Museum professionals have instinctively recoiled at the thought of government interference in their activities, insisting that they can police themselves. But that hasn’t worked out too well when it comes to preventing misguided museum officials from converting works that rightly should remain in the public’s patrimony into easy money. - Lee Rosenbaum
Is the “slippery slope” on the verge of becoming even more treacherous? In conversations with its members this week, the Association of Art Museum Directors discussed whether the organization should consider an indefinite extension of the two-year relaxation of its time-honored deaccession guidelines, which had prohibited the use of art proceeds for anything other than acquisitions. - Lee Rosenbaum
The Metropolitan Museum’s adoption of the Association of Art Museum Directors’ relaxed deaccession standards, driven by the financial challenges of the pandemic, has caught the attention of at least one official in the New York Attorney General’s Office. - Lee Rosenbaum
The Met's premature revelation that it might take advantage of the AAMD's relaxed deaccession standards, selling art to pay for "care of the collection," was an object lesson in how not to roll out a controversial, temporary policy change. A palate-cleansing corrective to that unappetizing situation can be found in Stories from Storage, a current show at the Cleveland...
A literary era passes. It was already past, yet it still has influence. My account is minimal in the scheme of things but here ‘tiz anyhow, excerpted from My Adventures in Fugitive Litrichur. - Jan Herman
Chicago presenters of jazz and new music, and journalists from Madrid to the Bay Area, vocalist Kurt Elling, trumpeter Orbert Davis and pianist Lafayette Gilchrist discussed how they’ve transcended coronavirus-restrictions on live performances in two Zoom panels I moderated last week. - Howard Mandel
Although it gives us fascinating inside-the-studio glimpses of several important artists at work, Black Art: In the Absence of Light insufficiently illuminates the depth and breadth of work African-American artists are producing today. - Lee Rosenbaum
Someone’s calling, maybe me. C. C sharp? D? My scalp tightens, which makes me wonder where I am, and who, too. But this voice today is a shell’s, of a conch from a Pyrenees cave, assigned as Paleolithic, 17,000 years old. - Jeff Weinstein
The President of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra speaks about the importance of live, in-person concerts and the day-to-day leadership of a major symphony orchestra. - Aaron Dworkin
As the chaos and confusion of the global pandemic shows distant glimpses of something less chaotic, the question of “strategy” is emerging once again. Now that arts organizations are making space to imagine the “next normal,” it’s worth remembering what “strategy” actually is and does. - Andrew Taylor
The failure to lift our eyes and see that our core work can and should be connecting people with art is the principal source of the problems we have experienced over the last 20-30 years. - Doug Borwick
The choreographer, performer, writer, educator, and speaker shares her creative process and the connection between movement and discord. - Aaron Dworkin
What makes washtubs sound best? How about coffee cans? For the answers, check out Lou Harrison’s instructions for his Concerto for Violin and Percussion. So far as I am aware, it is the most memorable, most original violin concerto by any American. It also creates a visual spectacle ideal for COVID-era streamed performances. - Joseph Horowitz
The doubts engendered in me by the shifting ground (related to the proximity to the La Brea Tar Pits) under the cranes being used for construction of LACMA’s new Geffen Galleries caused me to reflect back on Govan’s spotty track record for delivering on his ambitious, provocative proposals. - Lee Rosenbaum
