Sotheby’s “LIVE GLOBAL AUCTION EVENT” was, per yesterday’s post-sale press release, “an unprecedented live-streamed event, with banks of telephone-bidding colleagues beamed in from around the world.” This complicated set-up worked well enough, but at the expense of “auction fever,” the contagion that can spread when bidding happens the old-fashioned way: concentrated in one salesroom packed with live attendees. – Lee Rosenbaum
Author: Matthew Westphal
Why This Medical School Is Using Artworks To Teach Diagnostics
Stephen Russell at the University of Alabama at Birmingham developed the course “Prescribing Art: How Observation Enhances Medicine” to teach students to slow down and observe without worrying about the pressures of the examination room (it turns out that Mary Cassatt was excellent at capturing the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis), but also to spot students’ own biases and teach them (as Russell puts it) “the tolerance of ambiguity.” – Artnet
Addressing Dancers’ Biggest Worries About Coming Back From Coronavirus
Natalia Boesch: “Living-room ballet has always been a big part of my life, whether I was working out choreographic ideas or just giving myself barre. But, as I write this, living-room ballet is all we’ve had for weeks. That changes everything. I know that, for my students and other young dancers, fears about what they might lose due to the COVID-19 shutdown may be overwhelming. Below are some big-picture thoughts addressing those concerns, and a few suggestions for making the best of a frustrating situation.” – Pointe Magazine
The World’s Most Famous Illegal Theatre Company Was Ready For The COVID Lockdown
Belarus Free Theatre — outlawed by its homeland’s dictatorship, forced to rehearse and perform in secret, and with its artistic directors living in asylum abroad — has years of experience using secure high-tech platforms to work together remotely and livestream its plays. The company has been unusually productive in the months since the pandemic arrived, and its newest production is already making news. – HowlRound
The Met Breuer: What It Achieved And Why It Mattered
“For decades, the Met’s programming has been associated with a kind of elegant classicism. The Breuer, it seemed, would allow the museum to strike a new balance between grandeur and something more outré. … But the Met didn’t follow the Whitney’s lead in that respect — most exhibitions were dark and relatively traditional in their presentation. … [But] since the opening of the Met Breuer, the Met has reoriented its modern and contemporary strategy with far better results.” – ARTnews
Rudolfo Anaya, Founding Father Of Chicano Literature, Dead At 82
“Literary critics say [that Bless Me, Ultima,] Anaya’s World War II-era novel about a young Mexican-American boy’s relationship with an older curandera, or healer, influenced a generation of Latino writers because of its imagery and cultural references that were rare at the time of its 1972 publication.” – AP
Four Black Documentarians Talk About Film And The Struggle For Racial Justice
“Ava DuVernay, Stanley Nelson, Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis have all made movies that help explain our nation’s current efforts to face hundreds of years of inequity. Here’s what they said.” – The New York Times
Georg Ratzinger, Famed Choirmaster And Pope Benedict’s Elder Brother, Dead At 96
“Ordained on the same day as his brother, Ratzinger proved to be a talented musician and went on oversee the recording of numerous masterpieces and concert tours around the world by the Regensburger Domspatzen, a storied choir that traces its history back to the 10th century. But his reputation was tarnished as he apologized for using corporal punishment to discipline boys amid a wider investigation into sexual and physical abuse in the Church.” – Yahoo! (AP)
Surveying The Damage To Philadelphia’s Arts From Huge City Funding Cuts
The budget passed by the City Council cuts municipal support for the arts citywide by 40% to $5.84 million, and even that amount is $1 million more than the mayor proposed as he attempted to close a $750 million deficit. The city’s arts office has been eliminated entirely, as has funding to film production and historic preservation agencies, and hundreds of other organizations have taken hits. – The New York Times
Consolation: Philadelphia Arts Orgs Get $4 Million In COVID Relief
It’s a bit of welcome news after major cuts from the city government: “467 Philadelphia-area arts and culture groups plus more than a thousand individual artists are receiving a total of $4 million raised through … a multidonor fund assembled in response to the pandemic. … The fund ended up being able to make an award to every group that applied for support and met eligibility requirements.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer