Category: issues

A new study of the economic impact of the arts in New England has been released. “The ‘creative industry’ makes up 3.5 percent of New England’s total job base – more than our software or medical technology industries. It is growing at a remarkable rate of 14 percent each year – nearly twice as fast as the average rate of job growth in New England.”-  Boston Globe

• MANY BENEFITS: “An investment in the arts and culture generates remarkable returns in the form of successful enterprises, a superior work force, high quality of life and New England’s competitiveness.” – Boston Herald

“It’s said that art can heal, whether it’s fiction, poetry, music, painting, theatre or some other happy obsession. People for whom art matters tend to agree. However cynical we are, on some level we imagine that a Schubert quartet or a Chekhov story or an afternoon looking at Renaissance painting will improve us. We’ll be more serene, and with luck we’ll be intellectually broader. And in some way, art will elevate us morally. Art is made, after all, by superior creatures.” But is it true? – National Post (Canada)

Copyright laws have been out of date for years. “The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 was supposed to clear up copyright issues in the Internet era. That hasn’t exactly happened. Instead, there have been a series of lawsuits between the recording and motion picture industries, private companies and individual users, seeking clarification on how intellectual property is protected as music and video moves to the digital world.” – Wired

From a British perspective, the American way of funding the arts is problematic – Americans are dependent on conservative private funders and don’t have the benefit of significant government funding the way most European artists have. On the other hand, the Americans don’t much like the idea of government interference in their artistic affairs. – New Statesman

If Harold Bloom’s new book “How to Read and Why” seems smug and condescending, that’s because it is. The book claims to be a practical guide to show us how to read great literature and provide the reason why. “But Professor Bloom’s own rhetoric is so poisonously alienating to the general reader – with its mandarin locutions and tireless self-congratulation – that he ends up sounding like a parody of the jargon-spouting Neo-post-whatever-ists he keeps complaining about.” – New York Magazine

Under a new Australian tax system, all small businesses (including artists) must have an Australian Business Number or face having 48.5 per cent withholding tax taken out of every payment they receive. But many aboriginal artists on the edge of the Tanami Desert in the Northern Territory operate largely outside the formal economy. “Advocates for the Aboriginal arts industry claim it is unrealistic to expect most of the estimated 18,000 Aboriginal artists who derive an income from their creative work to comply with the details of the new tax system.” – Sydney Morning Herald

Jane Alexander’s new memoir recalls the battles over arts funding while she was chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. – Washington Post

Vivian Duffield – Britain’s best and most flamboyant fundraiser for the arts shares some of her secrets (and the news that she will soon be leaving her job). – The Telegraph (UK) 

At the end of a nine-day arts festival, city leaders in Charleston announce that the city will create a $5 million arts endowment. – The Post and Courier (Charleston)

It’s “Sound of Music” meets “Rocky Horror Picture Show” and it’s the hottest new thing in high camp at the movies in London. Audiences are massing to sing along with the Von Trapps and dress up for the parts. Meet the man who invented a phenomenon. – Los Angeles Times