Does Ethical Arts Funding Make The Arts Unfundable?
The Arts Professional Ethics survey tells us that 73% of arts organisation employees consider their employer to be at reputational risk through association with a sponsor or major donor whose own reputation is subject to criticism. That’s a staggering indicator of how uncomfortable we are feeling about particular funding associations right now. … Read More
Ethical Arts Funding? Fine. But Whose Ethics?
The survey findings raise the question of ‘whose ethics’ arts organisations should adopt. “It is important to look across the whole of society and not the organisation’s own immediate echo chamber to make this judgement,” writes one. Another points out that while public consensus agrees cigarettes shouldn’t be advertised, “it is not yet the case that the general public think that mining and selling fossil fuels is unethical”. … Read More
Global Wine Production Down To Lowest Level Since 1957
The fall is mainly due to weather problems in Europe, which caused hardships for wine producers in the region. Poor weather conditions including droughts and storms hindered production in the main growing regions of France including Bordeaux and Champagne. … Read More
For The First Time, City-Dwellers Outnumber Rural Residents Globally. It’s A Profound Change
For more than two decades, geographers and sociologists have debated the character and role of cities in globalisation. Historians have been a step behind, producing less and more cautious work on cities and globalisation, and struggling to find readers. The relative silence is notable. … Read More
Are The Middle East’s Grand New Cultural Buildings European Imperialism?
Can the arrival of Western culture in the Middle East be equated simply with European imperialism? Is this how the European bourgeoisie, as Marx would say, ‘creates the world after its own image’? First, let us consider the question of power. The Khedivial Opera House and other new Western-style cultural spaces represented authority to ordinary people in the streets of Cairo. The intention of European states to enforce their economic interests on the Ottoman Empire, Egypt included, is also crystal clear throughout modern history: just look at the Suez Canal. … Read More
Report: No Systemic Harassment At WNYC
The investigation did not find “systemic discrimination” that was known to, and tolerated by, senior management. The investigation also largely absolved Laura R. Walker, the president and chief executive of New York Public Radio, who acknowledged last year that she had “prioritized growth, and content and programming, over investment in some of the processes and people.” … Read More
Cleveland Orchestra Takes On Third Out-Of-Town Residency
"On Tuesday, the orchestra announced a new residency at the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music, one similar to those it conducts at Indiana University and in Miami. The project marks the orchestra's first formal collaboration with the school." … Read More
A Frank Discussion About What Arts Get Funded
I think that arts funding applications can become far too much like box-ticking. Companies are trying to present what they think the Arts Council wants – and some people are just better at it than others. … Read More
Actors In Japan Find New Niche As Family-Members-For-Rent
Elif Batuman meets some of the actors who play fake family members, the clients who hire them, and the agency entrepreneurs who bring client and erstwhile family together. … Read More
How Poetry And Math Are Alike
Mathematics and poetry are both “formats that can convey multiple meanings.” In mathematics, a single object or idea might take different forms. A quadratic equation, for example, can be understood in terms of its algebraic expression, perhaps y=x2+3x-7, or in terms of its graph, a parabola. Henri Poincaré, a French polymath who laid the foundations of two different fields of mathematics in the early 1900s, described mathematics as “the art of giving the same name to different things.” Likewise, poets create layers of meaning by utilizing words and images that have multiple interpretations and associations. Both mathematicians and poets strive for economy and precision, selecting exactly the words they need to convey their meaning. … Read More
How Gay Literature Changed Forever, Starting In 1981
Michael Cunningham: "The AIDS epidemic didn't mean the end of dancing, or sex, or drugs. It didn't have much effect at all on the general interest in youth, beauty and money. But it's putting it mildly to say that this new guest, the silently grinning one standing by itself in a corner, dankened and befouled the atmosphere." … Read More
A Museum Of White Supremacy… In Alabama
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opens Thursday on a six-acre site overlooking the Alabama state capital, is dedicated to the victims of American white supremacy. And it demands a reckoning with one of the nation’s least recognized atrocities: the lynching of thousands of black people in a decades-long campaign of racist terror. … Read More
Lending Libraries For Art Are Catching On
"Art lending libraries function like traditional book libraries: individuals can borrow an artwork, enjoy it in their own home, and return it by a due date with little to no fee. They have a decades-long history on university campuses, but they seem to be gaining popularity among museums, public libraries, and nonprofits." … Read More
Well-Known Student Loan Expert Turns Out To Be A Fraud
After The Chronicle spent more than a week trying to verify Drew Cloud’s existence, the company that owns The Student Loan Report confirmed that Cloud was fake. "Drew Cloud is a pseudonym that a diverse group of authors at Student Loan Report, LLC use to share experiences and information related to the challenges college students face with funding their education," wrote Nate Matherson, CEO of LendEDU. Before that admission, however, Cloud had corresponded at length with many journalists, pitching them stories and offering email interviews, many of which were published. … Read More
