Category: issues

“After more than a century of professional literary criticism, when the erudite few lorded over discussions of artistic merit, the rules have changed. Thanks to the Internet, anybody can now join ongoing – and very public – evaluations of books, recordings, films and many other materials, with a potential audience of millions of readers. – Washington Post 10/15/00

“During the past decade, new American performing arts facilities have been popping up like mushrooms after a rain, but architecturally they’ve been a pusillanimous lot. When not actively nostalgic, as in Fort Worth’s Bass Performance Hall, they’ve tended to favor a kind of buttoned-down corporate look, as in Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, or shopping-mall lite, as in Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center and West Palm Beach’s Kravis Center.” – Dallas Morning News 10/15/00

Ireland’s Arts Council has been wracked with turmoil this year – board resignations, demoralized staff, and everywhere criticism even as the council was laying plans to spend £100 million over the next three years. – The Sunday Times (UK) 10/15/00

Eight years ago Pat Buchanan was calling a “cultural war” in the United States. But this presidential campaign “the blistering cultural issues of the early ’90s – federal funding of the arts, naughty pictures, tart-tongued, disrobed performers – are on today’s back burners. The anti-arts, far-right-wing Buchanan voice lost. They thought it would be easy, the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts based on arguments of pornography and blasphemy. And they lost.” – Philadelphia Inquirer 10/15/00

Does intellectual ability decline with age? Does our brain begin to lose its tone after the age of 30? That’s the age when physicists and mathematicians are thought to have passed their prime. On the other hand, historians often don’t make their best contributions until they’ve reached their 60s. – Feed 10/12/00

Las Vegas, hungry to prove that it has a sophisticated side, is the first American city to join an international program for writers escaping terror or turmoil. – Los Angeles Times 10/12/00

The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation has awarded $250,000 to a young Singaporean violinist to further her career. The award is the first of the bank’s Youth Excellence Initiatives. “To aspirants, she will show that there will be support if you have the talent.” – The Straits Times (Singapore) 10/12/00

A new book charges that the contemporary art world has become far too narrow-minded. “Shock art is the safest kind of art that an artist can go into the business of making today. The real mavericks of our time have been working quietly and carefully for years in their studios producing wonderful work few people have seen. And that even though the NEA is not the cause of the various ills we’ve seen, it is to a great degree an embodiment of the problem.” – Salon 10/12/00

Boston’s mayor likes to boast of his commitment to the arts. But a new report suggests that Boston’s Office of Cultural Affairs is in disarray. Last month a request for a three-year grant to the Boston Office of Cultural Affairs from the state was rejected by a panel. The city was further embarrassed when the state panel gave the Boston agency the lowest rating of all 36 applications by arts organizations across the state. – Boston Herald 10/11/00

The Big Break – it’s what performers live for. It’s what makes their careers. But what about those very talented musicians whose Big Break never comes? What are the forces that conspire to be that Big Break? – Philadelphia Inquirer 10/10/00