Category: issues

“Just last week, architect Daniel Libeskind suggested that contemporary museum designers could learn a lot from shopping malls. Contemporary experience is riddled with such categorical confusions. The commonplace becomes the aristocratic, an elite finds its values affirmed in the everyday. As much as debate on high and low culture seeks to affirm their difference, increasingly what emerges is a recognition of their equivalence.” – The Age (Melbourne) 10/23/00

A century ago in Paris, “when artists couldn’t find a place to live, they would look for an uninhabited building and claim their right, under French law, to squat.” The practice has been making a comeback, and today there are some 15 artist squats in Paris. “Some cater to visual art, others to music and still others to theatre.” – CBC 10/23/00

Singapore’s minister for information and the arts called on his country’s artists to “balance artistic integrity with social responsibility, as they develop the arts scene here. ‘Artists sometimes appear to forget that they have audiences… Great art can be shocking or startling, but perhaps it is more important it be compelling and intelligent. It can be bold and daring, but it should also be sensitive and searching.” – The Straits Times (Singapore)

“Last year, Damien Hirst made a tidy sum by producing a limited edition design for Camel cigarettes. Now, the anti-smoking lobby, having seen the wonders a little artistic street-cred can do for the tobacco industry, has decided to beat the cigarette barons at their own game. An exhibition will open in London next month displaying the work of 20 contemporary artists commissioned to produce images to encourage people to give up.” – The Independent (UK) 10/22/00

Australian performing arts audiences stand to receive about $2 million in refunds, following the Australian government’s decision to exempt arts organizations from the GST tax it imposed earlier this year, thereby initiating a retroactive refund of all qualifying tickets purchased since July 1. – Sydney Morning Herald 10/20/00

The Las Vegas lounge lizard is slithering away. More and more of the Vegas lounges are closing, and the lounge singer – as true a symbol of Vegas as any – is being replaced (mostly by magicians and illusionists). – Chicago Tribune (AP) 10/20/00

With rising rents and artists being evicted from their work spaces, “San Francisco is in danger of becoming a place where art is presented but no longer created. Everybody knows what the problem is: lots of money and new development increasingly putting cutting-edge culture out on the streets. Can the city prevent further erosion of its diverse artistic heritage? Some say it may be too late.” – San Francisco Chronicle 10/19/00

• MIGRATION: Where are the artists leaving San Francisco going? “Some are moving to New York, traditionally the mecca for artists. A number of artists and gallery owners are relocating to Los Angeles, a sprawling megalopolis where warehouses and apartments are far more plentiful and less expensive, and the gallery scene is popping.” – San Francisco Chronicle 10/19/00
  
  
• THE HAVES GET HAVIER: While leading-edge ensembles and artists struggle to keep their heads above water financially, the good times – and the bucks – are rolling at the city’s major arts organizations. – San Francisco Chronicle 10/19/00
  
  
• OTHER CITIES/SAME SCENARIO: Other cities – such as Chicago and Seattle – in the midst of economic good times are having the same problems with high rents displacing artists. – San Francisco Chronicle 10/19/00

The Australian government has decided to exempt high-art organizations from the 10 percent GST tax it began imposing earlier this year. The decision “effectively puts organisations including the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Victorian Ballet, Playbox and Opera Australia in the same tax-exemption category as charity groups and school fetes.” – The Herald Sun (Melbourne)

London’s Millennium Dome might have been an enormous political, financial and popular flop, but it was a hit with builders. The British Construction Industry Association has given the Dome its top honor. The Dome’s “roof covers twice the area of any comparable structure in the world and was built in just a year, for a lower cost per unit area than the cheapest retail shed.” – The Telegraph (UK) 10/19/00

The head of the Canadian province of Alberta’s government arts funder has a new formula for awarding grants, and the arts groups don’t like it: “When I first arrived, grants were based on how much money you spent, and my view is, that just encouraged profligate spending. I said, no, grants should be based on revenue. So there’s a huge incentive to go out there and raise money in the community, to sell tickets, to do whatever you have to do.” – CBC 10/18/00