National/International Arts & Culture Headlines
The following articles in the national/International press concerning arts and culture issues. Each article is summarized; for the complete article please click the link provided:
American museums group sets rules against artifact looting
Canadian Press, 8/12/08
"Museums should make ownership history records publicly available for all ancient art and archeological artifacts in their collections and rigorously research new acquisitions, according to guidelines released Monday by the American Association of Museums. The final guidelines took two years to develop and are designed to suppress the market for looted archeological treasures. Beyond strict adherence to U.S. and international law, museums should establish their own clear collections policies and require documentation that new artifacts have not been illegally exported from their countries of origin."
Good Mark Morris Vs. Bad Mark Morris
The New York Times 8/8/08
"Why do some Morris works thrill while others irritate? The dichotomy has grown only more marked. I find it striking that no overemphasis on choreography has ever bothered me when Mr. Morris himself is dancing."
Opera Turns To Movies For Its Subjects
Variety 8/8/08
"As marketing becomes more crucial for the survival of the art form, the appeal of an established title becomes more important. This is what we're looking at in opera -- whether the franchise can deliver a reliable product."
How to make a live/work space a reality in your house
New York Daily News, 7/29/08
Thomas Dolan thinks that it's smart to work in the same building that they live in. Paying twice as much as you need to in energy-related costs is just "silly and wasteful," argues Dolan, an architect who founded the nonprofit Live/Work Institute. Although commuting to work has become a part of the American cultural landscape, recent sharp increases in the price of gasoline and other energy fuels now has many people who would have never considered living and working in the same space thinking seriously about doing just that. As a result, the demand for live/work space has begun to outrun the supply of buildings that can be remodeled to fit the needs of those who want to take advantage of the idea.
A Portrait of Art As a Tax Deduction
Wall Street Journal, 7/22/08
Since Congress capped deductions donors can take for so-called fractional gifts of art almost two years ago, museums have seen an enormous reduction in new fractional gifts. "Now lawmakers, under pressure from museums, are mulling easing some of the restrictions." Mike Spector explains the tax benefits of fractional gifts, the current restrictions, and how Congress might change the law. "The Schumer-Grassley plan would ease some . . . restrictions, but would add others, according to the people briefed on the negotiations. Collectors would once again be allowed to take bigger deductions over time as their art appreciated. But higher art values, for tax purposes, would be restrained by any deductions taken previously, under one option being discussed."
Paris As Cultural Backwater
New Zealand Herald, 7/20/08
"Today, to France's worry, Paris is no longer the place to be. To the rest of the world, the city - for all its beauty - has become a backwater in many cultural areas. Its temples to the arts are indeed filled. But the worshippers these days are consumers, not creators. They are mainly foreign tourists who come to see the eternal Mona Lisa, post-modern American artists, the French Impressionists and Moliere. The city chemistry that produced rawness, dynamism, change and challenge seems absent."
Pianist Leon Fleisher At 80: Music In The Middle
Baltimore Sun 7/20/08
"Music is a wonderful thing, but it's just dots on a paper until we come along and bring those dots to life. A self-aggrandizing approach to great music doesn't really work. It's very tempting to turn oneself into the star, but we ain't the stars. We are the middlemen."
Rem Koolhaus On Creative Tension Between East And West
Der Spiegel 7/18/08
"The intellectual force of the West is still dominant, but other cultures are getting stronger. I expect that we will develop a new way of thinking in architecture and urban planning, and that less will be based on our models. There are many young, good architects in China. The unanswered question is whether our cooperation, this internationalization, will result in a common language of architecture, whether we will speak two different languages or whether there will be a mixture of the two."
The founder of ArtsJournal talks about arts and new media
Crosscut.com, 7/16/08
Seattle journalist Douglas McLennan is a leading national figure in Web journalism. Here he talks about his venture, the imperiled state of newspaper arts coverage, and why Seattle and Portland orchestras are not much noticed across the nation.
With No Agreement, Screen Actors Guild Stalls
Variety 7/13/08
"Amid the town's growing consensus that the Screen Actors Guild is not going to strike, SAG is staying in stall mode. The guild offered no response to the congloms' latest effort to dial up the pressure by warning that they may have to scale back their final offer if the economy worsens."
