Category: issues

Thomas Menino, Boston’s self-styled arts mayor, wants desperately to help out the city’s baseball team. “In a plan championed by the mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, Menino effectively told Boston’s struggling artists the following: If you help me drum up support for subsidized housing for the Sox, there might be some cash in it for you.” – Boston Herald

“Do you cancel a play if it provokes violence on the streets? Do you accept an exhibition of paintings collected by a businessman jailed for defrauding shareholders?” Such ethical dilemmas were discussed Monday at ‘Turn up the Heat’, an ethics conference of arts administrators in Sydney. – Sydney Morning Herald

Britain’s Culture Secretary Chris Smith unveiled a huge funding package for the arts Tuesday to rejuvenate the country’s arts infrastructures – regional theatres in particular – that have suffered tremendously during more than twenty years of lackluster government support. The Arts Council of England will receive an extra £100m a year from 2003, the biggest increase in funding in its 44-year history. “What it says is that access to arts and creativity is a basic, like health and education.” – The Guardian

• AND THE SQUEAKY WHEEL… Arts Council Chairman Gerry Robinson has been lobbying the government for an extra £100 million in arts funding for months – and yesterday’s announcement proves they heard him loud and clear. “He badgered the Prime Minister and Chancellor to the point where, he believes, “I seriously p***ed people off. At the end of the day, someone like Blair or Brown will say, ‘Oh, for Chrissakes just give them the money.'” – The Telegraph (UK)

Philadelphia restaurant critic goes for lunch in New York’s hot new restaurant. “It is enough to do a triple take at the prices, even as you settle into the Brazilian rosewood and gold-trimmed opulence of the dining room, with its Neapolitan fabrics, polished black columns and exploding rose bouquets. Did I just order a $50 appetizer? An $80 steak? Coca-Cola for $8? Uh-huh.” – Philadelphia Inquirer

“Beauty as presently defined is indistinguishable from ugliness. Relativism is a contagion that makes judgment impossible. As a consequence, anything goes, whether it’s dirty jeans, unkempt starlets, or a fashion statement that emulates homelessness.” – American Outlook

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri (“Interpreter of Maladies”) reflects on the elusive nature of identity politics and the need of readers and critics alike to compartmentalize authors. “Take, for instance, the various ways I am described: as an American author, as an Indian-American author, as a British-born author, as an Anglo-Indian author, as an NRI (non-resident Indian) author, as an ABCD author (ABCD stands for American born confused “desi”). According to Indian academics, I’ve written something known as “Diaspora fiction”; in the U.S., it’s “immigrant fiction.” In a way, all of this amuses me.” – Feed  

An article published in Australia last week argued, in essence, “that Australian universities are involved in the economically irrational overproduction of students with the generalist degree in the humanities and social sciences, the bachelor of arts.” Yet at a time when students are being convinced that education is for the primary purpose of getting a job, the arts degree is still valuable. – Sydney Morning Herald

“Despite the dreary, outdated prejudices of some of our burnt-out critics, tabloid hacks and politicians from all parties, it is clear that the arts, including museums and galleries, have never been more interesting or more popular and have never played such a significant role in national life as they do today. Recent MORI research for the Arts Council showed huge public support for the arts, with 78 per cent believing that the arts play a valuable role in the life of the nation, and 95 per cent believing that children should have more opportunities to experience the arts at school.” – New Statesman

• ON THE OTHER HAND: “The first task is to shift spending away from institutions and into individuals and art itself. What is the point of having some of the most well-appointed theatres and galleries in Europe if there is nothing to put on in them? Throughout the Thatcher years arts bureaucracy grew while the work withered. That has to change.” – The Guardian

• “People are feeling that since English has become a dominant language through electronic technology, there is less and less pragmatic use for knowing foreign languages. We’re seeing a loss of language teaching in the high schools…so fewer and fewer students come to universities wanting to study [languages]. It’s a domino effect in many ways.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

In what’s been hailed as a “virtuoso demonstration of cultural leadership,” Brian McMaster has revitalized the Edinburgh Festival since becoming director nine years ago. He “wooed back the world-class ensembles, wowed the critics by staging daring epics that no other impresario could risk; and still managed to lift sponsorship and box office income to record levels.” – The Times (UK)