The pitch from ruangrupa: "The lumbung, the common rice store traditionally found in Indonesian villages, built and shared by everyone. They wanted Documenta to be a lumbung, treating artists as partners and creating resources that would live on beyond the show." - The New York Times
Merryl Goldberg hand-encoded names, addresses, and other details of the Phantom Orchestra, a group of Jewish refuseniks and Christian activists trying to help Jews and others escape the USSR, in composition notebooks - hidden from the prying eyes of Soviet officials. - Wired
Theresa Ruth Howard, guest curating at the Kennedy Center, "envisioned gathering an international lineup of dancers for something that’s rare in the traditional ballet world: to work in a space where being Black is the norm rather than the exception." - MSN (Washington Post)
"The smile has always been with us then, and it would appear it's always been the same. It seems only one step further to claim that the smile has no history. But this would be far from the truth. In fact, the smile has a fascinating, if much-neglected past." - Aeon
As offices relocated to, well, every employee's home, a lot of new and relatively inexpensive space opened up across the country. Public media took notice. - Current
Well, at least in Australia: both researchers and museum execs there report that attendance goes up when it's rainy, and new-ish major arts festivals during the antipodean winter are pulling in crowds, even in chilly Tasmania. - Arts Hub (Australia)
That is, they should consider the benefits of becoming creative therapists. After all, art, performance, and (especially) music-based therapies have a lot of research-based backing as effective. And, importantly, therapy can be a consistent source of income for artists. - ArtsHub
"Archivists and librarians at the ABC are in shock after management unveiled plans to abolish 58 positions and make journalists research and archive their own stories. ... The research library staff will continue to help investigative programs ... but will not be available to assist daily news or ABC co-productions." - The Guardian
"A major lost painting by a follower of the Italian Renaissance painter Filippino Lippi hidden in plain sight in a London bungalow" of a 90+-year-old woman was discovered & sold to pay for her nursing home memory care. - Artnet
Last month a Saudi man took a wrong turn and drove his rented Maserati down the steps — then he tried to reverse the car back up, taking some chunks out of the marble. This week, an American couple tried to wheel their scooters down the steps and caused more damage. - Artnet
That sure seems like the plan. "It’s all part of a new strategy that we’re calling 'the Spotify machine'," said Spotify CEO Daniel Ek. Sounds, uh, interesting. - Axios
The Nederland Organization, owner of what's now called the Brooks Atkinson Theatre (where the musical Six is currently playing), will officially rename the venue the Lena Horne Theatre in a ceremony this fall. It will be the first Broadway house named for a Black woman. - Deadline
"The coffee shop chain has said the 2021 awards, which were announced in February this year, were the last. ... The awards were established in 1971 and known as the Whitbread book awards until 2005, when Costa took over the running and financing. Whitbread sold Costa to Coca-Cola in 2019." - The Guardian
"'Charlie Roberts' and 'Only Stand and Wait' were both published on 9 June in Strand magazine, a US-based print magazine that publishes short fiction and interviews. ... A previously unpublished story, 'Adventure on a Bad Night', was published by Strand magazine in 2020." - The Guardian
"At his peak, Mr. Lurie's evocative caricatures appeared in about 1,000 publications with more than 100 million readers in 100 countries. ... He welded drawing and writing into a mightier-than-the-sword instrument ... whose imagery, he said, conveyed even greater impact than photography." - The New York Times
