"We're going to hire artists, musicians, performers, and they're going to be out in communities doing public art, public performances, pop-up shows…creating murals, you name it," said Mayor Bill de Blasio. "We want to give artists opportunities, and we want this city to feel the power of our cultural community again." - Gothamist
"The program … will give money to artists, musicians and other performers to create works across the city, whether through public art, performances, pop-up shows, murals or other community arts projects. … is expected to create jobs for more than 1,500 artists in New York City." - The New York Times
This aspect of theater hygiene has turned out to be little more than — well — hygiene theater. Experts have been saying since last year that the risk of surface transmission was tiny, and in April the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pegged the risk at just 1 in 10,000. - Variety
The U.K. Home Office revealed on Wednesday that people who have won any of these awards will be able to skip the endorsements previously required as part of the Global Talent visa category — available to anyone in the fields of academia or research, arts and culture or digital technology — from Wednesday, May 5. - Variety
The city had most all of its nonprofit arts constituencies in line like eager petitioners: as soon as the mayor spoke, they hit “send” on their summer news releases. And let’s not forget the suburbs. Ravinia is returning, too! If you run an arts organization, you’re now worried about being lost in the shuffle. - Chicago Tribune (Yahoo!)
"For 20 years now, … Harvey Weinstein was still feared, Kanye West was still about the music, and museums exhibited portfolios of amoral behavior with impunity, Favorite has toiled in the cancel culture. … Since 2001, Chicago-based novelist and literature professor has taught a class at titled 'Love the Art, Hate the Artist.' The university...
"Money for Austin's municipal arts funding comes from the Hotel Occupancy Tax of which the arts receive 15% of the city's allocation. Funding levels are set according to tax revenues from the previous fiscal year." The pandemic wiped out revenue from that tax, so arts funding for the coming fiscal year is projected to be only $1 million, down...
"Computer scientists are writing algorithms to identify the emotional arcs of novels. Sociologists are building statistical models to analyze why certain works of visual art resonate more than others. Electrical engineers have scraped tens of thousands of book reviews from the online website Goodreads.com to parse why some types of stories drive readers to talk to each other, and...
"The pharmaceutical industry and the governments of several vaccine-producing countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as the European Commission, have been resisting the IP waiver, while 150 public leaders and experts have sent an open letter to US President Joe Biden in support of it. There is no longer any question about who is...
"Under proposals put forward earlier this year by Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, funding from the Office for Students — the independent regulator of higher education — would be cut by half for students of art and design, music, dance, drama and performing arts, media studies and archaeology during the 2021-22 academic year." - The Art Newspaper
Roselyne Bachelot, the culture minister, has outlined the planned stages of reopening and rules that will be in place beginning May 19: for instance, no food or drink sold inside venues (so there's no excuse to take off one's mask). Seating limits will be 35% of capacity until June 9, then 65% until June 30 and 100% thereafter. -...
The site for the project is AlUla, a historical site with ancient rock-hewn buildings similar to those in Petra, Jordan. The plan is for five different cultural districts connected by a tram running along 12-mile greenway; attractions are to include museums and galleries, an archaeology and conservation center, an outdoor amphitheater, a nature park, and, of course, luxury hotels....
Customers complained to the press and filed lawsuits. In an interview, StubHub customer experience vice president Daron Fowlks declined to comment on litigation but said that customers who bought tickets to events in the U.S. or Canada on or before March 25, 2020, and were issued credits for cancellations, will now get refunds. Those will be paid out by...
A hoverboard burst into flames, harming the person who bought it from a third-party seller on Amazon Marketplace and leading to a court case in which a California appeals court said Amazon can't duck out on this one. "Bottom line: Amazon — and by extension other online retailers — isn’t just a bystander when someone purchases a third-party product....
And now there's a task force trying to get the authors of novels in the Indiana Jones, Buffy, and Star Wars universes the royalties for recent sales of their books. Disney, according to author Alan Dean Foster, told him that when they bought Lucasfilm and the rights to Foster's novelization of Star Wars: A New Hope, first published in...
