“There are many reasons why musicians continue to make music, both live and in the studio, right up until the end. In some cases it is out of financial necessity, and in other instances it is because of an addiction to the adrenaline rush of mass adulation, an experience rather harder to reproduce in the lavish surroundings of an exclusive retirement community. Even as we might good-naturedly mock and wince at what we see as the more absurd aspects of their careers, there is an enormous affection that exists between audience and act, especially if their fans have grown up with their favourites.” – The Critic
Museums Are Rich. But Cash-Poor. So Now The Inevitable Debate…
For those governing and supporting museums, the old standards about the use and disposal of collections and endowments are rapidly risking obsolescence. Museums are, of course, property-rich in a manner unlike any individual, or a company with a profit motive. Works of art and endowment funds (typically cash and investments held to generate income, not to be spent) are both, in the eyes of the law, the property of museums, but there are critical distinctions. Art collections generally do not appear on balance sheets but endowments do. The basic organisational question of which property is an asset that can be legally used to cover liabilities is unique to cultural institutions. Museums on either side of the Atlantic come at this challenge from slightly different starting points. – Apollo
Lessons On Solitude From An Author Who’s Not Thoreau
“In Rousseau’s scheme of things, solitude was the natural human state. By stepping outside of society, by distancing oneself from other voices, one was facilitating a return to oneself. But being with oneself is one thing; writing about the state of being with oneself, another.” – The Paris Review
Theatre Architects Consider How COVID Could Change Theatre Design
“The proposed addition of hand-washing stations and health screening areas means that theatre lobbies will have to grow. The whole theatre building will have to grow, in fact. If social distancing becomes a commonplace circulation pattern, theatres will require more space in the lobby, around the box office, at the bar, and in line for the restrooms. Not to mention in auditorium seating. … But this theatre-half-empty situation provides an opportunity for future theatre builders.” – American Theatre
Is This An Art Collective Or A Private Equity Firm? Group Buys Brand-Name Artwork And Literally Breaks It Up To Sell Off The Parts
“The Brooklyn-based artists and designers behind MSCHF purchased a $30,000 Damien Hirst spot print and cut out all 88 of its dots. Starting today, they’re selling the dots for $480 each.” (That’s $42,400 in total.) “Meanwhile, the original print, now just a piece of paper with 88 holes and Hirst’s signature, is up for auction for a minimum of $126,500.” (Wow, they really are like Bain Capital.) – Artnet
Shuttered Theatre Companies Still Need Their Fundraising Galas. So They’re Streaming Them — And It’s Working
“With many staffers on furlough, and operations grinding to a halt, fundraising efforts (and a boost of morale) can be more important than ever. And while there’s some debate over how well stage productions translate to the screen, theatres are proving that virtual galas do just fine online. Fundraising goals are being met, even surpassed, with attendance tripled in some cases.” Here’s how several companies are pulling it off. – American Theatre
Female Choreographers Are Transforming The Story Ballet
“An iconic yet tortured female painter. A mistress wrapped up in a witch hunt in an early American colony. A talented cellist whose life ended prematurely after her battle with multiple sclerosis. … Today, there is a thrilling, 21st-century wave of story-driven ballets choreographed by women. What are their perspectives, and the stories they choose to tell, adding to ballet’s canon?” – Dance Magazine
San Francisco Art Institute Says It Won’t Close After All
“An outpouring of support and encouragement from potential partners and charitable organizations — along with protests by students, faculty, alumni and staff — convinced the Board to take extreme measures to keep SFAI open,” the press release states. – Inside Higher Ed
Quixotic: Renegade Design Competition Reimagines A New LACMA
Of the 28 proposals submitted, the jury — which included a retired LACMA curator — selected six as the “leading ideas.” The winning studios will each receive $1,500 prizes. Nan Goldin declined to say who is funding the competition: “It’s the same anonymous donor who has bankrolled the ads that we’ve taken out.” – Los Angeles Times
Learning How To Do The Arts In A Post-COVID World
One challenge is figuring out how to monetize the digital experience for an audience that’s bathing in a glut of free content. Another is figuring out how to create an experience that’s satisfying online, by organizations that have been trying to do this for some years already. – Vanity Fair
