Category: issues

• NEA chairman Bill Ivey on supporting the arts: “Society devalues art. The arts are still on the fringe. They are in the style section of the newspaper. And yet we frame our most pressing social concerns around art and art-making. The arts don’t matter until they get under our skin; then we realize we use art to talk to each other about a whole range of issues. The arts irritate us.” – Chicago Tribune

• Just as Doctors Without Borders delivers medical care in troubled countries, Clowns Sans Frontières (Clowns Without Borders) delivers humor. And Fake noses. “The kids [in Kosovo] had never seen anyone like us. I don’t think really they even knew what a clown is.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

Since only a small percentage of artists are able to support themselves working full-time on their art, the vast majority rely on income from other salaried work. Now the Australian government is drafting legislation to limit artists’ tax deductions that could make it that much harder to earn a living wage. The government’s real target has been tax evasion by rich professionals, but artists writing off work expenses and losses will be the “collateral victims.” – Sydney Morning Herald

Australian Federal Arts Minister Richard Alston, who has been criticized in the past for his preoccupation with the communications industries, is set to “become an unlikely hero when he announces a massive increase in arts funding next week.” After a nationwide performing arts report found many Australian arts companies to be burdened by debt, Alston is “proposing that funding to Australia’s 31 major performing arts companies be increased by about $67 million over four years.” – The Age (Melbourne)

The New Zealand government has appointed a commission of cultural experts to study how the country can boost culture and help make it better contribute to the economy. “What we don’t want to happen is for everyone to trundle up and say, ‘Give me a lot of money and I could do a lot better.’ We assume that.” – New Zealand Herald

Berlin’s cultural institutions are crying about being underfunded. Now the city’s tourism office warns that any further cuts in cultural funding will imperil the city’s tourism. “Key to solving the acrimonious debate between cultural institutions, city politicians and national culture officials over who can best to manage the capital’s culture, how to manage it, and how much money to spend, is a willingness to begin deep-going restructuring,” says the official charged with promoting tourism. – Die Welt (Germany)

Charlton Heston, speaking at Georgetown University last night, declared a culture war. “Our culture has traded in the bloody arena fights of ancient Rome for state fights on Sally, Ricki, Jerry, Maury, Jenny and Rosie. . . . Our one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all, now seems more like the fractured streets of Beirut, echoing with anger.” – Washington Post

Sven Birkerts says computers are eroding our ability to read deeply. Internet speed discourages reflective reading of literature and we skip across oceans of information without diving deep. “We’ve reached a critical juncture in the transition from print culture to screen culture,” he says, and “We’re metamorphosing from individual and private people to fungible, Web-linked brain connectors in a bright, buzzy, gregarious info-hive.” He couldn’t be more wrong, declares one critic. – Salon

Performing arts scholars meet to discuss the future of traditional performing arts in India, concluding that concern over their impending death is exaggerated. – Times of India

Novelist Margaret Atwood tells the Toronto City Council they need to spend more on the arts or artists will leave the city. “Currently, the City of Toronto spends $11 per capita on arts and culture. Vancouver spends nearly twice that: $21 per capita annually. And New York City spends $63 per person per year on the arts” – CBC