A year of organizational woes for Spoleto, what with the tourism boycott and a key injury to one of the artists. But this year’s edition is “artistically potent” in one critic’s estimation. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Category: issues
MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR ARTS FUNDING
As do most ex-chairpeople of the National Endowment for the Arts, Jane Alexander has written a book about her experience running the American public arts funder. “From her coy pose on the cover, to the last desperate Shakespeare quotation, Jane Alexander has…produced a stunning argument for saving trees. This account of her tenure as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1993 to 1997, unfortunately reads like a high school student’s account of a summer abroad. – The Idler
THE “F” WORD
Artists at the Spoleto Festival address the issue of flying the Confederate flag on state buildings in South Carolina. The festival has felt a tourism boycott over the issue. – The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
GST JITTERS
Sydney’s cultural institutions are bracing themselves for a projected drop in attendance when Australia’s GST (Goods and Services Tax) goes into effect July 1st. The Sydney Theatre Company and Symphony Orchestra plan to raise ticket prices 10 percent and fear the new tax will have the same adverse impact on sales that Britain’s VAT did when introduced in the 1970s. – Sydney Morning Herald
EAST AFRICAN ART FOR 200
What Ugandan city is the birthplace East Africa’s modern art movement? To what neighboring city did Ugandan artists flee during the political unrest of the 1970’s? What year was the first academy established for the study of modern art? Check your answers here. – Legacy (Africa)
PHOTOGRAPHER WINS
A day after the Supreme Court declined to stop them, 150 people posed nude under New York’s Williamsburg Bridge for a photographer. – ABC News
MUSEUMS GRAPPLE WITH FUNDING ETHICS
Ever since last year’s revelations about funding for the Brooklyn Museum’s “Sensation” show, museums have been thinking hard about how they fund exhibitions. Last week, New York’s Metropolitan Museum canceled a show of Coco Chanel’s work. “I need to be able to assure people that what they see on the walls is not inflected by the money we receive to do an exhibition,” Met director Philippe de Montebello told The New York Times. “And if I can’t make that assurance, I’m not doing it.” – New Jersey Online
AN ANTI-ART TAX
A proposed new tax law in Australia would penalize artists by not allowing them to claim their art expenses against income. But a campaign is mounting to make sure the measure doesn’t become law. – The Age (Melbourne)
“I’M AN ARTIST AND THE MEDIA IS MY CANVAS”
Joey Skaggs has “spent his whole career hoodwinking journalists and proving that they shouldn’t believe a word anyone says without doing a thorough background check. ‘I have never been busted,’ he says, sighing. ‘That is the sad truth.'” – Boston Globe
“CLASSIC MUMBO-JUMBO”
Presidential candidate announces an investigation into why so many Hollywood movies are fleeing Canada. “One recent report by the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America said so-called runaway production has cost the Los Angeles film community 20,000 jobs and cost the U.S. economy $10 billion. But Canadians question the claims. B.C.’s production industry, the biggest in Canada, is worth about $1 billion, so where’s the rest? – Vancouver Sun