“We have the power to decide to value art and culture in ways that support the kind of lives we want to be living. But to do that, we need more skin in the game—a greater shared commitment among a wider pool of stakeholders to recognize, articulate, and collectively wield the power art and culture already has, and to ensure it’s doing the civic, political, and social work we value the most. ” – Artnet
OMG! How I Got Obsessed With Oil Painting
“By the time the eight-week course was over, I was the wretch I am now: an unhinged woman vehemently obsessed with oil painting who wrestles with it like a feral person for hours every day. I had earth-moving revelations as I graduated from using makeup brushes to real sable, and switched from canvas to linen panels. My formerly adorable kitchen now looks as though Francis Bacon had assaulted a pope in it. I know things about linseed oil its own mother doesn’t know.” – New York Review of Books
Of Course Streaming Is Up; Why Are Movie Chains Flipping Out?
The reactions of AMC and other chains to NBCUniversal’s touting of a streaming-only release of the movie Trolls: World Tour is head-shakingingly weird. Almost everyone is stuck at home – and almost no one has access to movie theatres (drive-ins excepted). “If there were ever a time not to make proclamations about the future of theatrical distribution, it’s now. Which is not to say that our re-emergence into the world of movies, whatever form that takes, won’t have its share of problems, because some of the old problems will follow us.” – Time
Lockdown lessons: ‘Singin’ in the Rain’
We learned a lot of things about Singin’ in the Rain during the Lockdown Theatre Club group watch. Here are 20 of them – from dubbing the dubbers to Gene Kelly’s buttock-framing trousers. – David Jays
Matthew Shipp’s ‘Piano Equation’
The dictionary defines equation as “the act of making equal.” In his engrossing new solo album, pianist Matthew Shipp creates eleven new pieces of music in which the equality of his powerful hands is important to the venture’s success, but not as important as his fertile imagination. – Doug Ramsey
Idled Professional Dancers Start Making TikTok Videos
“Since its release in 2017, TikTok has become a wildly popular global platform for dance, especially among teens, with tools that make it easy to film yourself dancing to music, integrate special effects and share the results. … In recent weeks, the app has attracted a small but growing contingent of professional dancers in their 20s and 30s, who … are tapping into its joys and questioning how TikTok might shape the future of their field.” – The New York Times
Paris Plans To Keep Cars Out Of The City When It Reopens
The city’s mayor: “I say in all firmness that it is out of the question that we allow ourselves to be invaded by cars, and by pollution. It will make the health crisis worse. Pollution is already in itself a health crisis and a danger — and pollution joined up with coronavirus is a particularly dangerous cocktail. So it’s out of the question to think that arriving in the heart of the city by car is any sort of solution, when it could actually aggravate the situation.” – CityLab
How The NEA Is Responding To The COVID Crisis
With its relief funding, the NEA is switching tack from supporting individual art projects to ensuring that non-profit institutions and organisations are able to reopen. “We want to preserve as many jobs as possible—that’s number one,” says Mary Anne Carter, the chair of the NEA. “At some point the crisis will pass, and we want the nation’s art organisations to still be there to open their doors and welcome the community back in.” – The Art Newspaper
Turns Out Shared Danger Brings People Together
“It turns out that being in a dangerous situation with others fosters a new social identity. Boundaries between us, which seem so salient when things are normal, disappear when we perceive we’re locked in a struggle together, with a common fate, from an external threat. People go from me thinking to we thinking.” – Nautilus
Covid Obit: William Gerdts, 91, Distinguished Scholar of American Art (& my tipster)
He was a renowned expert on American Impressionism and 19th-century American still-life painting as well as author of more than 20 books on American art, notably his three-volume Art Across America: Two Centuries of Regional Painting 1710-1920. – Lee Rosenbaum
‘Ballet Conductors Are The Hidden Heroes Of The Art Form’
Sarah Kaufman: “They can serve as guardian angels of the evening, controlling the musical universe and its atmosphere, smoothing over mishaps and delivering well-timed thunderbolts with a wave of the baton. They can even see the future, reading signs of trouble in a dancer’s hesitancy or hint of fatigue, and adjusting the tempo for what comes next. … Despite quieter profiles, ballet conductors arguably do twice the work of their symphonic counterparts.” – The Washington Post
Antiquities Traffickers Are Using COVID Crisis To Ramp Up Trade In Looted Items
“The Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research (ATHAR) Project … has found an uptick in posts on Facebook groups involved in buying and selling looted objects from the Middle East and North Africa in recent months, as many countries went into lockdown.” – The Art Newspaper
Iconic Seattle Record Store, Once Named One Of The Best In America, Will Close After 41 Years
