Yearly Archives: 2021
Survey Of LA Artists Documents Instability
The results of the survey are a snapshot of the art community’s struggle for financial stability even before COVID-19 shut down galleries and museums...
How A Newspaper Gardening Column Became A Chronicle Of Climate Change
When Jeff Lowenfels began writing for the Anchorage Daily News in 1976, he had not expected that one day one of his readers would...
Virtual Docents — The Best Museum Idea To Come Out Of The Pandemic?
The Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum developed a way to provide guides when COVID kept them from coming in: visitors can stop at strategically...
Netflix CEO: The Movie Business Is In Revolution
In four short years, Netflix has done more to reshape the way that movies are made, distributed and consumed than perhaps any other single...
Using Thomas Cromwell’s Papers To Reconstruct His London Mansion
The compound at Austin Friars, known to readers of Hilary Mantel's trilogy, was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. But a historian has...
TikTok Is Hardly The First Place Where Black Dancers’ Moves Have Been Ripped Off
Alas, the practice goes at least back to the days of jazz dance at the start of the 20th century, when the first legal...
The Children Of Two Pathbreaking “Blaxploitation” Filmmakers Are Rescuing Their Fathers’ Work
We can still see Melvin Van Peebles's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (which launched the genre) and Perry Henzell's The Harder They Come (a reggae...
Sculptor George Rhoads, Who Sent Balls Through Elaborate Rube Goldberg-Style Contraptions, Dead At 95
His 42nd Street Ballroom, which has mesmerized passersby for decades at New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal, is but one of the 300 "audio-kinetic...
US Seizes “Gilgamesh Dream Tablet”, Will Return It To Iraq
The 3,500-year-old artifact, covered with cuneiform writing from the "dream" section of The Epic of Gilgamesh, is part of the enormous collection of objects...
2,500-Year-Old Etching Of Last King Of Babylon Discovered In Saudi Arabia
Archaeologists found the 6th century BC rock carving of King Nabonidus, along with 26 lines of cuneiform, in the north of the country. -...
Which Countries In Europe Are Using “Vaccine Passports” For Arts Venues, And How
"Countries across Europe are extending the use of so called vaccine passports or health passes to allow for entry into bars, cultural sites or...
Epic Labor Battle At Sydney Bookstore
Such disputes reflect a growing recognition across the publishing industry that the prestige and attractiveness of working in and adjacent to creative and cultural...
Enough With The Era Of Visionary Museum Directors
That era should be over. The director’s job is to set clear priorities for staff, to mentor, coach, and be clear-sighted about what is...
Lessons From Shared Crises: Community Connection Matters
As the Blitz and other collective crises have taught us, resilience is not a given and has to be managed with an understanding of...
Report: Worldwide Building Of Arts Facilities Was $5.9 Billion Last Year
Despite last year’s dip, there’s reason to think that the cultural sector is coming back strong. Even amid global uncertainty about travel, cities doubled...
Design Museum Gets Its 11th Director Since 2013
Some employees said that a carousel of different directors bringing new approaches has exhausted staff, strained relationships with some artists and damaged trust in...
Why Critics’ Opinions Matter
"I’ll claim that my response to art is more complex than the average museumgoer’s because it’s my professional responsibility—and passion—to be as well informed...
How Matt Damon Keeps Complicating Our Ideas About Matt Damon
"You only have to look a bit closer at Damon's career, at the notion of Matt Damon, Movie Star we have in our heads,...
American TV’s Journey In The 21st Century Has Been From Irony To Sincerity
"Two decades ago, TV's most distinctive stories were defined by a tone of dark or acerbic detachment. Today, they're more likely to be earnest...
Spotify Now Has 165 Million Subscribers – More Than Apple And Amazon Combined
As for the rest of Spotify’s Q2 2021, the company reported 365 million monthly active users—a growth of 22% YOY. Total revenue was €2.33...
West African Talking Drums Really Can Imitate Speech, Say Researchers
Yorùbá speech, that is. The West African language is tonal, using three different pitches, and dùndún drummers can adjust the tension on their drum...
Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre — Under A Microscope
"I hope that the theatre generally, will be open to the idea that when you limit yourself to doing only primarily white theatre for...
12th-Century Organ, By Far The World’s Oldest, To Be Reconstructed
The pipes and carillon bells of the instrument were discovered a century ago at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Scholar-performer David Catalunya...
Choreographer Drew McOnie On What Success Looks Like
"Success isn’t how many awards you win, or how many five-star reviews you get. Success is built on how quickly you bounce back, how...
“Sunday In The Park With George” Barely Escaped Being A Disaster
First, Stephen Sondheim couldn’t come up with songs because he didn't think James Lapine's script needed any. So began a cascade of calamities, right...
