ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

ISSUES

Do Arts Non-Profits Do Things Backwards?

Solving the external problem has to come first. Then a good nonprofit strategizes the second part. Good faith efforts require that to happen in that order. Sadly, almost all nonprofit arts organizations – at best – try to do this in reverse order. - Alan Harrison

Bolshoi Theatre Cancels Operas And Ballets By Directors Opposed To Ukraine Invasion

"The theatre gave no reason for dropping Timofey Kulyabin's production of the opera Don Pasquale and Kirill Serebrennikov's ballet Nureyev, which will be replaced by productions of Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Aram Khachaturian's ballet Spartacus," the latter a piece of patriotic populism from Soviet days. - The Guardian

Influencer Culture Takes Over Academia

In the persistent wake of the pandemic, the pressure for scholars to self-promote has only intensified. Starved for opportunities to share our latest findings at in-person conferences, we take to Twitter, Instagram, or perhaps our email signature to hype our new books and articles. - Salon

Fears About Disappearing Ukrainian Culture

Museum curators and conservators are especially worried that because of the amount of un-digitalized catalogues and other existing print materials in archives and libraries, some very vulnerable materials are in danger of being lost completely. - Aisle Say

Historic Preservation Is Really Mucking Up Cities, And The People Who’d Like To Live In Them

The laws have done some good for buildings that truly do need to be preserved. However: "In cities with significant numbers of old buildings ... preservation became an essential part of the process by which communities fended off urban-redevelopment projects." - The Atlantic

Disney Still Isn’t Paying Its Writers

There's "a systematic program of theft from a whole cohort of writers, stemming from Disney's orgy of acquisitions. ... Disney took the position that all of these corporate mergers only transferred the literary assets – the right to publish – but not the obligations – the requirement to pay authors." - Pluralistic

An Author Wanted To Show LGBT Kids That Life Wasn’t All Doom And Gloom

And so, of course, a Catholic school in England canceled his school appearance. - The Guardian (UK)

Britain Proposes To Regulate Streaming Services

There are two major government claims: The regulations will protect (innocent?) watchers; and also, regulating streaming will "create a 'new golden age' of British TV." - BBC

Elon Musk’s Hostile Takeover Of Twitter Is A Reminder That Platforms Are Temporary

But community, real community, including community found on those platforms, can last a lot longer. - Vice

Against Performative Activism In The Arts

Signalling in writing or in speech that you’re anti-racist is entirely different to being anti-racist – that is, to doing the work to create workplace cultures and policies that safely accommodate BIPOC artists once they’re on the inside. - ArtsHub

Britain, At Last, Gets A National LGBTQ Museum

The opening of Queer Britain at king's Cross in London, "is an important milestone for a minority that has only enjoyed widespread public acceptance and significant legal protections for the briefest of periods, and is, in a sense, still blinking, slightly dazed, in the light." - The Guardian

Will Fort Worth End Public Arts Funding Altogether?

"People who work in the arts in (the Texas city) say City Manager David Cooke is seeking to gut funding for Arts Fort Worth and Fort Worth Public Art, claiming his ultimate goal is to privatize public art and arts funding in general." - Fort Worth Weekly

If Florida Wants To Take Away Disney World’s Special Status, It Has To Pay Off Disney World’s Bond Debt, Say Attorneys

"The Reedy Creek Improvement District claimed that dissolving the special tax district would violate a pledge (made) by Florida to bondholders under the law that created the district." And that debt, incurred to build and maintain the giant complex, is over $1 billion. - The Hollywood Reporter

Could Subscriptions Take Over In The Gaming World?

Subscription and cloud gaming represents just 4% of North America and Europe game markets, or roughly $3.7 billion, according to a recent study Harding-Rolls. Of the available services, only 5% are streaming-only offerings, while a majority (60%) use Xbox Game Pass. - Protocol

$800 Million. That’s How Much The Massachusetts Arts Sector Has Lost Since COVID Arrived

"More than 1,000 cultural organizations surveyed throughout the state have lost $781 million in revenue, according to data collected and published by the Mass Cultural Council." - MSN (The Boston Globe)

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