“Government-required public notices have been published in newspapers since colonial times. … But the advent of websites operated by federal, state and local governments gave politicians a money-saving opening to redirect public notices to their own sites. Overwhelmingly, that simply hasn’t happened: … newspapers have managed to retain nearly all their public notice business. And for many, it has become indispensable to survival.” – Poynter
The Story Behind The Instagram Hit #CamerasandDancers
“[The] monthly, location-specific Instameet … brings together top dancers, interesting architecture and elite movement photographers — the intersection of which results in truly exquisite dance photography.” Choreographer Jacob Jonas, the creator of #CamerasandDancers, tells reporter Haley Hilton how it all works. – Dance Magazine
So Your Country Needs To Deal With A Difficult History. Here’s How Germany Did It
“What I think we can learn from that example is that anti-racism, or facing up to your past, is not a vaccine. It’s not a one-shot option. It’s a process that you need to continue to go through, and it will change generationally. People will see history differently. Generations will have different needs. I also want to emphasize that it’s not just revision of textbooks. I really think popular culture is at least as important as what gets taught in schools, perhaps more so.” – The New Yorker
Our Public Monuments Don’t Preserve History, They Rewrite It
Celebrating Mount Rushmore isn’t remembering history; instead it requires spectacular acts of forgetting. How could we honestly claim to see in this anything worth defending? – Chicago Tribune
An Art Critic Visits The Newly-Socially-Distanced National Gallery In London
Adrian Searle: “Visitors … have to follow one of three designated routes through the galleries, all of which are signposted, with arrows on the floor pointing up the prescribed flow. Quite how this will work, and how much one can deviate or jump between Route A, which begins in the Sainsbury Wing, and routes B and C in the main galleries, … defeated me on my press preview visit on Saturday. I get the feeling the few dozen of us wandering the galleries were guinea pigs for a system that needs to evolve in practice.” – The Guardian
Extraordinary Times: A One-Time Wealth Tax Would Help Fix Things
Extraordinary times need astonishing remedies. In this very rich country, private wealth has soared to six times the value of annual GDP. So take a deep breath and jump in. A once-in-a-lifetime windfall tax of 10% on all wealth would yield £1 trillion – enough to pay for all the things we regard as essential for civilisation. – The Guardian
Rooftop Rooms
Among the at-home dances I’ve seen recently, one strikes me as truly suitable to performers who have to be isolated: Anna Sokolow’s 1955 Rooms, recreated for the pandemic as Rooftop Rooms. – Deborah Jowitt
So You Want To Direct Our Play (We Have A Few Changes…)
Congratulations! Your MFA in directing is about to be put to good use, effectively proving your father wrong about your job prospects. Your firm grasp of Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theory, not to mention your dissertation on the dramatic relevance of Aristotle’s Poetics, will give you the edge you need to pour into your cast of laypeople like the eager, empty vessels they are. – McSweeney’s
For The Second Time In Two Years, Fire Shatters A Brazilian Museum
“In September 2018, a devastating fire ravaged Brazil’s National Museum [in Rio de Janeiro]. Now, yet another Brazilian cultural institution — the Federal University of Minas Gerais’ Natural History Museum and Botanical Garden (MHNJB) in Belo Horizonte — has fallen victim to an inferno.” This is, in fact, the sixth museum fire in the country in the past decade. – Smithsonian Magazine
Time For A Rethink In How The Arts Are Delivered
Of course, Zoom is not the answer to saving the arts for the digital generation, but it does pose the question: Why don’t we have better alternatives? For many institutions, fear that improving the virtual performance would threaten the health of the physical one has kept them in a state of pseudo-Internet denial. But the international health crisis has forced organizations to confront a generational sea change that has been brewing across the arts since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone. – The American Scholar
Sides Line Up After Students Demand Removal Of A WPA Mural
“An alumnus has filed a suit to save a fresco at the University of Kentucky that depicts enslaved people; a Black artist whose work is shown with it also wants the mural to stay.” – The New York Times
Actors’ Equity Approves First Post-COVID Productions
“The union, which represents 51,000 actors and stage managers around the country, said it had given the green light to two summer shows in the Berkshires region of Western Massachusetts: an outdoor production of the musical Godspell, and an indoor production of the solo show Harry Clarke.” – The New York Times
Meet France’s New Culture Minister
“[Roselyne] Bachelot, 73, is returning to politics after eight years working as a commentator in radio and television. Prior to that, she served as the minister of ecology and sustainable development under former President Jacques Chirac, then as health minister and minister of social cohesion under President Nicolas Sarkozy, always in rightwing governments.” – The Art Newspaper
Everest
If we are experts in music, we need to know about now. Imagine a scientist who said: ‘You know I only repeat the experiments of the 19th century. I’ve really worked at them. I get fantastic results.’ But is that science? – Bruce Brubaker
Dana Canedy Named New Publisher At Simon and Schuster
Since 2017, Ms. Canedy, 55, has been the administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, overseeing a period when the awards have acknowledged an increasingly diverse body of work, including the music of Kendrick Lamar. Before that she worked at the the New York Times for 20 years, and winning a Pulitzer. – The New York Times
Film Composer Ennio Morricone, 91
Mr. Morricone scored many popular films of the past 40 years: Édouard Molinaro’s “La Cage aux Folles” (1978), Mr. Carpenter’s “The Thing” (1982), Mr. De Palma’s “The Untouchables” (1987), Roman Polanski’s “Frantic” (1988), Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Cinema Paradiso” (1988), Wolfgang Petersen’s “In the Line of Fire” (1993), and Mr. Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” (2015). – The New York Times