parents of a 13-year-old are suing Wal-Mart for selling music with "obscene" lyrics. "The lawsuit seeks to force Wal-Mart to censor the music or remove it from its stores in Maryland. It also seeks damages of up to $74,500 for every customer who bought the CD at Maryland Wal-Marts, and also naming record label Wind-Up Records and distributor BMG Entertainment in the legal action."
BBC 12/12/2004
12/13/2004
News Flash: Diplomas Don't Win Auditions
New York's Juilliard School might be the world's most famous training ground for young musicians. But even armed with a Juilliard degree, the highly competitive world of classical music is a tough place to make a living, and no one on an orchestral audition committee will give a rip where you went to school if you can't nail that fast run in Don Juan four times in a row. A look at Juilliard's graduating class of 1994 reveals that, ten years removed from the school's rigorous teachings, some have gone on to great success as soloists or orchestral musicians; others have become teachers themselves; and still others have given up the dream of playing music professionally altogether.
New York Times 12/11/2004
12/13/2004
A Failed Chamber Music Org - 3 Cents On The Dollar
Two years after it suddenly shut down operations, the Washington Chamber Society has settled claims of creditors. "And so a listener who put down more than $500 for two subscriptions to the announced 2002-03 season ended up receiving a refund check for $19.07 -- more than two years later."
Washington Post 12/10/2004
12/13/2004
St. Louis Symphony Managers Seeking Musician Pay Cuts
There's still one U.S. orchestra without a new musicians' contract, and talks seem to have bogged down at the St. Louis Symphony, where the current agreement runs out on January 2. "Management has made one financial proposal to the union. That suffered an 'overwhelming rejection' at a union meeting on Nov. 8. Management, according to the memo, has refused to make a counterproposal to the union's last offer... Management sources, speaking anonymously, have said that given the Symphony's commitment to a balanced budget, it cannot commit to higher salaries without a larger income. Management's current proposal would reduce musician salaries, reportedly to $61,000 a year."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch 12/08/2004
12/13/2004
Fiscal Turnaround In Detroit
The Detroit Symphony has rebounded from three straight years of deficits and posted a small surplus for the 2003-04 season. "Some factors leading to the positive financial news are unique and unlikely to be repeated. The October 2003 opening of the orchestra's new home, the Max M. Fisher Music Center, was a once-in-a-lifetime event; the gala that marked the opening netted $1 million." The persistent deficits led the DSO to replace its executive director last winter, and the orchestra's musicians agreed to reopen their contract early and make significant concessions to stem the tide of red ink.
Detroit Free Press 12/09/2004
12/13/2004
Music From Opposite Ends Of The Earth
New instant communications technology links audiences in one part of the world with those in another. At Carnegie Hall "it was a simulcast music exchange in which 450 students in New York and 200 more in New Delhi listened to music together, chatted with one another and danced, with the help of a 22-foot-wide movie screen and some good speakers."
The New York Times 12/08/2004
12/13/2004
Buffalo Philharmonic Sees Red
Despite a great season that included its first trip to Carnegie Hall in 16 years, the Buffalo Philharmonic posted an operating deficit of $1.1 million. "Management said weakness in fund-raising and ticket sales, higher costs for performances and health care and a onetime real estate write-off from the sale of the Birge Mansion contributed to the loss." And prospects could be worse for the next season...
Buffalo News 12/07/2004
12/13/2004
FCC: The Olympics May Be Hazardous To Your Moral Compass
The FCC has asked the NBC television network to turn over tape of the opening ceremonies of last summer's Olympic Games, so that the agency can investigate viewer complaints about its content. No one seems to know exactly what portion of the Athens ceremony raised hackles with American viewers, but it may have something to do with the partially unclothed state of some of the traditional Olympic poses adopted by actors in the show. Or maybe it was the woman wading in a puddle who "appeared to have been impregnated by someone who was radioactive, but we cannot say with certainty whether that was Greek or just weird."
Washington Post 12/11/2004
12/13/2004
The Great Big FCC Road Show
Some FCC commissioners have been taking the broadcast regulation biz on the road lately, hosting public forums in cities across the country. A stop in St. Paul revealed a growing public discontent with corporate consolidation of American mass media, but little consensus over what should be done about it. In Minnesota, where the biggest media presence is actually a public radio network, some activists are stressing the importance of diverse community involvement, while others lament the decline of programming that serves rural residents, such as farm news.