The Art Of Advertising (No, Literally, The Art)
The New York Times 7/13/08
"Artists have been appropriating images from Madison Avenue for decades. But what happens when the tables are turned? In recent years a number of advertising campaigns have seemed to draw their inspiration directly from high-profile works of contemporary art. And the artists who believe their images and ideas have been appropriated are not happy about it."
The Next Generation Of Arts Patrons - Groomed And Ready
The New York Times 6/29/08
"Arts institutions have been cultivating people in their 20s and 30s for years as a way of shoring up future donors. But Sarah Arison and Jenny Coyne are not merely passing through, writing a check and dressing up for a night in order to rub the right shoulders. They are among a small and privileged group who hope, and are being groomed, to do much more: to take over the family business, so to speak -- that business being arts patronage."
National Performing Arts Conference Closes In Censorship Controversy
Denver Post 6/22/08
"The National Performing Arts Convention ended with departing delegates praising Denver for its friendliness and weather. But the quadrennial confab also ended in a controversy that some are predicting -- on and off the record -- may doom it."
At Famous Houses - A Struggle To Keep The Lights On
Arizona Star (AP) 6/22/08
"For scores of historic house museums, simply keeping the lights on has become a challenge. The Mount, Edith Wharton's home in Lenox, Mass., is trying to stave off foreclosure with a feverish fundraising campaign. The Mark Twain House in Hartford can't even afford to buy energy-saving light bulbs that would slash its electric bill. Experts say this summer may make or break some sites, many of which already have cut their hours and staff and are struggling for donations in today's troubled economy."
A 21st-Century Profile: Art for Art’s Sake, and for the U.S. Economy, Too
New York Times, 6/12/08
If all the professional dancers in the United States stood shoulder to shoulder to form a single chorus line, it would stretch from 42nd Street for nearly the entire length of Manhattan. If every artist in America’s work force banded together, their ranks would be double the size of the United States Army. More Americans identify their primary occupation as artist than as lawyer, doctor, police officer or farm worker.
NEA Steps In To Help New Plays.
Los Angeles Times 6/9/08
"The National Endowment for the Arts is kicking in $280,000 for developing and producing new plays during the next 2 1/2 years. The NEA New Play Development Program has $90,000 each available for two scripts; they must be already written and attached to theater companies planning to stage their world premieres by the end of 2010."
Art Gets Entrepreneurial
MSNBC - Entrepreneur.com, 6/4/08
Laura Tiffany explores "a new crop of artist-turned-entrepreneurs who forgo the gallery system by starting their own businesses. These artists create products--prints, T-shirts, stationery--to sell online, at craft and art fairs, and wholesale to boutiques. They might hook up with a manufacturer and put out a line of limited art toys, or license their designs to other companies. They may even sell some work via galleries--but it's not like they're waiting around to be discovered. They're branding themselves and creating a DIY revolution."
Second City Founder Paul Sills Dies
Associated Press, 6/3/08
Paul Sills, one of the founders of the improvisational comedy group "The Second City," which has turned out some of America's best-known comedians, died Monday. He was 80.
Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights
University of California Press / 2008
From the publisher:
"Bill Ivey, the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, assesses the current state of the arts in America and finds cause for alarm. Even as he celebrates our ever-emerging culture and the way it enriches our lives here at home while spreading the dream of democracy around the world, he points to a looming crisis. The expanding footprint of copyright, an unconstrained arts industry marketplace, and a government unwilling to engage culture as a serious arena for public policy have come together to undermine art, artistry, and cultural heritage—the expressive life of America."
Greats of US literature pressed into diplomatic service
Guardian Unlimited (UK), 5/20/08
"For the second time in recent years, US literature is being pressed into the service of international relations. In association with the US State Department, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has announced details of a literary cultural exchange with Egypt as part of the NEA's Big Read campaign to encourage reading among American citizens. The Big Read Egypt/US will involve reciprocal promotions of three celebrated American writers in Egypt, and just the one Egyptian writer in the States."
