Arts And Culture Is America's Fastest-Growing Philanthropic Cause "In terms of donations, arts and culture was Americans' fastest-growing charitable cause in 2012, rising an estimated 7.8% to $14.44 billion, according to a leading annual research report on charitable giving."

Los Angeles Times 06/18/13

email this story | Posted 06/19/13@12:58AM

A Buddhist Monk Confronts Suicide In Japan "Larissa MacFarquhar ... talks with Sasha Weiss about the culture of suicide in Japan and how Ittetsu Nemoto's belief in suffering as a path to self-knowledge has prepared him to help the suicidal."

The New Yorker 06/17/13 (audio)

email this story | Posted 06/19/13@12:58AM

Police Begin Investigation Into Embezzlement During Bolshoi Renovation "Russia's Interior Ministry has launched a criminal probe on allegations that some 90 million rubles ($3 million) was embezzled during the six-year reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater that ended in 2011."

The Moscow News 06/13/13

email this story | Posted 06/18/13@01:00AM

Sacramento Lags In Arts Funding And Economic Benefits, Finds Study The most recent "Arts and Economic Prosperity" study from Americans for the Arts finds that arts organizers pumped $82 million into the region's economy (with attendees contributing almost $30 million more), but that, compared to cities of similar size such as Portland and Indianapolis, Sacramento sees less arts spending and notably less economic benefit.

The Sacramento Bee 06/16/13

email this story | Posted 06/18/13@12:55AM

Portland, Oregon Struggles To Collect Arts Tax "The arts tax has been something of a comedy of errors every since voters approved it with a "yes" vote of 62 percent in November."

The Oregonian 06/12/13

email this story | Posted 06/17/13@04:25AM

Greek Government Relents A Tiny Bit On Public Broadcasting Station "A small number of people could be hired to produce news and current affairs programmes until a new public service broadcaster is set up."

BBC 06/15/13

email this story | Posted 06/16/13@06:02PM

Why Have Egyptian Artists Stormed And Occupied Government Offices? "The angry protesters say the firing is an example of how the ruling Muslim Brotherhood is trying to control Egypt's cultural scene through the new minister. Some fear the Islamists are trying to suppress artistic expression that runs counter to their conservatism."

NPR 06/16/13

email this story | Posted 06/16/13@08:05AM

California Budget: Abysmal For Arts Funding The budget "positions California to extend its hold on last place in the nation in per capita funding for its state arts agency. It has ranked 50th since 2003, except for a brief escape in 2011 when Kansas temporarily eliminated all arts funding."

Los Angeles Times 06/15/13

email this story | Posted 06/16/13@08:01AM

Is Censorship Stifling Australian Art? "Unfortunately, it seems that challenging Australian art is attacked and censored. And if we are only permitted to view "correct", officially sanctioned work then art's primary function - to reveal us to ourselves - is destroyed. "

The Guardian (UK) 06/14/13

email this story | Posted 06/14/13@10:19AM

UK Arts Funding Cuts Will Be 5 Percent "The extent of spending cuts had been expected to be much higher after the Treasury wrote to departments earlier in the year, warning most ministers they would have to cut up to 10 per cent of their budgets for the year 2015-16."

BBC 06/14/13

email this story | Posted 06/14/13@08:03AM

More Arts Council England Funding Cuts Signal Lack Of Government Support For Culture "ACE is telling them a 10% cut to its budget may force it to cut its roster of regularly funded organisations from 696 to around 300. The organisation would also have to rely more on National Lottery money to supplement its government grant."

BBC 06/13/13

email this story | Posted 06/13/13@07:32AM

The Architecture Critic Who's Making A Difference In New York The New York Times' Michael Kimmelman has "all but dispensed with reviewing buildings, focusing instead on 'who benefits from them and who doesn't.' Architecture, as he defines it, encompasses real estate, zoning, transportation, bike lanes, rising sea levels, affordable housing, and the workings of power--not the least of which his own."

New York Magazine 06/07/13

email this story | Posted 06/13/13@06:51AM

How The "Black Swan" Ruling Could Change How Interns Are Used "For anyone who has ever had an unpaid internship, the Black Swan situation sounds familiar, which makes this ruling even more encouraging. Indeed, many internships appear to be within the grounds of the very internship that a U.S. federal judge just found illegal, both setting a precedent for future disgruntled worker bees and also scaring potential intern abusers into paying their summer or short-term staffers some actual money."

The Atlantic 06/12/13

email this story | Posted 06/13/13@06:16AM

The Most Dire Scenario Yet For England's Arts Funding "More than four-fifths of English subsidised arts companies could lose their funding completely, the Arts Council has warned, after it modelled the effect of potential government cuts to the culture budget."

