“The conceptual restructure, if it goes ahead as planned, will make the museum itself look curiously out of time, out of touch with the world and with its own history. If the planned changes to the V&A are a harbinger of what ‘Global Britain’ will look like, then a parochial, nostalgic future – marked by redundancies of vision as well as personnel – lies ahead.” – London Review of Books
How (And When) Audiobooks Were Born
Fans have been predicting the audiobook’s ascendance ever since it became possible to record books. But when exactly was that? The audiobook’s origins can be traced back further than most people realize. – Cabinet Magazine
Scavenging For A Library From The Ruins Amidst Syria’s Civil War
“In a town under siege from Assad’s regime, a small group of revolutionaries found a new mission: to build a library from books rescued from the rubble. For those stranded in the city, books offered an imaginative escape from the horrors of war.” – The Guardian
Oh Great, Now They’re Turning Dance Into NFTs, Too
With Non-Fungible Tokens taking the visual art world hostage by storm, it was only a matter of time before other art forms turned to them. The NFTs made by blockchain platform Enjin and street dance group Beauty in the Streets “represent signature moves and mannerisms of various performers which, in turn, can then be sold to fans via online stores and live shows and used as emotes [i.e., animated emojis] within participating video games and apps.” And so it begins … – CoinDesk
India’s New Internet Regulations Will Change How Indians See The Internet
Among other things, the IT Rules 2021 require social media platforms to deploy AI-based technology to identify sexually explicit content, trace the originator of encrypted messages, introduce a “voluntary verification system” for its users, and hire local teams to respond to both Indian users’ and government’s complaints about content. Regulations for platforms with more than 5 million users will be even tougher. – Global Voices
Has COVID Changed Standup Comedy For Good?
If so, it’s got nothing to do with illness or quarantine as subject matter; it’s that the lockdown pushed everyone — audiences, colleagues, and (crucially) gatekeepers such as casting agents and bookers — online, where barriers to entry are low and the democratizing effect has been sizable. – The Guardian
Dog Dance Competitions (Yes, They’re A Thing)
The sport is called canine musical freestyle. “At a typical competition, you might see dogs weaving through their handlers’ legs, rolling over, spinning on their hind legs or leaping triumphantly into the arms of their humans, tails wagging all the way through. Some routines are more skit-like and tell a story, while others are more abstract.” – Dance Magazine
Italy’s Highest Court Saves 800-Year-Old Monastery From Steve Bannon
“The Council of State ruled that the Culture Ministry was correct in cancelling the concession it had given to the Dignitatis Humanae Institute,” a conservative think tank whose stated mission is “supporting Christians in public life, … [in] response to increasing efforts to silence the Christian voice in the public square.” Bannon was leading an effort to establish a training program for right-wing Christian leaders at the monastery, but “the court found that the institute had lied when it bid for the lease of the [complex] in 2017.” – AP
DesertX Cancels Judy Chicago Smoke Piece Over Environmental Concerns
The two-month-long Coachella Valley biennial known as Desert X will not include a relocated Judy Chicago piece, the artist has told The Times, and the cancellation of the work is threatening a smoke sculpture planned for San Francisco’s de Young museum in mid-October. – Los Angeles Times
LA Movie Theatres Reopen And Sell Out Of Tickets
The No. 1 circuit’s Burbank location sold out 22 of its 32 showtimes, while Century City sold out 18 of its 30 showtimes yesterday. Remember, capacity is capped at 25%. But still, a good start as the motion picture industry looks to get the No. 1 box office market back in business. – Deadline
How To Trust Art “Experts”?
We seem to have an insatiable appetite for finding “masterpieces” and consequently may readily believe in “expert” judgment. But what is the value of expert opinion in the art world, anyway? And does it matter which expert’s view it is? – The Art Newspaper
UK’s Telegraph News Site Plans To Pay Reporters By How Popular Their Stories Are
“I’d call the mood mutinous. If you’re writing royal stories or big political news or coronavirus stuff or you’re famous then you’re going to get huge numbers. Most reporters are at the mercy of editors and it’s not their fault if they’re getting assigned boring things – and now that’s going to affect their pay packet.” – The Guardian
Report On The State Of The Art Market
For all the talk of robust online viewing rooms and hybrid auctions, with sales reportedly doubling in 2020, all market segments “experienced declines last year, creating the biggest recession in the global art market since the financial crisis of 2009,” Art Basel Americas director Noah Horowitz writes in the introduction to the study. – Artnet
How Freelance Musicians Have Been Coping This Past Year
“It took 25 years for me to reach a point in my career where I was constantly preparing for the next orchestra concert, opera performance, or recording session. Not having goals to work toward really messes with your head.” – San Francisco Classical Voice
Should Museums Tell The Public About Missing Art?
