Category: today’s top story

“While arts funding only fell 6% last year, many arts organizations are making drastic cuts to their programming. Many have canceled performances, eliminated educational programming, shortened seasons, or closed altogether. Others are ‘dumbing down’ their product; there is a widespread call to make programming more accessible (read boring). Still more are cutting their marketing dramatically; after all, they argue, who will notice if we spend less on communicating our (reduced) programming?”

“Acclaimed German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch has died at the age of 68. The recipient of numerous awards and prizes, she left her mark as an innovator in the hybrid genre of ‘Tanztheater,’ or dance theater.” Bausch, who died this morning, was diagnosed last week with cancer but had continued working.

“After a Prague meeting on Holocaust-era assets, delegates will tomorrow endorse a non-binding accord, promising to conduct more provenance research on art in public collections, to open public archives and to ensure that claimants have access to ‘just and fair’ solutions and speedy consideration of their claims.”

“Timothy Rub, who has led the Cleveland Museum of Art since 2006 and who just finished guiding construction of the museum’s gleaming new East Wing, has decided to leave his post in September to direct the Philadelphia Museum of Art.”

Ann Powers: “He always seemed to defy gravity, as a dancer whose signature move was so incomprehensibly graceful that it earned the extraterrestrial title ‘the Moonwalk,’ a singer whose tenor was high but strong, a rhythmic instrument that went as sweet and tender as a clarinet on the long notes – and as a man whose physical presence was first androgynous and then seemingly cyborgian, forcing his astounded public to puzzle over their assumptions about race, gender and age.”

“A majority of more than 100 foundations that lost 30 percent to all of their assets in the Madoff scandal had four or fewer board members, according an analysis by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a charity watchdog organization. ‘There’s one startlingly simple conclusion here: To avoid falling prey to the next Bernie Madoff who comes along, foundations would be wise to increase the size and diversity of their boards,’ said Aaron Dorfman, executive director.”

“Vienna’s Albertina Museum, home to landmark Impressionist works by Monet and Renoir, will start removing 950,000 artworks from its leaking underground depot following some of Austria’s heaviest downpours in 50 years.”

A study released this week found “concrete evidence that women who are authors have a tougher time getting their work staged than men – … [and] that women who are artistic directors and literary managers are the ones to blame.” The research also indicates that there is “a shortage of good scripts by women” and that “[p]lays and musicals by women [running on Broadway] sold 16 percent more tickets a week and were 18 percent more profitable [than works by men] over all.”

“‘It’s not for me to assess whether or not I have lived up to the expectations that arise at the beginning of any music director’s tenure,’ he began. ‘The orchestra I found had a problem with self-esteem. Their reputation was not what it should have been. So it became my goal to restore their belief in themselves. And I leave feeling that I’ve been quite successful.'”

“More than a dozen major cultural institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art, are trying to put the brakes on a bill introduced in the New York State Legislature in March to regulate the deaccessioning of collections, a controversial practice that has drawn attention as more institutions consider selling off artworks and artifacts in response to economic pressures.”