The Guardian (UK) 06/12/13

email this story | Posted 06/13/13@12:52AM

Much-Awaited Report On Liberal Arts Education To Land Among Controversy "The report, requested with much fanfare in 2010 by a bipartisan group in Congress and produced by a blue-ribbon commission assembled by the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is likely to land as controversy continues to surround Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, the academy's embattled president and one of the report's prime movers."

The New York Times 06/11/13

email this story | Posted 06/12/13@09:35AM

Report: Los Angeles Is The "Creative Capital" Of The World It is they said, the "Creative Capital of the World " with one of every six people employed in a creative field, and generating over $ 120 billion dollars annually in gross revenue.

Huffington Post 06/11/13

email this story | Posted 06/12/13@09:12AM

Britain's National Statistics Agency To Include Arts In Measures Of Well-Being "The Office for National Statistics is to use responses from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's Taking Part Survey - which details consumption of and participation in the arts and culture - in response to public demand for their inclusion in the Measuring Well-being Programme."

The Stage (UK) 06/10/13

email this story | Posted 06/12/13@12:46AM

Art Everywhere? Is That Really A Good Thing? "This is a scheme that prioritises the accessibility of art over quality. The most obvious problem is that they will be prints of real pictures, pictures that are better seen in the flesh, so to speak."

The Scotsman 06/11/13

email this story | Posted 06/11/13@11:11AM

Is It Okay (Or Even Legal) To Make Art From Other People's 'Abandoned' DNA? "It has been described as both 'creepy' and 'cool'. But amid the publicity surrounding a provocative art project that creates 'facial reconstruction' sculptures based on the analysis of DNA on cigarette butts, chewing gum, and other detritus collected from the streets of New York City, one question has remained unasked: is it legal?"

New Scientist 06/10/13

email this story | Posted 06/11/13@12:55AM

Can China's Equivalent Of Colonial Williamsburg Become A Hotbed Of High Culture? "About 75 miles southwest of Shanghai is a beautifully restored, 1300-year-old 'water-town' called Wuzhen where Chinese tourists flock each year." Yet with a landmark new performing arts center and an equally new international theater festival that's both artistically challenging and a big box-office success, Wuzhen is making a bid to become a cultural destination along the lines of Avignon, Aix, and Edinburgh.

Salon 06/08/13

email this story | Posted 06/11/13@12:50AM

Royal Albert Hall Did Record-Breaking Business In 2012 "With a wide-ranging programme that included the BBC Proms, Cirque du Soleil, concerts by Gary Barlow and Emeli Sande, boxing and tennis tournaments and the world premieres of Skyfall and Titanic in 3D, ... [the London venue] reported a record year for business in 2012 with operating income growing 4.3% to £16.8 million to produce an operating surplus of £4.5 million."

The Stage (UK) 06/06/13

email this story | Posted 06/11/13@12:49AM

The Psychology Of Scalping - Why We Put Up With It "Few products are so underpriced that an entire subsidiary industry exists to take advantage of the discrepancy. Yet concerts and sporting events consistently price their tickets low enough that street scalpers risk jail time to hawk marked-up tickets, and StubHub makes hundreds of millions a year in revenue."

The New York Times 06/04/13

email this story | Posted 06/10/13@07:28AM

If Data Is Our Currency, What Will We Pay For Privacy? "That's what most people believe about their email, for instance -- sure, the email provider could read it, but probably nobody is going to bother. We assume that we will hide in the crowd, protected by its very size."

NPR 06/09/13

email this story | Posted 06/09/13@05:41PM

African Americans Give U.S. Entertainment Options A Failing Grade "What I heard fell into two distinct categories. First, there's not much to do, and the little there is to do is of low quality and/or unsafe. The second category of complaint boiled down to: Entertainment in my neighborhood is geared toward white people, and I feel out of place."

NPR 06/07/13

email this story | Posted 06/09/13@09:25AM

Harvard Doesn't Understand Historical Stats: The Humanities Are NOT Dying "Compared to the massive changes in the American university since the Second World War, it's the resilience of the humanities that should be surprising."

Sapping Attention 06/07/13

email this story | Posted 06/09/13@08:01AM

The Humanities Are Dying In U.S. Universities (Is This A Problem?) "The reality is that it's kind of a tougher economic time, and we do have to worry about living after graduation. I don't want to be doing what I love and be homeless."

The Wall Street Journal 06/06/13

email this story | Posted 06/09/13@08:01AM

Creative Scotland Gets A New Chief "Janet Archer, who is currently director of dance at Arts Council England, will take up her post in July. Creative Scotland has been without a leader since Andrew Dixon resigned in December last year."

