Issues

Josephine Livingstone: “I am not a foodie. I don’t even know the difference between a meuniere and a mirepoix. But from the outside looking in, it’s clear that foodie culture is roiling with a new awareness of social politics, undermining some of that culture’s unspoken tenets: that taste and pleasure are neutral, universal concepts; that the kitchen is an apolitical zone. Being a foodie now, in 2019, requires thinking with more than your tongue.” – The New Republic

Maybe not, not yet. Garbage in (this AI was fed a lot of Reddit recommendations, ahem), garbage out: “Right now, novelists don’t seem to have much to fear. Fed the opening line of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four – ‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen’ – the machine continued the narrative as follows: ‘I was in my car on my way to a new job in Seattle. I put the gas in, put the key in, and then I let it run. I just imagined what the day would be like. A hundred years from now. In 2045, I was a teacher in some school in a poor part of rural China. I started with Chinese history and history of science.'” – The Guardian (UK)

Today, she apologized for much of the interview wherein she blamed the parents of the men who say Michael Jackson abused them when they were kids, and saying such things as “You can say ‘molested,’ but those children, as you heard say, they were thrilled to be there. … They both married and they both have children, so it didn’t kill them.” – The New York Times

Of course it’s not because that intimate scene has two men in it. No, no, of course not. It’s … the swearing. And the drugs. “According to one source close to the production, filmmakers and Paramount are in discussions about the love scene, which has the F-word several times and includes brief rear nudity, and someone snorting cocaine.” – The Hollywood Reporter

“The Cultural Infrastructure Plan sets out … why it’s important to support the capital’s venues and studios; how they are at risk; what can be done to protect them; and what resources the Mayor’s office is investing. The document covers the buildings, structures and places where culture is both consumed (defined as experiencing, participating in or showcasing art) and produced (where creative work is made, usually by artists).” – Arts Professional

The personal stories tell of unpaid hours; unsustainable workloads; limited prospects for progression; poor pension provision; exploitation – and self-exploitation; undervalued qualifications; volunteers taking formerly paid positions; the need for financial support from family members; second jobs in other sectors; huge differentials between senior and junior staff; freelance rates that have been stagnant for a decade; and experienced and highly qualified workers leaving the sector altogether in order to be able to pay the rent. – Arts Professional

Both candidates exist on the progressive spectrum. Both candidates have problematic pasts and positive potential. Both appear to be arts-knowledgeable, but at February’s Mayoral Arts Forum, sponsored by Arts Alliance Illinois and the League of Chicago Theatres, they sat shoulder-to-shoulder with their fellow candidates in terms of their uncertainty around Chicago’s current arts policies. – Clyde Fitch Report

Freelancers in the arts hit the instability jackpot. They enter a market with no money and ask for the scraps, billing for what the organisation can afford, not what the job is worth. Unlike employees, they’re never paid for the in-between times; they sometimes lose money in preparing for and delivering jobs, which employees don’t. And it’s probably the only industry in which taking on a PhD just to live off an associated scholarship – which one respondent to the ArtsPay survey reported doing – is an understandable career choice. – Arts Professional

The shock of Vietnam made conventional art forms such as painting and sculpture look inadequate. Its reverberations inspired a rapid expansion of the possible forms art could take and a search for new audiences. Public performances, video, installations, land art and agitprop all flourished during the war. – Washington Post

As part of the City’s agreement to let the Met charge non-New Yorkers a mandatory admission fee, the museum is to give the City a portion of the new revenues for grants to other organizations. Now the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs has announced that it will distribute $2.8 million of those revenues to 175 groups throughout the five boroughs. – ARTnews

Anyone with an Instagramaccount, a fashion magazine subscription or an interest in social activism is ultimately engaging with club culture. Nightlife is like an angel investor in pop culture, silently incubating grassroots movements and social moments, and since the first iterations of the disco, clubs have been a breeding ground for cultural experimentation. – The Guardian

Cultural democracy is, in its essence, anti-elitist. It denounces the superiority of one form of culture over others and includes amateur arts, lifestyles, folk creativity, and traditional practices. Diversity and free choice are key, and culture should be available as an integral part of everyday life. It was the kind of thing I benefited from in my childhood. It comes as no surprise that the term “cultural democracy” is still on the table as the buzz answer to the figures that show only a small slice of society benefits from the subsidies for the arts. – Howlround

Rather than a vision of the future, Hudson Yards takes a snapshot of the concentrated-wealth present. It is the physical expression of the tensions between the developer’s focus on moneymaking, the complications of the site, and complex public agendas. Hudson Yards is an untidy collage of all the forces that have acted on it. – CityLab

The iconic Trocadero is going out in May, according to owner Joanna Pang, who says (and this is depressing as heck) “The landscape of the business has changed in the last five years. It’s harder now to be an independently run venue — it’s a different world. There are bigger rooms run by bigger concert corporations.” That is, Live Nation. – Variety

Stevenson was among many other arts leaders in Britain who said Brexit was a terrible idea. She added, “I spent last year filming a series called Riviera, which had a French crew, Belgian director, German camera man, English, Swiss and American casts, and it’s particularly those sorts of things that are going to be much harder.” – The Stage (UK)

Cleveland’s Cuyahoga Arts and Culture is one of the country’s largest local arts funders. As such it has an enormous impact on its arts community. Of course having money to spend supporting the arts is a good thing. But it also gives a funder power. So what kind of leader does CAC want to have? – CANJournal

Is a review dashed out in an hour really going to be as good as one written under a more generous deadline? Sometimes, maybe: I know some critics who think British deadlines are the enemy of decent reviews, but they can underestimate the quality that can be mustered with the adrenaline pumping. Nonetheless, there is something obviously counterintuitive about the idea that the more important the review, the less time will be spent on it. – The Stage

A survey by Americans for the Arts gives an idea of salaries and demographics of arts workers across America’s local arts agencies. – Americans for the Arts

“The Smithsonian Institution has canceled this summer’s 10-day Folklife Festival celebrating the music and culture of Benin and Brazil and will replace it with a smaller event.” Instead, “[there] will be a two-day event, June 29 and 30, focused on the ‘Social Power of Music,’ in keeping with the Smithsonian-wide 2019 Year of Music theme.” – The Washington Post

“Who and what defines art and quality, which institutions matter and how they are accessed, who knows whom, whether advantage is accumulated from a prejudiced past, and where conscious and subconscious biases of culture interrupt economic valuation—these are the questions that sociologists ask to explain greatness. It is not a denial of quality, talent, innovation, or genius, but a way to contextualize them.” – Artsy

“Whether it is photography, painting, sculpture, or design, the arts define who we are at Cartier. Some of our creations were directly linked to the aesthetics of the Mughal period in India with Cartier looking less to local jewelry and more to miniature paintings. Also, geometric shapes found in Islamic Art inspired the designs of some of our accessories and the ornamental “guilloché” patterns in our watches. Art motifs enter Cartier’s vocabulary and then we use them in intuitive ways, on products without a logo or in the architecture of our booths or boutiques, so that our clients feel they are walking into Cartier’s universe.” – Artnet