Plus: where the money goes
and how it flows...

Briefs by Farris Wahbeh
Illustration by Rebecca Kramer

Christo wraps doghouse


Artists Christo and Jean Claude have wrapped a doghouse. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that "Wrapped Snoopy House,” a doghouse encased in tarpaulin, polyethylene and ropes, was unveiled in honor of Charles M. Schultz, creator of Snoopy, in front of his Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, California. The famous wrapping artists had worked with Schultz before, when the cartoonist helped the art duo secure 56 ranchers and private landowners to accept their "Running Fence" installation, in which a white ribbon ran from the Pacific and eventually wound its way across the hills of Sonoma and Marin counties for two weeks in 1976. Jeannie Schultz, Charles's surviving wife, exclaimed at the opening ceremony, "We will treasure it, our visitors will treasure it. And, of course, Snoopy will be very comfortable.”


American museum entrance fees skyrocket as funding dwindles


The Los Angeles Times reports that since private and government funding has significantly dropped in the post-9/11 era, visitors are paying more to fill the money gap. Many of America's 16,000 art, history and other museums, including zoos, have increased the rates of their entrance fees. According to a survey conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based American Association of Museums, the average entrance fees have increased by more than 50 percent. At the New Orleans Museum of Art, for example, the admission fee 25 years ago was $1 per adult, with no extra charge for special exhibits. Now regular admission is $6 and $17 for special exhibitions. The rise in prices can also be attributed to the cost of mounting and transporting special exhibitions. Government support is also a key factor in the price hike. In 1989 the government financed nearly 40 percent of museum budgets, but last year the figure dropped to a little more than 25 percent.


States slash funding for the arts


The national arts advocacy group Americans for the Arts reported that state art spending has dropped from $409 million in the 2002 fiscal year to $355 million in 2003. With state deficits skyrocketing from $60 million to $80 billion this year, arts funding will drop another 23 percent bringing the 2004 total to around $274 million. While Gray Davis was still in office, the California State Arts Council had its budget slashed from $32 million to $18 million last year, and now it has received an all-time low of $1 million dollars. Florida governor Jeb Bush, President Bush's brother, cut Florida's arts budget from $28 million to $5.9 million. Illinois only cut $1 million of its arts budget to $18.6 million, while Pennsylvania has maintained its funding at $14 million. Virginia, Missouri, Arizona and other states have made drastic cuts, and Colorado's arts funding is a meager $200,000. New York City remains the country's largest public patron of the arts, even though the state is facing a record $6 billion dollar deficit.



Britons largely ignorant about art?


According to research conducted by Encyclopedia Britannica, nearly 49 percent of Britons were unable to identify the painter of the “Mona Lisa,” with one in ten citing Vincent Van Gogh instead of Leonardo da Vinci. More than 82 percent could not name Edvard Munch as the painter of "The Scream." Nearly one in ten thought Botticelli was responsible for David Hockney’s “A Bigger Splash.” According to researchers, the problem stems from the fact that more than two-fifths of the British population never go to an art gallery, despite the fact that 68 percent of those researched claimed that art plays a vital role in today's society.



Bombs explode at contemporary art fair in Paris


According to a report in France's Le Monde, Paris’ Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain (FIAC) was evacuated and temporarily closed on October 10 after a Perrier bottle containing chemicals exploded at the fair. One man was taken to the hospital with an eye injury, and a gallerist was hurt during the evacuation. A second bottle was found near other stands at the fair, filled with gas. A balloon was attached with the following message “Art pas mort: Juste un cancer. Le cancer discursif. Ablation et chimie” (Art’s not dead: Just a cancer. The discursive cancer. Ablation [a surgical remover] and chemistry).

After the attacks, the French national police received an e-mail from a group or individual calling itself “Flux Intermittent Anonyme et Concret (FIAC)”. The organizers of Foire International d'Art Contemporain called the acts malicious and the French police are investigating the incident.

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