ICA CANCELS LIVE ARTS; PERFORMING ARTS BOOST IN NEW JERSEY; FIRE NEAR GETTY
News comes from the ICA that as of the end of next month, it will be closing its Live and Media Arts department, according to Lyn Gardner in The Guardian. Writes Gardner, “The really astonishing thing is not the potential loss of one of the few central London spaces for live art. It is not even the ICA’s lack of commitment to its development and programming, which has been apparent for a long time. It is the extraordinary statement put out by artistic director Ekow Eshun, ‘It’s my consideration that, in the main, the art form lacks depth and cultural urgency.’” The Arts Council, according to Gardner, was apparently involved in this decision. The council put out a statement that said, “We do not endorse the ICA’s view of live and new media arts, but we recognize that their resources have been under considerable strain, and we have worked closely with them while they conducted their strategic review. Arts organizations sometimes have to make difficult decisions, and in this case we have regretfully supported the ICA’s decision to close the Live and Media Arts department.”
In other news, Dave Itzkoff reports in the New York Times_ that the New Jersey Performing Arts Center announced that it has received a gift of eleven million dollars from the philanthropist Betty Wold Johnson. The majority of that gift, eight million dollars, will go toward upkeep of the center as well as updated technologies; the remaining three million dollars will go to artistic initiatives.
Itzkoff also writes that a brush fire that began early Thursday morning in Los Angeles came within a few miles of the Getty Center and J. Paul Getty Museum before it was brought under control by firefighters. The fire grew quickly and burned about 150 acres in three hours but was reined in by 350 firefighters and eight water-dropping helicopters. No structures were damaged and no injuries reported; the Getty Center closed for the day yesterday but is to reopen today.
