“Based on responses from our survey, a high share (66%) of cultural workers identify as White (non-Hispanic), compared to just 32% of New York City’s population. In contrast, Hispanics, Blacks/African Americans, and Asians are underrepresented – 10% of cultural workers identify as Black/African American, compared to 22% of the city’s population; 11% identify as Hispanic, compared to 29% of city residents; and 6% identify as Asian, compared to 14% of city residents.” SMU Data Arts
Author: Douglas McLennan
As Robots Take Over There’s An Opening For People
“The 20th century economy rewarded being the same, suppressing whatever made you weird and interesting. But this economy doesn’t reward that. This economy has shifted far more in the direction of rewarding uniqueness. So broadly speaking, more passion is more possible.” – Chicago Reader
The Difficulty Of Being A Cultural Ambassador For The US In The Time Of Trump
Under the Trump Administration, the challenge for cultural workers who agree to participate in official events is akin to swimming upstream in boiling waters. Civil servants, thinking of the long game—the point in the future when Trump will be gone and our democracy will be restored—task cultural workers with creating a counter-narrative of America while their employer puts forth a pernicious, deleterious version of the country. But how will this anticipated moment of restored democracy arrive if we behave as if events unfolding in this country were normal, as if our collective house were not on fire? – The New Yorker
The Virtue Of Being Able To Say Hard Things In Print… Have We Lost It?
Writers are individuals whose job is to find language that can cross the unfathomable gap separating us from one another. They don’t write as anyone beyond themselves. But today, writers have every incentive to do their work as easily identifiable, fully paid-up members of a community. Belonging is numerically codified by social media, with its likes, retweets, friends, and followers. Writers learn to avoid expressing thoughts or associating with undesirables that might be controversial with the group and hurt their numbers. In the most successful cases, the cultivation of followers becomes an end in itself and takes the place of actual writing. – The Atlantic
Thomas Campbell’s Challenges At San Francisco’s Fine Arts Museums
It is not clear how Campbell will rebrand the museums, but he casts the de Young as a strong American arts institution and the Legion as a “treasure chest like the Frick, Kimbell or Neue Galerie, where we have an opportunity to double down on connoisseurship and scholarship of the European tradition with a nice vein of contemporary engagement spritzing things up”. – The Art Newspaper
Oregon Bach Festival Announces Three Finalists To Lead It
The festival has been in turmoil for the past few years after letting its artistic and executive directors. Finalists are conductors Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Craig Hella Johnson and Julian Wachner. – Eugene Register-Guard
Top Galleries Blast Art Basel In Letter Over Hong Kong Fair
The letter, addressed to Art Basel global director Marc Spiegler and Adeline Ooi, its director Asia, did not mince words when airing complaints about the state of the fair amid the Hong Kong protests, which have been going on for months. It claims that “many people who normally attend the fair have indicated that they will not attend this year” and that “many of our artists are unwilling to have their work shown at the fair” because participation in a territory under threat of increased Chinese control is not “consistent with their core belief in the freedom of expression.” – Artnet
Does Russia’s New Minister Of Culture Hate Culture?
Her blunt views on culture were summed up in a 2008 blog which complains “I simply can’t stand going to exhibitions, museums, opera”. – BBC
Smithsonian To Send Popular Obama Portraits On A National Tour
Kehinde Wiley’s official portrait of President Obama and Amy Sherald’s painting of the first lady, like the Obamas themselves, broke boundaries. L.A.-born, New York-based Wiley and New York-based Sherald were the first African American artists to be chosen by the National Portrait Gallery for such commissions. – Los Angeles Times
Klimt Thief: “We Have Given A Gift To The City”
Last Friday, when art historians confirmed its authenticity through X-rays to see if the original painting was there, Ermanno Mariani got the curious call, and the voice was oddly familiar. The man on the phone said he was the person Mariani had previously interviewed about the theft. Mariani also received a letter claiming, “We are the authors of the theft of Klimt’s Portrait of a Lady, and we have given a gift to the city by returning the canvas.” He turned the letter, written in large block writing, over to police. – The Daily Beast