St. Paul Pioneer Press 12/11/2004
12/13/2004
Banning The S-Word
In a sane world, the new biopic of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey would have become a minor hit with a small moviegoing demographic, might have picked up a few Oscar nominations, and would have been basically ignored by everyone else. But the U.S. is no longer a sane world when it comes to sex, says Frank Rich, and the newly emboldened "moral values" crowd is chomping at the bit to impose their repressive views on anyone who dares to defy their will. Kinsey is the right's newest target, but this battle isn't about a movie or a long-dead scientist. It's about a segment of the population that wants to take the country back to the bad old days when no one talked about sex, for any reason, ever, consequences be damned.
The New York Times 12/11/2004
12/13/2004
Movie Morals Police: Back To the 1930s
Some groups are protesting the movie "Kinsey," claiming that the movie glamorizes someone they blame for weakening American morals. "Such organizations don't really care about "Kinsey" - an art-house picture that, however well reviewed or Oscar-nominated, will be seen by a relatively small audience, mostly in blue states. The film is just this month's handy pretext for advancing the larger goal of pushing sex of all nonbiblical kinds back into the closet and undermining any scientific findings, whether circa 1948 or 2004, that might challenge fundamentalist sexual orthodoxy as successfully as Darwin challenged Genesis."
The New York Times 12/12/2004
12/13/2004
99 Percent Of FCC Complaints Made By One Group
In 2001 and 2002, the FCC received only a few hundred "indecency" complaints. Then last year the number soared to 240,000. Growing concern by the public? Hardly. "According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group."
MediaWeek 12/06/2004
12/13/2004
What Does It Take To Be Creative?
"Almost all of the research in this field shows that anyone with normal intelligence is capable of doing some degree of creative work. Creativity depends on a number of things: experience, including knowledge and technical skills; talent; an ability to think in new ways; and the capacity to push through uncreative dry spells. Intrinsic motivation -- people who are turned on by their work often work creatively -- is especially critical."
Fast Company 12/01/2004
12/13/2004
Musicians: What We Think About File-Sharing
A first-ever study of attitudes towards file-sharing records what musicians think about the issue: "Among the findings: artists are divided but on the whole not deeply concerned about online file-sharing. Only about half thought that sharing unauthorized copies of music and movies online should be illegal, for instance. And makers of file-sharing software like Kazaa and Grokster may be unnerved to learn that nearly two-thirds said such services should be held responsible for illegal file-swapping; only 15 percent held individual users responsible."
The New York Times 12/06/2004
12/13/2004
Better Times For South Florida Arts
Arts funding is looking up in South Florida. "Here in South Florida, the Miami-Dade County populace voted on Nov. 2 to spend nearly $553 million for arts and culture. That was just one of eight categories on a $2.9 billion bond issue, each of which passed ballot muster."
The Sun-Sentinel (Florida) 12/05/2004
12/13/2004
In Minnesota: Arts Giving Up, Social Services Down
"In all, Minnesota's 12 largest arts organization -- driven largely by proceeds from major capital campaigns -- saw total revenue rise 18.1 percent. Meanwhile, total revenue generated by the state's 29 largest social service agencies -- from Lutheran Social Services to Catholic Charities to the Salvation Army -- fell 4.4 percent."
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune 12/12/2004
12/13/2004
Learning The Lessons Of North Adams
Could the success of MassMOCA in revitalizing the town of North Adams be repeated elsewhere? Researchers are planning to find out. "The question is, can this be translated to other communities as a model, or are there special things about North Adams that have contributed to its growth? That's what we're trying to find out."
Berkshire Eagle 12/12/2004
12/13/2004
US Bans Some Foreign Writers
American publishers are under US government sanctions not to publish works by foreign writers in certain countries. "In an apparent reversal of decades of U.S. practice, recent federal Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations bar American companies from publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless they first obtain U.S. government approval. The restriction, condemned by critics as a violation of the First Amendment, means that books and other works banned by some totalitarian regimes cannot be published freely in the United States."
Philadelphia Inquirer (AP) 12/12/2004
12/13/2004
Proposal: Cut SF Arts Funding
The chairman of San Francisco's budget committee last week "recommended taking roughly $800,000 from the combined budgets of the opera, symphony and ballet in order to keep more social services afloat during mid-year reductions. The sum equates to half The City's current backing, which performing arts supporters point out has already been reduced by 25 percent."
