Art permeates our culture, yet many have lost all criteria for making aesthetic judgments. This resource chronicles biblical foundations of art as well as the role of Christians in the artistic arena.

The taken-for-granted assumption about the place of the arts in liberal or social democratic states and the role of the arts in supporting or opposing the ideological work of government and non-government institutions is been the issue of this book. The challenges posed by the state to the arts and by the arts to the state, focusing on several transformations of the interrelations between state and commercial arts policies in the current era. These ongoing challenges include the control of repressive tolerance, complicity with and resistance to state power, and the commoditization of the arts, including their accommodation to market and state apparatuses. The contributors tackle social and cultural policy and practice in the arts as well as connections between national states and dissenting art from a range of genres.

This book covers Singapore's key arts policies and art institutions which have shaped the cultural landscape of the country from the 1950s to the present.The scholars and experts in this volume critically assess arts policies and arts institutions to collectively provide an overview of how arts and culture have been deployed by the state. The chapters are arranged chronologically to cover milestone events from the forging of 'Malayan culture'; the government's 'anti-yellow culture' campaign; the use of 'culture' for tourism; the setting up of the Advisory Council on Arts and Culture, the Renaissance City Report, the setting up of the School of the Arts, and others.Putting to rest the notion that Singapore is a 'cultural desert', this volume is valuable reading for students of cultural policy, policy makers who seek an understanding of Singapore's cultural trajectory, and for international readers interested in Singapore's arts and cultural policy.

City Hall proclaimed 2006 the Year of Creativity. 'Live With Culture’ banners flap over the city. And across the city, donors are ponying up millions for the ROM and the AGO. Culture’s never had it so good. Right? The State of the Arts explores the Toronto arts scene from every angle, applauding, assailing and arguing about art in our fair burg. The essays consider the big-ticket and the ticket-free, from the Opera House and the CNE to the subconscious art of graffiti eradication and underground hip-hop. In between, you'll find considerations art in the suburbs, how business uses art to sell condos, questions of infrastructure, an examination of Toronto on film and a history of micro press publishing. You'll read about the fine line between party and art, the trials of being a capitalist in a sea of left-wing artists, the power of the internet to create arts communities and a plea for spaces that cater to musicians and their kids. Throughout, you'll find equal doses of optimism and frustration, and a good measure of T.O. love. Taken together, the thoughts of these writers, thinkers, musicians and city-builders aim to create an honest survey of where we're at and where we can go.

The works of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. With breathtaking imagination and extraordinary storytelling, they have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre. 'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson The State of the Art is the only collection of Iain M. Banks's short fiction and includes the acclaimed Culture novella of the same name. From science fiction to horror, dark fantasy to twisted comedy, all eight stories bear the indefinable stamp of Banks's staggering talent. Praise for the novels of Iain M. Banks: 'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday 'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' Guardian 'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman 'Compulsive reading' Sunday Telegraph The novels of Iain M. Banks: The Culture series Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata The State of the Art Other books by Iain M. Banks Against a Dark Background Feersum Endjinn The Algebraist Also now available: The Culture: The Drawings - an extraordinary collection of original illustrations faithfully reproduced from sketchbooks Banks kept in the 1970s and 80s, depicting the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks' Culture series of novels in incredible detail.

This text examines in detail the evolution and rationale for state involvement with the so-called high arts in both Europe and the United States.

Arts and Cultural Management: Sense and Sensibilities in the State of the Field opens a conversation that is much needed for anyone identifying arts management or cultural management as primary areas of research, teaching, or practice. In the evolution of any field arises the need for scrutiny, reflection, and critique, as well as to display the advancements and diversity in approaches and thinking that contribute to a discipline’s forward progression. While no one volume could encompass all that a discipline is or should be, a representational snapshot serves as a valuable benchmark. This book is addressed to those who operate as researchers, scholars, and practitioners of arts and cultural management. Driven by concerns about quality of life, globalization, development of economies, education of youth, the increasing mobility of cultural groups, and many other significant issues of the twenty-first century, governments and individuals have increasingly turned to arts and culture as means of mitigating or resolving tough policy issues. For their growth, arts and culture sectors depend on people in positions of leadership and management who play a significant role in the creation, production, exhibition, dissemination, interpretation, and evaluation of arts and culture experiences for publics and policies. Less than a century old as a formal field of inquiry, however, arts and cultural management has been in flux since its inception. What is arts and cultural management? remains an open question. A comprehensive literature on the discipline, as an object of study, is still developing. This State of the Discipline offers a benchmark for those interested in the evolution and development of arts and cultural management as a branch of knowledge alongside more established disciplines of research and scholarship.

The original Northern Powerhouse, Newcastle upon Tyne has witnessed countless transformations over the last century or so, from its industrial heyday, when Tyneside engineering and innovation led the world, through decades of post-industrial decline, and underinvestment, to its more recent reinvention as a cultural destination for the North. The ten short stories gathered here all feature characters in search of something, a new reality, a space, perhaps, in which to rediscover themselves: from the call-centre worker imagining herself far away from the claustrophobic realities of her day job, to the woman coming to terms with an ex-lover who’s moved on all too quickly, to the man trying to outrun his mother’s death on Town Moor. The Book of Newcastle brings together some of the city’s most renowned literary talents, along with exciting new voices, proving that while Newcastle continues to feel the effects of its lost industrial past, it is also a city striving for a future that brims with promise.

Jacob Burckhardt claimed that the state in Renaissance Italy became a work of art. In this book, the authors illiminate the corollary: that art in Italy became a work of state. They study centres of power under three distinctive governments - a civic republic of the 14th century, a princely court of the 15th, and an absolutist state of the 16th. The authors argue that, no less than armies, laws and taxes, painted halls of state were strategic instruments, tactical weapons and technical machines of government.

John Adams on the arts -- The Nation vs. Prang et Co. -- Should women artists marry? -- Dorothea Lange on documentary photography -- Emory Douglas, the Black Panther Party, and revolutionary art -- Fred Wilson exhibits suppressed histories.