Thieves pilfering copper to peddle
Philadelphia Inquirer, 5/20/08
"Heavy metal is driving the latest trend in art theft. With the cost of copper and other metals skyrocketing, thieves around the world are targeting outdoor sculpture to sell as scrap."
Senate Opposes Media Ownership Rule
U.S. News & World Report, 5/16/08
From the publisher:
"With a White House veto threat looming, the Senate voted Thursday night to throw out a new Federal Communications Commission rule allowing a newspaper in any of the nation's top 20 media markets to own a TV or radio station in the same market. . . . Officials said President Bush's advisers would urge him to veto the measure should it pass the House, where a companion resolution has been introduced."
Robert Rauschenberg, 82
The New York Times, 5/13/08
"A painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, onstage performer, set designer and, in later years, even a composer, Mr. Rauschenberg defied the traditional idea that an artist stick to one medium or style. He pushed, prodded and sometimes reconceived all the mediums in which he worked."
Rap/Hip-Hop/Salsa Musical Leads Tony Nominations
The New York Times, 5/13/08
And "to no one's surprise, Tracy Letts's ambitious prizefight of a family drama, August: Osage County, was the leader among the new plays, with seven nominations (a robust haul for a play), picking up three acting nods and one for its director Anna D. Shapiro."
Copper Caper: Thieves Nab Art To Sell For Scrap
Wall Street Journal, 5/1/08
With soaring prices for copper and other metals, the California town of Brea, "home to a thriving public art program," has lost three big bronze sculptures in the past 18 months. Copper is a main ingredient of bronze, and it is suspected that thieves are taking sculptures in order to "cash in on skyrocketing copper prices by selling it to a scrap yard."
Publishers Fight Oregon Censorship Statute
Publishers Weekly, 4/29/08
"The Association of American Publishers is fighting censorship in Oregon. Yesterday it joined with six Oregon booksellers and the ACLU of Oregon to challenge a new Oregon law that criminalizes the dissemination of sexually explicit material to anyone under age 13, or the dissemination to anyone under age 18 of any material with the intent to sexually arouse the recipient or the provider. The new statute, which makes no provision for judging the material as a whole, nor for considering its serious literary, artistic or scientific value, went into effect January 1."
Artspace debuts Central District lofts for Seattle's creative community
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 3/13/08
"Seattle artists have long created work in low-rent buildings, but often get pushed out when neighborhoods become fashionable and prices soar. . . . Now, for many Seattle creative types, the opportunity to stay close to the downtown core is before them. Artspace, a Minneapolis-based group, has opened 61 studios at its new Hiawatha Lofts in Seattle's Central District, giving painters, musicians, sculptors, and anyone who meets the income requirements, room to live, work and create."
Weakness in Economy Isn’t Hurting Charities
New York Times, 3/12/08
Eli Broad has stunned the museum world with his announcement "that he is leaving his vast collection of contemporary art in one of his foundations rather than donating it to a museum. . . . Mr. Broad has said he hopes other collectors will follow his example, which he regards as being in the best interests of the public." Museums hope Broad's decision is an isolated case, rather than the sign of a new philanthropic trend. "Artwork donations have become even more precious as art prices have soared, straining acquisitions budgets."
Whitney Biennial 2008: Art’s Economic Indicator
New York Times, 3/7/08
Advertisements for the 2008 Whitney Biennial promise a show that will tell us “where American art stands today,” although we basically already know. A lot of new art stands in the booths of international art fairs, where styles change fast, and one high-polish item instantly replaces another. The turnover is great for business, but it has made time-lag surveys like the biennial irrelevant as news.
The Musical Mystery (a review of Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks)
New York Review of Books, 3/6/08
Music is so ubiquitous and ancient in the human species—so integral to our nature—that we must be born to respond to it: there must be a music instinct. Just as we naturally take to language, as a matter of our innate endowment, so must music have a specific genetic basis, and be part of the very structure of the human brain.
Can Executives Learn to Ignore the Script?
New York Times, 3/2/08
Managers striving to foster creativity often use the time-worn phrase “thinking outside the box” to encourage workers to come up with something nobody else in the room is thinking. But the improvisational actress Patricia Ryan Madson has a better idea: Look inside the box and take a fresh look at what’s already there.
