"I am honored and humbled by their intention but I have asked the leaders of the state legislature to remove the bill from any and all consideration. Given all that is going on in the world, I don't think putting me on a pedestal is appropriate at this time. … Perhaps after I'm gone if you still feel I...
"An ambitious £288m concert hall that was supposed to be 'the Tate Modern of classical music' has been scrapped by the City of London Corporation, which said the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic made the plan impossible to complete." The recently-announced departure from London of the project's highest-profile advocate, Simon Rattle, probably made this decision inevitable. - The Guardian
Martin Kettle: "Justifying the cost, the priority, the location and the uses to which the hall would be put were all delicate tasks in any case. It was hard not to see it as an elite project, only distantly connected with wider public need at a time when funding was being squeezed." Then came Brexit, followed by COVID. "It...
As the Australian government pushed the social media giant, along with Google, to pay news outlets there for use of their material for links, the search engine made deals, while Facebook decided to block all news links in the country as of Thursday. That morning, more than 250 Australian cultural organizations found their Facebook pages wiped clean: it seems...
In 2012, a different ABT alum, Julio Bocca, was named director of the Ballet Nacional del Sodre in Montevideo with the remit to raise the company's level. One of the first things he did was recruit his colleague, ABT soloist Maria Riccetto, to come back to her hometown and join the company; so she did, and she became a...
“The Met has a responsibility to our field and our global community,” Max Hollein says in a long statement posted today on the Met’s website. But, declaring a “historic crisis” for museums, he says: “It is my professional opinion that a deliberate deaccession program is appropriate, useful and necessary for a museum like ours. I also believe that we...
Among the winners of this literary resurgence is a micro-industry: book subscription services, which curate a selection for you and deliver them to your home. In an era of information overload and a crowded literary market with an often debilitating degree of choice, it isn’t hard to see the attraction of professionals highly attuned to the market – or...
The art fair leased a pair of converted townhouses in December last year, and it has now revealed that they will open as a new hub for international galleries to rent out for short periods, starting in October. - Artnet
The initiative combines entertainment metadata with Nielsen’s audience measurement data. It’s designed to equip content creators, owners, distributors and advertisers with data around onscreen diversity and representation to enable more inclusive content. - Los Angeles Times
There had always been rumors, and a few hints in surviving records, that there had been a hammam where the Cervercería Giralda now stands, but most people (including the owners) shrugged them off and figured the building was 1920s Moorish Revival style. Then the owners started renovating … - The Guardian
"This present moment places us in an exciting crossroad between former traditions and the emergence of technical and multi-platformed storytelling. I do not believe we are in a purgatory until we return to in-person venues, but instead that we are on the precipice of incredible innovation. The future of our art form will be deeply impacted by the ways...
"You feel the weight of the famous Palais Garnier opera house itself, and the history and legacy of the legendary dancers who have performed there. And then there's the pressure of expectations, but after about eight minutes in a room full of dancers, I felt okay. They were all so welcoming, and you could sense how hungry they were...
MPs at the digital, culture, media and sport committee hearing told DCMS minister Caroline Dinenage that her department was treated as an “afterthought” by the government, and that during Brexit negotiations the creative industries were not prioritised, despite their accounting for about a quarter of the UK’s economy. - The Guardian
"A century ago, samba becoming synonymous with Brazil's cultural identity would have seemed impossible. In the early 20th century, Rio's ruling elite were ashamed and afraid of the rhythm, which was linked to African-Brazilian cults. Samba faced police persecution: musicians were frequently arrested, their instruments confiscated or destroyed; gatherings were abruptly shut down. It might not have lasted were...
"A functioning market required transparency, a mutual understanding of exchanges and a shared moral framework. And, as Rana Foroohar puts it in this brief animation for the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), surveillance capitalism – pioneered by Google, and now, to varying degrees, ubiquitous worldwide – comes up short on all three fronts." - Aeon
