Author Rachel Vorona Cote: “Despite my best efforts, I am not chill, and will never be chill—I possess only meager crumbs of that coveted asset. So, I muddle on as best I can. Reading is a safe harbor, and it is also my pressure valve.” So she’s got a few recs for all of us who might be finding ourselves with more reading time (and more anxiety) than usual right now. – The Rumpus
Author: ArtsJournal2
Thinking About Responding To A Woman Musician With A Nasty Comment?
What if you just looked away instead? Another radical idea from Great Britain. –The Guardian (UK)
The Weird, Cool World Of Rare Books Gets Its Own Film
And just in time – a lot of the “dream cast” for the documentary is aging, with at least one collector/vendor/devotée dying before the documentarians could get to work. “The profession is driven by equal parts commerce, scholarship and sheer love.” – The New York Times
Italy Shuts All Theatres, Museums, And Cinemas In Bid To Control Virus Spread
Though bars, restaurants, and gyms remain open, as long as managers can guarantee that people remain at least three feet away from each other at all times, the country’s entire cultural capital is locked down (as is, of course, all of Lombardy, and the cities of Milan and Venice). – NPR
New Interest In Iranian Art, Partly Because So Many Artists Are Living In Exile
Artists who fled the 1979 revolution with their families – especially if they were young – are seeing a renewed interest in their work from British and US buyers. But there’s “a growing gap between artists of the diaspora and those living in Iran, where economic hardship, sanctions and a collapsing currency mean that artists are unable to buy colors or canvases, or to have their work exhibited by Tehran-based gallerists at international fairs.” – The New York Times
The Irish Photographer Who Won A Pulitzer Prize, Was Banned By India, And Quit
Cathal McNaughton was returning to Delhi after winning a Pulitzer Prize for his photography of desperate Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar. “Without explanation, the Indian authorities escorted him back to the plane he’d flown in on and marched him down the aisle to his seat. Before he was fully aware of it, he found himself flying back to Toronto. His job, his apartment, his friends, his possessions: all were left behind in Delhi. McNaughton’s life, as he had known it up until then, had disintegrated.” Now he doesn’t even own a camera. – The Irish Times
A French Sex Columnist Says It’s Not Possible – Or Desirable – To Separate The Art From The Artist
Maïa Mazurette says the times have changed because our context has changed: “Not only does the recognition of our sexual, artistic and worldly continuity allow us to protect ourselves, to come together, to connect with ourselves and with others, but it frees us from obsolete hierarchical codes that want art to shine above everyday life … while sexuality would be relegated to the underground and the obscene.” – Le Monde
On International Women’s Day, The Art World Asks Whether Feminist Shows Can Change The World
As everyone who’s glanced at anything Guerrilla Girls-related knows, collections across the U.S. are less than welcoming to women and nonbinary artists. A new initiative seeks to change that. One curator says, “It’s diving into our history and examining who was and wasn’t collected. … It’s taking a critical lens to our own collecting practices.” – The New York Times
Big Tech Conferences Are Getting Canceled, And That May Be A Good Thing For Humanity
Basically, access to tech could become more equitable if the conferences go online. “There are developers across the U.S. and around the world who get shut out when the conferences get sold out. Even more of them simply can’t afford the admission fee (last year’s WWDC was $1,599) and travel expenses required to spend time in the Bay Area or Seattle.” – Fast Company
The Children’s Museum Of Manhattan Wants To Alter A Landmarked Church
The neighborhood response is not going well for the museum. “Preservationists and community members called the proposed changes ‘cultural vandalism.’ ‘Why buy a church if you don’t like the windows, when you knew that they were landmarked when you purchased it?'” – Hyperallergic