Category: issues

Hong Kong has rolled out the red carpet for Disney and its new theme park. Singapore Straits Times

“Cultural organizations were some of the first people on the Net, and certain names are very valuable. And now there are people who are trying to cash in.” Wired

The northeast corner of Tokyo boasts the biggest concentration of museums in the country. Now a plan to make a cultural zone out of them. The Art Newspaper

Controversy has erupted around the Golden Globe awards over policy of allowing the giving of promotional gifts to voting members. CBC 12/22/99

• And: VOTERS: Return expensive watches. Cleveland Plain Dealer (AP) 12/22/99
• Previously: GOLDEN GLOBE nominees announced. Washington Post 12/21/99
• And: Complete list Washington Post 12/21/99

Authors of a National Arts Journalism Program study on arts coverage in America have it wrong, maintains one critic. It isn’t so much the coverage of art that is the problem as the art itself. “High Art is no longer even a hard sell. It is an impossible sell, except as a macabre spectacle.” The Idler

“Idealized, sometimes fragmentary, built of the imaginations of its scholars and poets and painters even more than its planners and politicians and architects, it is the great myth that bears endless examination.” Sydney Morning Herald

Is it really true there’s been a cultural boom in America? Just what is doing the booming? Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Egyptians have decided not to place a golden cap atop the Great Pyramid as part of a grand celebration to mark the ringing in of the new millennium. The Times of India

Los Angeles’ Disney Concert Hall finally broke ground last week. Maybe the city has drawn closer to creating a cultural hub that works. And yet… Los Angeles Times

Major Australian government national report on the state of the arts recommends a reshaping of the country’s cultural landscape. Sydney Morning Herald

• The report’s key points
• Getting government to pay attention to arts is a problem
• Report recommends Opera Australia sell off property assets to repay debts – Opera says no.
• Read the full report Sydney Morning Herald 12/17/99