Given the scale of the national crisis facing all sectors of the economy in the months and years to come, the pandemic is a historic disruption that represents an existential crisis. What to do? I’ve come to think of it in the following frame: Restorationists versus Opportunists. – Douglas McLennan
Author: Matthew Westphal
Thank-you note
My beloved Hilary died a month ago tonight. I could not begin to thank enough people for saving my life, which is what all of you did by reaching out to me, generously and unhesitatingly. – Terry Teachout
Covid Obit: William Gerdts, 91, Distinguished Scholar of American Art (& my tipster)
He was a renowned expert on American Impressionism and 19th-century American still-life painting as well as author of more than 20 books on American art, notably his three-volume Art Across America: Two Centuries of Regional Painting 1710-1920. – Lee Rosenbaum
Breakfast With Bill
When I visited dish-besotted Bill Stern in his apartment in Los Angeles, we would make tea for breakfast in a gray pot designed in the 1960s by Edith Heath. At some aha moment, Bill decided to found The Museum of California Design. He died a week after our last breakfast. – Jeff Weinstein
‘Ballet Conductors Are The Hidden Heroes Of The Art Form’
Sarah Kaufman: “They can serve as guardian angels of the evening, controlling the musical universe and its atmosphere, smoothing over mishaps and delivering well-timed thunderbolts with a wave of the baton. They can even see the future, reading signs of trouble in a dancer’s hesitancy or hint of fatigue, and adjusting the tempo for what comes next. … Despite quieter profiles, ballet conductors arguably do twice the work of their symphonic counterparts.” – The Washington Post
Antiquities Traffickers Are Using COVID Crisis To Ramp Up Trade In Looted Items
“The Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research (ATHAR) Project … has found an uptick in posts on Facebook groups involved in buying and selling looted objects from the Middle East and North Africa in recent months, as many countries went into lockdown.” – The Art Newspaper
Barney Ales, Motown’s Master Marketer, Dead At 85
“Mr. Ales was one of [Berry] Gordy’s most indispensable executives throughout the 1960s, when Motown became a ubiquitous force in American pop culture and a prime symbol of black enterprise at the height of the civil rights movement. Officially, he was in charge of sales and promotion. But as a high-ranking white executive at a black-owned label, Mr. Ales was also instrumental in promoting Motown’s music to the white-dominated industry — most importantly the programmers who decided what songs were played on Top 40 radio stations.” – The New York Times
Theatre Architects Consider How COVID Could Change Theatre Design
“The proposed addition of hand-washing stations and health screening areas means that theatre lobbies will have to grow. The whole theatre building will have to grow, in fact. If social distancing becomes a commonplace circulation pattern, theatres will require more space in the lobby, around the box office, at the bar, and in line for the restrooms. Not to mention in auditorium seating. … But this theatre-half-empty situation provides an opportunity for future theatre builders.” – American Theatre
Music That Was Just Made (Or Could Have Been) For The Pandemic
Michael Andor Brodeur: “Lately, my social media feeds are filled with musical experiments that take a head-on approach to the current crisis, or works composed before the outbreak that resonate anew in the context of covid-19. Rather than escape the moment, they arrest it. Here are four works, new and recent, that you can stream (and, in some cases, sing) over the next several days.” Top of the list: David Lang’s Protect Yourself From Infection. – The Washington Post
L.A. May Turn Real Estate Developers’ Arts Fees Into Relief Funding For Arts Groups
“For every private development project of $500,000 or more in the city of Los Angeles, the developer must pay an arts fee to the city based on the square footage of the building or a percentage of the value of the permit. Those funds are then allocated to cultural events such as festivals and other public arts happenings. But with dense public gatherings not possible for the foreseeable future, L.A. City Councilman David Ryu hopes to use those funds as relief grants for arts organizations.” – Los Angeles Times