“Because I’m Black, because I’m a woman, and because I’m the daughter of immigrants, I can look to my own experiences and write about marginalized groups with a sensitivity that has yet to become the standard. That said, as a freelancer, the “Black” beat is unofficially assigned to me at every publication I’ve worked under. When I was a freelancer at the East Bay Express and wanted to write about something not directly related to Blackness (whatever that even means), my pitches were given away to other writers so that I could focus on the black stuff. As is the case for other Black women writers I know, a number of publications are looking to exploit my internalized racial trauma for emotion-bait and can’t fathom a use for me outside of that role. Publications need to do better.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Cosby’s Hollywood Star Will Remain
Hollywood Chamber of Commerce: “The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historical record of entertainment figures past and present. Once installed, the stars become part of the historic fabric of the Walk of Fame, a ‘designated historic cultural landmark,’ and are intended to be permanent. The stars only commemorate the recipient’s professional accomplishments.”
Sydney Goldstein, Founder Of San Francisco’s City Arts & Lectures, Dies At 73
City Arts & Lectures began in 1980, and Goldstein ran it for 37 years, before turning it over to her daughter and Holly Mulder-Wollan in July 2017. The series at Nourse Theater offers more than 50 programs a year before a live audience of up to 100,000 annually.
A Scottish Town’s Attempt To Be Bilbao. Will It Work?
It’s not yet entirely clear to what extent Dundee’s plan to replicate the Bilbao Effect will work. Certainly, the V&A Dundee itself is impressive—as well it should be, given that its initial predicted budget of £27 million ($35 million) rose first to £45 million ($59 million) and then to £80 million ($105 million), with the lion’s share coming from public funds. Designed by Kengo Kuma, the building is an unquestionably evocative one that, depending on your viewpoint and the weather, might seem to resemble a cliff, the bones of some giant sea creature, or a ship.
Report: Cultural Attendance Is Up In Scotland
Attendance at cultural events or places in the country, which was 78% in 2012, has now risen to 84%. The figures include attendance at live music, cinemas, museums, theatres and libraries. When cinemas are excluded, the proportion of people attending cultural events or places has risen from 70% to 77% during this period. The biggest rise was for historical and archaeological sites.
You Know What We Need? Militant Optimism!
Good thing breakthroughs in the human condition happen outside of politics. History is the record of political failure. Progress is the march of science and technology. Just think of the past 100 years: mass communication, penicillin, refrigerators, computing, commercial air travel, cheap birth control, PCs, the internet, smartphones, gene sequencing, fracking—altogether producing more human freedom and wealth than wars or laws.
A Ringing Defense Of The Printed Page
As for my attempts to express the impact of the screen on the page, on the actual pages of literary novels, I now understand that these were altogether irrelevant to the requirement of the age that everything be easier, faster, and slicker in order to compel the attention of screen viewers. It strikes me that we’re now suffering collectively from a “tyranny of the virtual,” since we find ourselves unable to look away from the screens that mediate not just print but, increasingly, reality itself.
Too Many Biennales?
The unstoppable takeover of the art world by the biennial form is evidenced by the nearly 250 biennials operating globally, listed by the Biennial Foundation’s Directory of Biennials. More than this number, it is the five-fold increase over the last ten years that warrants a certain slack-jawed response.
Do All-Women Exhibitions Help Or Hurt The Cause?
Whether all-women’s shows are an effective long-term strategy for achieving gender equity in the art world at large remains a subject of heated debate. At a panel discussion that accompanied the Studio School exhibit, some artists and curators argued that gender-based shows encourage tokenism and relegate women to the sidelines, while others argued that, after centuries of art shows that featured only men, all-women shows are a necessary corrective.
As Mainstream Museums Diversify What Happens To Culturally-Specific Institutions?
With mainstream institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum diversifying to engage wider and more representative publics, what becomes the role of so-called culturally specific institutions—like El Museo, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art—that were born out of efforts to compensate for such museums’ deficiencies?