Per Olov Enquist, One Of Sweden’s Greatest Modern Writers, Dead At 85
His enormous body of prose fiction, poetry, stage dramas and screenplays (including the Oscar-winning Pelle the Conqueror) won him virtually every major Nordic literary prize other than the Nobel. As he once told an interviewer, “Every time I feel depressed that I’m not doing anything, I look at this bookshelf [of my work] and say to myself, ‘Well, that is seven meters and I have done a little bit, so I can die.'” – The Washington Post
We’ll Have To Learn New Ways To Use Public Space
As a post-lockdown city edges into view, we’ll have to develop new ways to use the places we share, from public restrooms to restaurants, classrooms, hallways, subway cars, and sidewalks. Prodded by fear and guided by tape, we will develop new social dances that resemble the formal ballroom steps of yore. – New York Magazine
Texas Arts World Confused And Uncertain About Governor’s Reopening Orders
“The governor proclaimed that all retail outlets, as well as restaurants, movie theaters, museums and libraries, are free to reopen May 1 — but with occupancy no greater than 25%. That’s expected to expand to 50% by May 18. Debbie Storey, president and CEO of the AT&T Performing Arts Center, which is home to five resident companies in the Dallas Arts District, summed up what many were feeling. ‘It didn’t specifically give us permission to open,’ Storey said, ‘so we’re still trying to assess what this means for us, and what it might mean on May 18.'” – The Dallas Morning News
Alamo Drafthouse Won’t Reopen Texas Theaters This Weekend Despite Governor Approval
“Opening safely is a very complex project that involves countless new procedures and equipment, all of which require extensive training,” said a statement from company management. “This is something we cannot and will not do casually or quickly.” (Meanwhile, here are the precautions one arthouse cinema in Tulsa is taking as it prepares to reopen in May.) – Variety
Bernard Gersten, Heroic Administrator Who Saved Two Major Theater Institutions, Dead At 97
For 18 years, Gersten was second-in-command to Joe Papp at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater (where his interventions twice saved Papp’s and the company’s future), and he spent 28 years as executive producer at Lincoln Center Theater, where, alongside artistic directors Gregory Mosher and André Bishop, he “took a theater that had almost been completely dark for eight years and a failure for 20 and helped turn it into one of the nation’s leading nonprofit stage organizations.” – The New York Times
For The First Time, There Is No Wagner Running The Bayreuth Festival
Katharina Wagner, the composer Richard Wagner’s great-granddaughter, became co-director of the festival (alongside cousin Eva) in 2008 and sole director in 2015. Now, just short of age 42, Katharina has stepped away from the job indefinitely due to a long-term illness (not COVID-19, according to festival management). – OperaWire
Stratford Festival Puts Entire 2020 Season ‘On Hold’
Last month, the festival canceled all April and May performances and laid off hundreds of workers. But with the repertory company’s actors appearing in several productions and with audience members circulating among four theatres, festival management decided the risks of spreading coronavirus would be too great for the foreseeable future. – Toronto Star
A Glimpse Of The Post-COVID Art Scene: Seoul Reopens Its Galleries
“Elsewhere around the world, art galleries and museums remain shuttered, hemorrhaging staff and plaintively asking, What will it take to reopen? And just as crucially, What will this new art world look like? Seoul, a dense metropolis with a population of nearly 10 million but only two coronavirus deaths to date, is offering one possible answer.” – The New York Times
If Ever The BBC Proved Its Worth, It’s Now
Nick Hornby: “Before all this started, the BBC was under assault, apparently because of its independence. It was, is, being threatened with all sorts, including the loss of its lifeblood licence fee. The BBC, one of our crowning achievements as a nation! I will not waste space here listing what it has given us, the comedy and the drama and the sport, some of the things that have helped to define who we are now . You know that already, even if you’re the dimmest Tory MP in Parliament. But right now, the BBC is helping me to live through and understand a crisis.” – Penguin
The loosely-coupled future of live performance
Any sustainable and resilient plan for returning to live performance will have to be highly adaptable, nimble, responsive, and risk-tolerant. The trick will be to find loosely-coupled approaches to what has become tightly-coupled work. – Andrew Taylor