“Our longtime home at 6th and Hennepin in downtown Minneapolis … has now become an environment that is hostile to the arts,” said the fundraising letter, signed by founding artistic director Linda Z. Andrews. “Many factors have contributed to this change, including the recent development of downtown sports centers with escalating parking fees; ongoing street construction right outside our door; and social unrest on Hennepin Avenue.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Why Most Fiction Is Being Marketed To Women
“Most readers of fiction in North America are, by a wide margin, women. The books are being marketed to them. I am perfectly happy with this. I know where my bread is buttered.”
Toronto’s MoCA Hires City’s Ex-Culture Director As Temporary CEO
Announcing his retirement from the city in April this year, Terry Nicholson said he thought he’d probably do some consulting and keep his hand in what he called “his passion projects,” the Museum of Contemporary Art being one of them. “But [the vision] was nothing as extensive as this,” he said with a laugh during an interview Wednesday.
How William Shawn Built The New Yorker Into A Literary Institution
“The sheer proliferation of advertising demanded that Shawn scramble in search of more and more editorial matter. This, he found, had an inevitable drag on quality. There is, in this world, after all, only so much talent at a given time—only so much good writing. At a certain point, he found it necessary to limit the pages in a weekly issue to 248—as fat as a phone book in some towns. In his tenure as editor, Shawn made innumerable hires, tried out countless freelancers, and ran long, multipart series—some forgettable, some central to the literary and journalistic history of mid-century America.”
And Just Like That, Christo’s Floating Piers Are Gone
“As the local officials who approved the project pay tribute to the boost to international tourism in the region, it seems that Italy has learned to embrace Christo’s monumental, ephemeral brand of sculpture. But against the instincts of an artist who claims not to understand computers, the Floating Piers will have a digital afterlife. The selfie-friendly installation has generated 130,000 hashtags on social media, while Google is due to put 360-degree images of the work online through its Street View function.”
Iraqi Dancer Among Those Killed In ISIS Bombing This Week
“Adil Faraj bucked conservative Iraqi culture to teach himself how to dance via YouTube and Skype, inspired by a Michael Jackson performance he watched on DVD. He danced to videos in his cramped family home — hiding from a society scornful of the art form and from the chaos that engulfed Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Then, he was discovered by the Manhattan-based Battery Dance Company and brought to Jordan to train professionally and perform for the first time on stage.”
How Louisiana Killed Its Film Industry
“Louisiana’s once-booming film industry – dubbed “Hollywood South” – was off by as much as 90 per cent this past year, according to the Louisiana Film Entertainment Association. The drop is all attributed to the state’s decision to wind down its generous incentives last July, scaring off movie makers.”
Enrollment In UK Schools Arts Education Is Way Down. Here’s Why
Labour MP Catherine McKinnell, who tabled the debate, claimed that poorer children have been hit hardest by the introduction of the EBacc. She pointed to Creative Industries Federation figures showing that schools with a high number of disadvantaged children have been more than twice as likely to withdraw arts subjects than schools with low numbers.
What A Missouri Music Store Can Teach Theatres About Community-Building
For theatre to become a “front porch” space that welcomes diverse perspectives, we as theatre professionals must trust our communities to engage with challenging material, and we must trust ourselves to hear and act upon opinions that challenge our ideas.
The Meaning Of Images In A World Where Disposable Images Are Everywhere
“We may only now be coming to terms with what happens to a work of art—indeed, to the notion of art altogether—when a fantastic number of images can be circulated, reproduced, amended, swapped, and joined together effortlessly as data sent out for processing.”