San Francisco Examiner 12/10/2004
12/22/2004
Boston Pops, Recording Mogul
When RCA decided to end its contract with the Boston Pops, the orchestra decided to go into the recording business itself. "That means there's no big record company to pick up the tab for studio time, promotion, and even pressing new CDs. Instead, the Pops have gone into the recording business, laying out money normally provided by a label. This is the new business model, and it's risky. It's why conductor Keith Lockhart is being trotted out for 18 signings this holiday season."
Boston Globe 12/19/2004
12/22/2004
Virtual Orchestra Battle Spreads To California
A touring production of the musical Oliver! opened this week in California, with a machine in the orchestra pit and live musicians protesting outside the front door. As in similar disputes in New York, producers claim that the so-called "virtual orchestra" synthesizer is nothing more than a versatile new instrument which augments the sound of the show's 10 live musicians, while the local musicians' union claims that the Sinfonia, as it is known, takes jobs away from trained musicians.
Costa Mesa (CA) Daily Pilot 12/22/2004
12/22/2004
Loss of Traffic Reports Jeopardizes Minnesota Jazz
Minneapolis has already lost one of its classical music radio stations this year, and now, the city's full-time jazz station may be in trouble after losing a $400,000 annual contract with the Minnesota Department of Transportation. KBEM, which is owned by the Minneapolis school district, drew half its annual operating budget from the MNDOT contract, under which the station aired extensive traffic reports every ten minutes during rush hours. With the state deciding to pull the plug on the reports, the station, known as Jazz 88, will likely be forced to make staff cuts and may have to significantly scale back its commitment to inner-city education.
Minneapolis Star Tribune 12/22/2004
12/22/2004
Minnesota's Jazzdance To Fold
Jazzdance, one of the best-known, longest-running dance companies in the Twin Cities, will take its last steps in a farewell concert in April, then cease operations. Founder Danny Buraczeski is closing his nine-member company after 25 years. Buraczeski, who began as a dancer in New York, formed Jazzdance in New York in 1979 and moved to the Twin Cities in 1989... At its height, in 1999, Jazzdance had an annual budget of about $550,000, Buraczeski said. This year the figure is about $175,000.
Minneapolis Star Tribune 12/17/2004
12/22/2004
Talking 'Bout A Content Revolution
The Federal Trade Commission brought representatives of the recording industry together with purveyors of peer-to-peer file sharing networks last week for a two-day workshop designed to find common ground between the warring factions. There doesn't appear to be much, but at the very least, such face-to-face meetings take away both sides' ability to posture, and force everyone involved to consider the logic of the opposing position. Still, peer-to-peer network operators insist that the recording industry isn't interested in any partnership that doesn't completely wipe out file sharing, and solutions appear to be a long way off.
Wired 12/17/2004
12/22/2004
Film Festivals Everywhere
In the last 10 years, film festivals have spread across the country. According to the Web site filmfestivals.com, there are roughly 2,500 worldwide. Withoutabox, a Los Angeles-based company that helps filmmakers apply to film festivals, estimates that there are 950 festivals in the United States alone, with 300 more in Canada; in North America, there are 100 Jewish film festivals, 30 gay and lesbian film festivals, and 279 festivals that either focus on animation or have animation categories.
The New York Times 12/16/2004
12/22/2004
Cleveland's Culture Crisis
Cleveland arts groups have experienced a significant downturn in business, selling fewer tickets. "Some blame temporary causes, like the continuing bad economy. Other short-term explanations include lingering worries about terrorism and the war in Iraq, and distraction during and disappointment (in some quarters) with the presidential election. Others suggest paradigm shifts to which the performing arts may be hard-pressed to adapt."
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 12/21/2004
12/22/2004
US Reverses Embargo On Publishing Cubans, Iranians
The US has changed a policy that had banned American publishers from working with dissident authors in certain counries. "The rule change by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control comes after Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi sued the United States because its economic embargo on Iran blocked U.S. publication of her memoirs. The new rule allows U.S. publishers to engage in 'most ordinary publishing activities' with people in Cuba, Iran and Sudan, while maintaining restrictions on interactions with government officials and agents of those countries."
Philadelphia Inquirer (Reuters) 12/16/2004
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