Dave Voorhees estimates that the store’s chockablock bins hold half a million recordings of rock, R&B, jazz, classical, country and other musical genres — an inventory his business manager, Bob Jacobs, values at $3 million. About 200,000 of those records are vintage 45 RPM singles, many extremely rare. – Seattle Times
Barney Ales, Motown’s Master Marketer, Dead At 85
“Mr. Ales was one of [Berry] Gordy’s most indispensable executives throughout the 1960s, when Motown became a ubiquitous force in American pop culture and a prime symbol of black enterprise at the height of the civil rights movement. Officially, he was in charge of sales and promotion. But as a high-ranking white executive at a black-owned label, Mr. Ales was also instrumental in promoting Motown’s music to the white-dominated industry — most importantly the programmers who decided what songs were played on Top 40 radio stations.” – The New York Times
Music That Was Just Made (Or Could Have Been) For The Pandemic
Michael Andor Brodeur: “Lately, my social media feeds are filled with musical experiments that take a head-on approach to the current crisis, or works composed before the outbreak that resonate anew in the context of covid-19. Rather than escape the moment, they arrest it. Here are four works, new and recent, that you can stream (and, in some cases, sing) over the next several days.” Top of the list: David Lang’s Protect Yourself From Infection. – The Washington Post
L.A. May Turn Real Estate Developers’ Arts Fees Into Relief Funding For Arts Groups
“For every private development project of $500,000 or more in the city of Los Angeles, the developer must pay an arts fee to the city based on the square footage of the building or a percentage of the value of the permit. Those funds are then allocated to cultural events such as festivals and other public arts happenings. But with dense public gatherings not possible for the foreseeable future, L.A. City Councilman David Ryu hopes to use those funds as relief grants for arts organizations.” – Los Angeles Times
AMC/Odeon, World’s Largest Cinema Chain, Boycotts Universal Pictures
AMC has announced that, in both its U.S. outlets and its Odeon Cinemas abroad, “it will refuse to show movies released by Hollywood studio Universal. The latter had just declared it would continue to release films simultaneously via cinemas and streaming, after the coronavirus pandemic restrictions are lifted.” – The Guardian
To Avoid Staff Furloughs, Smithsonian’s Top Execs Take Pay Cuts
“The salaries of 89 senior-level executives — all nonfederal employees — will be cut by 10 percent for 12 months, starting May 24, with Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III and Deputy Secretary Meroe Park taking 15 percent cuts. The senior executives include museum and science directors and officials overseeing investments, security and facilities … The majority of the institution’s 6,300 employees are federal workers and will not be affected.” – The Washington Post
Sarah Palin’s School District Drops ‘Great Gatsby’, ‘Catch-22’, And Three Others
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District in Alaska “cited ‘sexually explicit material’ and ”anti-white’ messaging’ in [Maya Angelou’s] I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, … [and] language and sexual references in [F. Scott Fitzgerald’s] The Great Gatsby. … The other books on the list — Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien — were judged to be inappropriate because they contained mentions of rape, incest, racial slurs, profanity and misogyny.” – The New York Times
How Italy Will Reopen Its Museums
The next phase is set to start on May 4, with museums slated to welcome visitors again on May 18. They must follow safety guidelines drawn up by the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, which requires that all tickets be purchased online and visitors must practice social distancing in the galleries. – Artnet
How To Save Indigenous Culture? Pop
Their argument is that there is no better way to become visible than through pop culture. – The New York Times
Why Zoom Makes You Feel Bad
To be sure, video calls are great for letting toddlers blow kisses to their grandparents, showing people what you’re cooking for dinner or maybe demonstrating how to make a face mask out of boxer briefs. But if you want to really communicate with someone in a meaningful way, video can be vexing. – The New York Times
Deborah Borda On Surviving Tough Times
“The next couple of months are very unknown. But times of this kind of catastrophe are times for really reimagining what you can do and bringing people along to dare to make those choices.” – Los Angeles Times
Irrfan Khan, Star Of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ And ‘Life Of Pi’, Dead At 53
After an unsatisfying early career in Indian TV serials and films (his acting was too subtle and his looks too unconventional for a traditional Bollywood lead), he found acclaim in the British-Indian co-production The Warrior and settled into a career of Bollywood character parts and major roles in Indian art cinema. In the ’00s, his Western career went into high gear as he played the policeman in Slumdog Millionaire, the adult Piscine in Life of Pi, and the owner of the Jurassic World park. – BBC