Florida’s Senate votes to zero out state arts funding. “Gov. Jeb Bush in January recommended slashing more than 50 percent from last year’s $27.9 million funding for the arts. The House also voted unanimously Tuesday for its budget, which offers only slightly better prospects: $6,115,000 in state funding for museums, arts in education, cultural program support and other programs. In the next two and a half weeks, Senate and House committees will work out a compromise budget to send to Bush.”
Tag: 04.08.03
Visas To get Artists Into US Getting More Difficult To Acquire
It’s getting more and more difficult and expensive (and arbitrary) trying to get artists into America to perform. “In general we are talking $1,000 for the performer’s petition, plus $1,000 for the technical staff petition, plus a $130 per-application fee each. That’s $2,260. Plus, the AGMA and IATSE unions now charge $250 per letter of support. That’s $2,760. You either have a huge budget that can accommodate that kind of extra money, or you’re doing less international work, or you’re more motivated to collaborate with partners.”
The FBI Is Watching You
American government law officials are visiting libraries to remove “sensitive” material, access records of what library patrons are reading, and, in at least one case, try to remove a librarian’s computer hard drive because an email with the word “anthrax” had been recieved on it.
Fighting Numbers With Numbers
The Detroit Institute of the Arts, facing an uncertain financial future in the wake of a proposed 72% cut to Michigan arts funding, has released a study designed to hammer home the point that the arts give back more to the community than they take out in tax dollars. The study claims that the recent DIA exhibit “Degas and the Dance” brought $15 million into the local economy, but some economists are already saying that the study uses a flawed formula. Such arguments are commonplace among arts organizations facing governmental cuts, but few seem to think the economic-stimulus argument will cut much ice at the state legislature.
FCC Ponders Concentration Of Media Ownership
The US Federal Communications Commission is considering further deregulating ownership of media. Will companies be able to own radio and TV and print media in the same market? Perhaps. What about diversity? Well…maybe a formula for each market that would determine the maximum oncentration of ownership…but maybe that’s too complicated and there shouldn’t be limits?
European Movie Box Office Down This Winter
Movie box office in the UK was down 21 percent in February from a year ago. “In France, audiences were down 9% for the first quarter, while Germany showed a 7.4% drop in admissions on last year.” Analysts say that last winter there were big blockbusters selling tickets, but breakout hits are missing so far this year.
Disney Rethinking Digital Content Strategy?
Disney CEO Michael Eisner signals a shift in Disney’s emphasis on policing copyright infractions. “Last year the company was a leading proponent of a bill, which didn’t become law, that would have forced electronics makers to prevent consumers from making unauthorized copies of films and songs. In the future, Eisner said, movie studios will need to be more flexible about the way they distribute movies. He suggested that in place of the current sequence of studio releases – from theaters to video to pay per view to television – studios would need to offer faster distribution, directly to consumers. ‘If we don’t provide consumers with our product in a timely manner, pirates will’.”
Pritzker Winner’s Sense Of Building As Art
The Sydney Opera House is so perfect for its site, so right as a national symbol, it seems like it was inevitable. But before architect Joern Utzon’s masterpiece was built, the design was the subject of national controversy. Certainly the opera house was the compelling reason Utzon won this year’s Pritzker Prize, but the judges noted that Utzon’s career demonstrates a succession of buildings infused with “a sense of architecture as art, and natural instinct for organic structures related to site conditions.”
London Tower – A Fight For The Soul Of A City
The proposed London Bridge Tower skyscraper soars 1000 feet tall; it would be the tallest building in Europe. But London – which historically hasn’t allowed giant buildings, is debating the wisdom of such a building. It’s not just an argument about architecture but a fight over how development is determined. And it looks – at least for the moment – as though developers have the upper hand. “Until we have world peace, socialism triumphant and pigs with wings, we have chosen, in Britain especially, to have private capital gamble with our space. It’s property developers who give us most of our architecture.”
John Adams: Mixed Feelings About Pulitzer Win
Composer John Adams is happy to have won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for music. But “every year I continue to be disappointed that the Pulitzer has stayed stylistically within such a narrow bandwidth of mainly academic music. It doesn’t carry much prestige amongst the composers that I know. I hope that over the years, the people who administer the prize will accept that American music is a far more universal art form than the past history would suggest.”