BBC 06/07/13

email this story | Posted 06/07/13@09:26AM

Arts Or Entertainment? (Or Both?) "They see something defined as "art"; they don't have a rewarding or relevant personal experience (or at least not an experience that fits with a high ticket price); so they decide the arts are not for them. Meanwhile they are having arts experiences in bits and pieces throughout their lives, but don't connect them with the arts at all."

Barry's Blog 06/02/13

email this story | Posted 06/07/13@06:45AM

Are Straight Actors Playing Gay Roles Doing The Equivalent Of Blackface? Inspired by seeing the Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra and The Hangover Part III in the same evening, J. Bryan Lowder considers the question, "Does 'gayface' really deserve to be placed in the same awful category as racial impersonation, and if not, what makes it different?"

Slate 06/06/13

email this story | Posted 06/07/13@12:51AM

Arts Hubs Around The World Unite "Network members will share resources, discuss the impact of urban policies and economic developments on cultural centres, and assess trends in technology and the creative industries."

The Art Newspaper 06/05/13

email this story | Posted 06/06/13@08:57AM

Patent Trolls Are Killing American Innovation "Go to any technology conference these days, and you're likely to find VCs who say that there are entire sectors they refuse to invest in, just because the waters are so troll-infested. Google and Apple might be able to do interesting things in wearable computing, for instance, but a single lawsuit could easily wipe out a startup in the same space -- even if it was entirely frivolous."

Reuters 06/05/13

email this story | Posted 06/06/13@08:54AM

Why Supporting Creativity Education Ought To Be Core To Philanthropy "Philanthropy can and should view the arts as a way to accomplish its wider mission. Broadening and expanding the vision about how we categorize the arts and putting them front and center on the necessary and core list, not the optional list, is an important first step."

Huffington Post 06/05/13

email this story | Posted 06/06/13@08:47AM

Backstage At The New Mariinsky 2 "The new Mariinsky Theatre is a site of pilgrimage in St. Petersburg. Ballet and opera enthusiasts are coming in droves to witness first-hand the modern productions and admire the amber onyx encasing the concert hall. But what is going on behind the scenes? We went there to find out."

Russia Beyond the Headlines 06/04/13

email this story | Posted 06/06/13@12:48AM

Venice Is Dying. Here's How "As the British economist John Kay has said, Venice would be a great deal better run if it were being managed by the Walt Disney Company; unfortunately, the Italian media failed to get the irony."

New York Review of Books 06/05/13

email this story | Posted 06/05/13@09:56AM

Why Don't Britain's Economic Elite Give To The Arts? "The former Arts Council chairman, Dame Liz Forgan, has criticised Britain's wealthy elite, accusing them of failing to contribute sufficiently to the arts."

The Telegraph (UK) 06/04/13

email this story | Posted 06/05/13@06:42AM

Rumours Of UK's Culture Ministry Closing Are Untrue, Says Department "The Department for Culture Media and Sport has denied rumours that discussions are taking place to potentially disband the department and 'hive off' its responsibilities to other government divisions."

The Stage (UK) 05/30/13

email this story | Posted 06/05/13@01:00AM

But Britain's Culture Ministry, Post-Olympics, Does Seem Adrift "Under the [Conservative-Liberal Democrat] coalition it quickly became clear that DCMS had one major priority, to deliver a successful Olympics. Now it seems to be a department without a major role within the coalition's plans."

The Conversation (UK) 06/04/13

email this story | Posted 06/05/13@12:59AM

Cities Behind Stalled Arts Center Of North Texas Can't Even Agree To Dissolve It "More than seven months after plans to dissolve the Arts Center of North Texas were put into motion, the three owner cities have still not come to an agreement over how to best carry out that task. ... The project is jointly owned by Plano, Frisco, and Allen [in metro Dallas-Ft. Worth], but all momentum stopped in May 2011 when Frisco voters decided to pull out of the project."

Pegasus News (Dallas-Ft. Worth) 06/03/13

email this story | Posted 06/05/13@12:51AM

Miss Manners Looks At Renaissance Etiquette Judith Martin: "English readers in the early 17th century assumed Tom Coryate, a professional jester turned travel writer, was joking when he reported that Italians did not attack their food with hands and hunting knives as did normal people, even normal royalty. Those finicky Italians wielded forks, a nicety that did not become common in the rest of Europe for another two centuries."

The New York Times Book Review 06/02/13

email this story | Posted 06/04/13@12:51AM

Big California Arts Funding Bill Stalls "The bill would have secured $75 million in guaranteed annual funding for the California Arts Council but was frozen last week without a vote. Now advocates aim to persuade legislators and Gov. Jerry Brown to give the agency at least a modest increase as they determine the state budget for the coming fiscal year."

Los Angeles Times 05/31/13

email this story | Posted 06/03/13@07:42AM