“Museums have at times withheld information about thefts, fearing that revealing security weaknesses could make other institutions less likely to loan them art or that it could encourage other thefts, according to current and former museum officials. Art security experts say the failure to report thefts, particularly involving items stolen from storage, has prevented museums from recovering items.” – The New York Times
California Museums And Theatres Are Reopening; I’m Going To Wait
“I’m taking my cues from the health experts, who are preaching a different message from state, city and municipal officials. While COVID-19 new infections, hospitalizations and deaths have been dramatically declining since the post-holiday surges, the number of new cases has plateaued at a still worrisome level.” – Los Angeles Times
America Will Get Performing Arts Back This Summer — In Open-Air Spaces
“All around the country, companies that normally produce outdoors but were unable to do so last year are making plans to reopen, while those that normally play to indoor crowds are finding ways to take the show outside. This is not business as usual.” – The New York Times
Protests By Arts Workers Demanding Reopening Spread All Over France
“Some 30 theatres and concert halls are occupied in Strasbourg, Lille, Nantes, Châteauroux, Toulouse, Besançon, Marseille, and Saint-Etienne. All of the culture workers inside are asking for the same help from authorities, and conveying the same concerns and frustrations.” – Artnet
Afghanistan Bans Girls From Singing
In a letter to school boards last week, which was leaked to the media, Kabul’s Education Department said girls aged 12 and above would no longer be able to sing at public events, unless the events were attended solely by women. The letter also stipulated that girls couldn’t be trained by a male music teacher. – The Guardian
Is MoviePass About To Return From The Dead?
The “Icarus of subscription services” seemed too good to be true when it started selling $9.99-a-month memberships that would let you see a movie in a theater literally every day — and so it was. The more customers it got, the more cash it hemorrhaged, and it died a long, humiliating death over the course of 2019. But this week a new web page appeared, saying only “MoviePass™ — the movie is about to begin” with a countdown clock with an end date of next Monday morning. The former CEO says he knows nothing about it. – Variety
More Dead Sea Scroll Fragments Found, The First In 60 Years
“The Israel Antiquities Authority, which carried out the excavations, believes the new scroll, written in Greek, is actually a missing part of the “Book of the 12 Minor Prophets” scroll, first discovered in 1961. … Dating from the third century BC to the first century AD, the parchment and papyrus manuscripts contain the earliest known texts from the Hebrew Bible, as well as other apocryphal writings.” – Artnet
AAMD (Barely) Rejects Extending Lenient Rules On Deaccessioning Art
“In an informal poll, members of the Association of Art Museum have voted 91-88 against asking its trustees to explore a controversial change in its deaccessioning policy to permit institutions to sell art to finance direct care of their collections.” – The Art Newspaper
Yet Another Director Forced To Resign From Berlin’s Volksbühne
Three years after Chris Dercon ended his brief, dissension-plagued tenure at the theatre, his successor as artistic director, Klaus Dörr, quit after it became public that 10 women at the Volksbühne had made formal complaints to the Berlin city government about Dörr’s alleged sexual harassment of younger actresses and humiliation of older ones. – The New York Times
Pritzker Prize Goes To Architects Whose Motto Is ‘Never Demolish’
More fully stated, the professional creed of Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal is “Never demolish, never remove or replace, always add, transform, and reuse!” The pair are best known for their innovative and economical work renovating public housing projects in France. – NPR
‘Poetry Out Of Pragmatism’: An Assessment Of Pritzker Prize Winners Anne Lacaton And Jean-Philippe Vassal
Oliver Wainwright: “It is a fitting moment for a prize once reserved for flamboyant sculptors of icons to be awarded to a practice that would prefer you didn’t notice their presence at all. … In an age of demolishing public housing and replacing it with shiny new carbon-hungry developments in the name of ‘regeneration’, Lacaton & Vassal have worked tirelessly to expand and upgrade existing buildings with surgical precision, transforming the lives of thousands of people in the process.” – The Guardian