Artists May Want To Sell Their Work In New York, London, Or Shanghai, But They Want To Live In Berlin
It may not be a new development at this point, but it remains true. "No matter where they are from originally, they like to live and work in the German capital, producing art even if they don't show it there. Having solid galleries and museums certainly helps, but it may be more a function of cheap space, the city's embrace of offbeat behavior and a hard-to-quantify ability to channel the creative spirit." … Read More
Premium Classifieds
Design your Career in Arts Administration
Learn from national arts leaders & address current issues; do so from wherever you are through our limited-residency program -- M.A. in Arts Administration at Goucher ... Goucher’s Master of Arts … [Read More]
Director of Marketing & Communications, Carolina Performing Arts
The Director of Marketing and Communications (DMC) is a key member of the senior management team of Carolina Performing Arts (CPA) and is accountable for all CPA marketing, sales, and communications … [Read More]
BAX Seeks Executive/Artistic Director
BAX is seeking a dynamic, experienced Executive/Artistic leader, with the capacity and willingness to embrace the values that define BAX, while furthering the mission and vision that have marked its … [Read More]
New Braille-Based Typeface Can Be Read By Both Blind And Sighted People
"Tokyo-based designer Kosuke Takahashi has redesigned the tactile script to make it readable for both visually impaired and sighted individuals. His new typeface, Braille Neue, updates the nearly 200 century-old system by superimposing its raised dots onto carefully configured letterforms, allowing it to be understood by both sight and touch." … [Read More]
The ‘Monkey Selfie’ Case Is Really, Truly Over This Time (And The Court Slammed PETA Hard)
"The answer, just to relieve any suspense, was no, monkeys can't own copyrights or bring copyright infringement suits, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled Monday, upholding a lower court. That outcome was no surprise. What was unusual was that the appeals court chose to rule on the case at all and the criticism it leveled at PETA in the course of doing so." … [Read More]
Two Seconds That Explain George Balanchine (Brought To You By Alastair Macaulay)
"In George Balanchine's Concerto Barocco, nobody dies, nobody falls to the ground, nobody falls in love. The only set is the sky-blue backdrop. The women's costumes, minimal, are white tunics. Yet much does happen. A group of women becomes a vision of pulsating classicism and of gleaming American energy." … [Read More]
A New York City Ballet Dancer’s Hopes For The Company Post-Peter Martins
Abi Stafford: "A new director might also spread out roles more evenly. In addition to having happier dancers, I think this would help everyone would perform better. Those who previously carried heavy workloads wouldn't be dancing injured and exhausted. Dancers who were underutilized would feel more confident and in shape. I'd love to see casting against type, too. Give us a chance. We may surprise you!" … [Read More]
Actor Who Voices Apu On ‘The Simpsons’ Offers To Step Aside
Appearing on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Hank Azaria said, "I think the most important thing is to listen to Indian people and their experience with it. Listening to voices means inclusion in the writers room. I really want to see Indian, south Asian writers in the writers room, genuinely informing whichever direction this character takes. ... I'm perfectly willing to step aside. It just feels like the right thing to do to me." … [Read More]
Arkansas’s Largest Theater Cancels Rest Of Season And Suspends Operations
"In a news release, the [Little Rock] nonprofit cited 'inability to reach its projected goals for charitable giving and ticket sales.' ... The Rep described its future as 'under evaluation.'" … [Read More]
Bob Dorough, Father Of ‘Schoolhouse Rock’, Dead At 94
He began his career as a singer/composer/arranger in the 1950s and '60s, working with (among others) Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. "Then, in 1971, with the jazz money running thin, Dorough was asked by his boss at the advertising company where he had a day job to set the multiplication tables to music; his boss cited his children's ability to remember Hendrix and Rolling Stones lyrics, but not their school lessons." And so it began ... … [Read More]
Philly’s Atwater Kent Museum In Talks To Merge With Temple University
"The Philadelphia History Museum, the city's institutional attic of art and artifacts previously known as the Atwater Kent museum, has entered into talks with Temple University about a possible merger or partnership, according to city and museum officials." … [Read More]
Keeping Chinese Opera Alive In Bangkok
The Sai Yong Hong Chinese Opera troupe and its fans "are preserving a cornerstone of culture and heritage dating to the seventh-century Tang Dynasty (618 to 907), making it one of the oldest dramatic art forms in the world. Like so much of Chinese opera throughout the world, the performances are a product of a large Chinese diaspora." … [Read More]
‘S-Town’, ’60 Minutes’, Al Jazeera Win Peabody Awards
"Six news awards were bestowed, with BBC News winning for its reporting on Rohingya refugees in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Among the winners was a Vice News episode on HBO, 'Charlottesville: Race and Terror.' Al Jazeera won the sole public service award, for a documentary by Fatma Naib about female genital mutilation in Africa. S-Town, created by the makers of Serial and This American Life, was one of five radio or podcast winners." … [Read More]