“Miami finally has a flagship public museum capable of staging its own major shows and hosting important travelling exhibitions—above and beyond what the city’s numerous private museums are able to offer. But an ongoing debate about public funding for the institution has laid bare the single biggest challenge for museums and galleries in the city: fundraising in an increasingly competitive climate.”
Think Your Opinions Are Based on Facts? (Think Again)
“New research suggests that, if options such as relying on biased sources of information prove insufficient, many of us simply rely more heavily on “unfalsifiable” assertions—ones that cannot be definitely proven or disproven.”
Apple Defends Raising E-Book Prices
“I knew some prices were going to go up, but hell, the whole world knew it, because that’s what the publishers were saying: ‘We want to get retailers to raise prices, and if we’re not able to, we’re not going to make the books available digitally.’ You have to fight for your principles no matter what. Because it’s just not right.”
Who Inspires Today’s Artists? Justice Scalia (Here’s The Proliferating Evidence)
“Justice Scalias are appearing in a stage play, an opera and a puppet show, to name three. The actual Justice Scalia ascribes his proliferating stage presence to the media culture of the modern age.”
Jacksonville Mayor Says City Won’t Remove Art Or Rescind Museum Grant Over Controversy
In his letter to City Council President Clay Yarborough, the mayor wrote: “I am hopeful we can put this issue behind us so that the city can continue working with the arts and cultural community to revitalize downtown, enhance our quality of life, and make Jacksonville a vibrant destination.”
Controversy Leads To Attendance Boom For Florida Museum (So This Is A Surprise?)
“Attendance has nearly tripled at Jacksonville’s Museum of Contemporary Art since the City Council president, Clay Yarborough, last week denounced as pornographic a photograph showing a nude pregnant woman reclining on a love seat.”
Philadelphia Theatre Company Edges Away From The Brink
“With the help of former Kennedy Center president Michael M. Kaiser, the financially beleaguered Philadelphia Theatre Company has bought itself some time, buoying hopes for its survival.”
Even Pippi Longstocking Gets Caught Up In Racial Controversy
“In Sweden, Pippi is something more: a national treasure and embodiment of the country’s egalitarian spirit. So when the Swedish national broadcaster announced this fall that it would edit two scenes that it considered offensive in a 1969 television series about Pippi – including one in which she says her father is ‘king of the Negroes,’ using a Swedish word now viewed as a racial slur – it hit a nerve.”
How Calatrava’s Ground Zero Train Station Grew Into A $4 Billion Juggernaut
“Its colossal avian presence may yet guarantee the hub a place in the pantheon of civic design in New York. But it cannot escape another, more ignominious distinction as one of the most expensive and most delayed train stations ever built.”
Turin’s Opera House Persuades Gianandrea Noseda Not To Quit As Music Director
“The agreement will keep Mr. Noseda – who has been enjoying a growing international reputation and who was just named the conductor of the year by the classical music publication Musical America – with a company he has been credited with elevating to a new level. And it offers some welcome news in what has been a rough year for opera in its birthplace, Italy.”