For English-speaking creative teams, there are obvious benefits to opening in Paris. The market is far less crowded than in New York or London, and star casting isn’t much of a factor, since most musical theater performers are unknown to the French audience. – The New York Times
Author: Douglas McLennan
Arts Funding Forum: Concern About The Future
Of the more than 500 cultural professionals they surveyed, 78% said they were either “somewhat concerned” or “very concerned” about about philanthropic trends. A similar percentage said that the giving strategies for the next generation differed substantially from those of their predecessors. – The Art Newspaper
Washington’s Freer Sackler Galleries Want To Be Called Something Else
Don’t call it a name change, though. Museum officials say it is a rebranding that clarifies the missions of the joint institutions. And, they say, it has absolutely nothing to do with international protests over the Sackler family’s connection to the opioid crisis. – Washington Post
Why Vinyl Records Are Cool Again (And Getting More Expensive)
For some, buying records is no longer about owning the same piece of music as everyone else but owning a version of it that few others have. It reflects a change in contemporary relationships to owning music, says Sevier. “Owning a limited or special edition is doubling down on the closeness you feel to an album or artist. You can’t display your streaming history like a trophy.” – The Guardian
Cultural Appropriation? Let’s Understand Exactly What It Is
Increasingly there’s this repeated story in our country where actually a whole lot of people don’t get to profit off of the creative insights that they have. That is totally racially structured. That is totally class-structured. So this connection between race and wealth that I’m trying to establish is that the rules of who gets to profit from what they make are totally unequal. We can see this in [areas] that seem to be as frivolous as the makeup you put on your face or the clothes you put on your body. But it all trickles from this initial system of inequality. – Vox
Dilbert Creator Proposes “Mulligans” For A Kinder Internet
He lays out two such rules in his new book, Loserthink. His first proposal, which he calls the “48-hour rule,” states that everyone should be given a grace period of a couple of days to retract any controversial statement they’ve made, no questions asked. “We live in a better world if we accept people’s clarifications and we accept their apologies, no matter whether we think—internally—it’s insincere,” he says. His other idea is the “20-year rule,” which states that everyone should be automatically forgiven for any mistakes they made more than two decades ago—with the exception of certain serious crimes. – Wired
Archaeologists Find Giant Viking Ship Using Radar
Archaeologists using ground-penetrating radar found a big mound carved into a western Norwegian island — along with the remains of a “huge” ship as long as 55 feet, Paasche told The Washington Post, in a discovery that may tell new tales about how the ships evolved to become fearsome and agile vessels more than 1,000 years ago. – Washington Post
Reset: 50 Classic Songs About LA? Things Are Changing
Some of Los Angeles’ selling points need to be reset. The idea of endless summers has shifted in the age of climate change. “It Never Rains in Southern California” has morphed into Bad Religion’s “Los Angeles Is Burning.” The carefree allure of rolling down the Ventura Highway used to be a cool thing to sing about. Now the drive is mostly a bumper-to-bumper slog. – Los Angeles Times
Why Do We Only Equate Innovation And Creativity With Cities?
Few people, particularly those cognizant of current writing on cities, culture, and technology, would blink at the sentence above. “Urban innovation,” the “smart city,” and the “triumph of the city”—these have become familiar as buzz phrases and even book titles. But what about peripheral regions, rural areas, and small towns—can’t they be smart and innovative? And what exactly is meant by “the triumph of the city”? Triumph over what? – CityLab
Turner Prize’s Shared Winners Decision Says Something Important About Today’s Arts World
Phil Kennicott: “The artists’ appeal, and the jury’s willingness to grant it, says a lot about the kind of art these particular artists make, which is political, documentary, socially engaged and deeply intertwined with activism. This wasn’t just about refusing the idea that one of them take home the 25,000 pound first prize while the other three received the 5,000 pound finalist awards. Rather, it was about giving one social concern priority over the others.” – Washington Post