Inflated Art Appraisals Cost Gov Millions
Los Angeles Times, 3/2/08
"These IRS reviews caught $183 million in exaggerated claims over the last two decades. But that probably represents a small fraction of the total problem, according to a more detailed 2006 study by the agency's inspector general."
Crying Wolf
Slate, 2/29/08
Why did it take so long for a far-fetched Holocaust memoir to be debunked? In 2002, I published a book about a man who called himself Binjamin Wilkomirski, the author of Fragments, an acclaimed but, it turned out, bogus Holocaust memoir. Wilkomirski—his actual name was Bruno Doessekker—used my own family history (my great-grandmother was a Wilkomirski) to concoct a Jewish identity for himself. While researching the Wilkomirski case, I came across Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, by Misha Defonseca. Published in 1997, Misha is about a Jewish girl from Brussels who walked across Europe by herself during World War II and spent months living in the forest.
PhilOrch Expanding Alternative Concert Formats.
Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/20/08
Peter Dobrin says that the Philadelphia Orchestra's new marketing strategy and 2008-09 season announcement show that the orchestra is serious about engaging new audiences. "To give you some idea of the scale of change, consider the fact that only half the orchestra's presentations next season will follow the traditional concert format. That's practically a revolution."
Healing Sculpture: Art installations that help restore damaged watersheds
January/February 2008, Orion magazine
"My approach
to creating art relies on the interplay of restoration science and the creative process. As an artist interested in our cultural conditions, I want to do more than witness and document the changes in our urban and rural landscapes. I want my sculptures to have a part in restoring the ecological balance of compromised environments. With the watershed as venue, open spaces, urban waterways, wilderness areas, and rural and agricultural lands become the unlikely sites for my work."
After the Art Wars
Commentary/ January 2008
Michael J. Lewis reflects on the past and possible future of the National Endowment for the Arts. "In brief, the NEA has withered in a matter of decades from a self-styled instrument of world peace to a cautious dispenser of largesse whose one inflexible principle is that no grant must ever redound to the administration’s embarrassment. Whether it can regain its early ambition—or whether it should try to—is an open question." Rather than fund contemporary artists again, Lewis suggests that NEA might do better to "steward America’s artistic patrimony by supporting museums, exhibitions, and performances of works validated by the cumulative consensus of time."
Artistic renaissance
New Orleans City Business, 1/14/08
"Two and a half years later, the [New Orleans’] creative community is making an unexpectedly strong rebound from Katrina. . . . The creative sector has historically played a vital role in the New Orleans economy. In 2003, art centers, museums and other nonprofit arts groups and institutions generated 10,000 jobs, $32 million in city and state tax revenue and $300.5 million in wider economic impact, according to a report published in 2006 by the Bring Back New Orleans Commission Cultural Committee. Film studios, commercial theaters and galleries generated another $353 million in wages and sales. Katrina struck a mighty blow, costing 11,000 jobs and $80 million in uninsured damages, according to the Bring Back New Orleans Commission report. . . . By 2006, however, many arts businesses were beginning to regain lost ground thanks to national trends pushing up prices at galleries and auctions as well as increased interest in New Orleans."
What's Next For The Met Museum?
The New York Times 1/13/08
"The Met has remained a bastion of curatorial authority, where curators, not board members or directors, take the lead in conceiving exhibitions based on sound scholarship. "I keep them in line but they keep me in line," Mr. de Montebello once said of the Met's 100 plus curators. Will his successor continue that approach?"
France tries free museums
Globe and Mail (Canada) - Reuters, 1/4/08
"French national museums – including the Louvre in Paris – will let in many visitors free in the coming months, in an experiment intended to open up high culture to a wider public. 'French museums are ready for more visitors, and we hope to draw in a new public, especially young people ... it's a question of money for some people,' Christine André, spokeswoman for the Culture Ministry's museum body, said on Friday. Until June 30, 2008, some national museums will offer completely free admission to their permanent collections, while others will offer it to those under 26, one evening a week."
Note: Many of these articles are available courtesy of the Arts Journal and the Cultural Policy Listserv.
RACC Staff to Contact
Mary Bauer
Communications Associate
503.823.5426
mbauer@racc.org
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