Maybe it’s just a coincidence. But after reading Norman Lebrecht’s recent column, A critical gap, I can’t help thinking that he must have
read William Osborne’s “Marketplace of Ideas” on ArtsJournal.
The focus of each article is different. Lebrecht zeroes in on arts criticism, Osborne on arts
funding. Nevertheless, Lebrecht cites American corporatization of the arts as one reason for “the
pontifical tone” of U.S. criticism and counts the number of arts insitutions in London and New
York to contrast them, much as Osborne cited American privatization of the arts and counted
institutions in Germany cities to contrast the U.S. and Europe.
Lebrecht writes:
Every serious British newspaper carries two, three or more pages of arts
commentary and criticism which report, reflect and review a razzle of activity in a style which may
be ponderous, or provocative, or purely piss-taking.
No American newspaper dares venture past the first of these ps. …
An era of incorporation fostered a pontifical tone in American arts criticism.
Over
the same era, America suffered the incorporation of many arts institutions. London has five
international orchestras, three year-round opera companies, two ballet troupes, three international
art galleries, two great engines of modern art at Tate and Saatchi, a National Theatre and too
many smaller companies to count. New York has one monolith in each art form, two at
most.
Osborne wrote:
Germany’s public arts funding [as opposed to U.S. private funding] allows the
country to have 23 times more full-time symphony orchestras per capita than the United States,
and approximately 28 times more full-time opera houses. …
Germany has about 80 year-round opera houses, while the U.S., with more than three times
the population, does not have any. Even the Met only has a seven-month season. These numbers
mean that larger German cities often have several orchestras. Munich has seven full-time,
year-round professional orchestras, two full-time, year-round opera houses (one with a large
resident ballet troupe,) as well as two full-time, large, spoken-word theaters for a population of
only 1.2 million. Berlin has three full-time, year-round opera houses …
More power to Lebrecht. He quoted ArtsJournal’s Sam Bergman by name, as
Lebrecht have as great an influence on others as Osborne’s on him.
Not incidentally, McManus also writes:
Is there investigative cultural journalism in America? If so, it’s slipped passed
me. More importantly, I think we should ask WHY we don’t have any investigative cultural
journalism in this country.
Hey, Drew: Get familiar with Osborne’s investigative work. Have a look at his “Art is
Just An Excuse,” published back in 1996 in the Pennsylvania-based
IAWM Journal (a publication of the International
Alliance for Women in Music), or his “You
Sound Like a Ladies’ Orchestra,” which won a Best of the Web
Award in 1997. Those articles are international in scope, but they cover much that should be of
interest to American audiences and critics.
