arts

Don’t say I never do arts posts…but I am wondering how the wops can afford this, they are flat broke and will probably go on the bludge expecting us to pay for their expensive art exhibition.

A Dunedin artist has been invited to show his work at one of the world’s most prestigious art exhibitions.

Dunedin School of Art senior sculpture lecturer Scott Eady will travel to Italy in May to install his work “Personal Structures” at the Venice Biennale 2013.

“It was very unexpected and, of course, very exciting news. I am a little overwhelmed,” Mr Eady said yesterday.  Read more »

David’s so excited, the Discovery Channel have employed the much slimmer and fitter David Farrar as its new travel blogger.

Here’s a preview of his new show!

Read more »

Chris Finalyson is perhaps the best Arts Minister one could find in the world. He loathes pretentious art.

The Parliamentary Art Collection, value $12 million, includes an artwork in shagpile that can only be described as a piece of its time.

That time is 1981 – the year of the underarm bowling scandal, the Springbok Tour, and the first hints of the trend that shoulder pads and big hair will become. The piece, Variation in Apricot, is considered ‘textile art’. It reportedly feels like touching a dirty dog.

Arts Minister Chris Finlayson’s immediate reaction is sotto voce: “S***, that’s awful.”

Then he gets closer and sees the plaque that says it was donated by the National Party caucus wives in 1981 – when Robert Muldoon was the Prime Minister.

“Oh my God,” he says, shamefaced at slighting the taste of such a group of women. He slams into reverse and hunts for a more diplomatic adjective than ‘awful.’

“It certainly is a unique contribution to the art collection in Parliament.

I couldn’t think of better lighting for it. It has been very carefully thought through.”

It is in a dark corridor of Parliament, in an area where no members of the public and few MPs would go.

There are other insults:  Read more »

Most of the plays our pinko mate gets free tickets in exchange for coverage on his arts, fitness and travel blog, Kiwiblog, are totally gay.

Hopefully this year he will go to a play that isn’t gay like Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche.

What Is the Story of 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche
In 1956, the widows of the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein meet in a renovated community center for their annual breakfast, where the prize-winning quiche will be declared in a much-anticipated ceremony. The sudden threat of an atomic bomb forces the women in this idyllic American town to begin sharing their deepest secrets, which lead to some not-so-shocking confessions from the society’s leaders.

Would we want to see it?  Read more »

Awesome headline from the Telegraph:

Damian Thompson gets right into the liberal elite subsidised arts bludgers:

To put it another way, people who hold down non-jobs – or work in the arts at a time of crippling deficits – are royally screwed by the drying up of subsidies. They also have problems making sense of chaos. Zizek mocks the Guardian/BBC lobby’s attempts to interpret the Tottenham riots, “trying desperately to translate the protests back into their familiar language”, whereas in fact the only “programme” espoused by the rioters involved free trainers.

These are harrowing times for a bien pensant elite who once gorged themselves at public expense (when someone mentions the Blair years, I think of smarmy “executives” in Alan Yentob stubble slavering over canapés). Now they are showing their panic in different ways – by presenting clumsily biased reports on the Today programme, by throwing hissy fits on the letters page of the Guardian and, as we saw this week, by supporting moves to strangle the conservative newspapers that mock their piggy ways.

The evisceration of this culture is necessary for capitalism to thrive. Let the P45s rain down on White City and Whitehall alike. That’s my view, anyway; Slavoj Zizek thinks capitalism and liberalism should fall together, which is why he exalts “sacred” violence for its own sake. He’s a Communist who appears to believe that private property is theft. So I hope he won’t mind that I downloaded one of his books from the internet without propping up the system by paying for it.

Our pinko mate is obviously not pink enough for the socialists who think the state should fund them in pursuit of their hobbies.

Anyways.. What does his fat asshole know about music? Stick to politics David, your whole face looks like a dickhead.

Farrar knows there is fuck all point in giving money to the bludgers in the arts community because they just whinge about not getting enough and then abuse National anyway.

We should just cut all arts funding and let them provide music that people want to pay for.

The bludgers in the arts all hate National as Farrar points out.

This is a simple proposition for National to deal with, there are no votes in the arts, they whinge a lot and stick their hands out all the time.

Just cut their funding to nothing and give it to schools and the rest of New Zealand will be happy.

They must be because who on earth else would pay for this sort of “arts”:

A New York court has declared that lap dances are not art and therefore are taxable. It means they won;t be eligible to taxpayer subsidies so the judgement is a blessing really.

Lap dances are taxable because they don’t promote culture in a community the way ballet or other artistic endeavours do, New York’s highest court concluded today in a sharply divided ruling.

The court split 4-3, with the dissenting judges saying there’s no distinction in state law between “highbrow dance and lowbrow dance,” so the case raises “significant constitutional problems.”

The lawsuit was filed by Nite Moves in suburban Albany, which was arguing fees for admission to the strip club and for private dances are exempt from sales taxes.

The court majority said taxes apply to many entertainment venues, such as amusement parks and sporting events. It ruled the club has failed to prove it qualifies for the exemption for “dramatic or musical arts performances” that was adopted by the Legislature “with the evident purpose of promoting cultural and artistic performances in local communities.”

The majority reached similar conclusions about admission fees to watch dances done onstage around a pole, as well as for lap dances or private dances.

One man’s culture is another man’s porn.

They have them everywhere…check out this spectacular bout of arts bludging from the US. This is from a column on ESPN.com called TMQ or Tuesday Morning Quarterback.  Supposedly mostly US football analysis but a lot of this type of stuff as well as analysis of corporate bludging and political troughing also tossed in. In this case it is same old, same old liberal elite arts bludgers:

Musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra briefly went on strike last month, outraged by a contract offer of a minimum of $145,000 annually. Now the Minnesota Orchestra, less moneyed than the Chicago Symphony, is locked out over management’s insistence that members lower their average annual salary to $89,000. Reader Josh Mattson of Eau Claire, Wis., notes the leader of the American Federation of Musicians calls the Minnesota Orchestra management’s position “economic terrorism.” Performing in an orchestra requires great skill, but there are lots of people who would appreciate being “terrorized” at $89,000 a year in a pleasant setting, with 10 weeks’ vacation and generous benefits.

Owing to the way the arts are financed, when orchestra members either go on strike or cause a lockout by declining a contract offer, essentially they are demanding more charity. Only a third of the Minnesota Orchestra’s revenues come from ticket sales, the part of the orchestra’s finances for which musicians deserve credit. The rest of the revenue is contributions or spending of endowment funds given in the past. If the people who play the music demand more than the orchestra’s ticket sales income, essentially they are demanding more charity. Music is important to the civic sphere — but shouldn’t the poor have first claim on charity, not upper-crust musicians?