“The stateless émigrés trained ‘Shanghailanders’ in the early 20th century, including one Margot Fonteyn. Their influence remains embedded in modern Chinese ballet.” – South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
Blog
Unethical Museums Are Unsustainable
“If institutions had not already demonstrated their steely commitment to protecting power – how a museum director who depletes an endowment ends up at the helm of another museum, for instance, or how sexual harassment allegations against an administrator disappear as he moves from one post to another – it would seem that the institutional artworld was in a freefall from which it might not recover. Yet even if institutions do manage to survive, thanks to donors, endowments, and blind eyes, it has become clear that museum employees feel greater allegiance toward each other than to their employers.” – MOMUS
Jeremy O. Harris Has Gotten HBO To Pay For Experimental Theater Stagings
“Harris, who is 31, has moved fast through the New York theater world — in a truncated season, Slave Play garnered 12 Tony nominations — and he now has a contract with HBO, the much-anticipated film Zola in the can, and Hollywood at or near his feet. But he hasn’t dumped the old toy for the shiny new one. As part of his HBO deal, Harris has secured a discretionary fund for experimental-theater production, essentially a weird-art slush fund.” – Vulture
AMC Theatres Report 90 Percent Decline In Revenue
The world’s largest exhibitor suffered a brutal 90.9% drop in revenues during the most recent earnings period, with sales clocking in at $119.5 million. Losses hit $905.8 million or $8.41 cents a share. In the prior-year quarter, a time when cinemas were open around the globe and world-altering pandemics were largely the stuff of Hollywood thrillers, AMC logged revenues of $1.3 billion on a net loss of $54.8 million or 53 cents a share. – Variety
The Mark Twain Election Story That Was Required Reading In Communist Chinese Schools
“‘Running for Governor’ is barely known in the United States. Samuel Clemens was editor of the Buffalo Express when it was published. It is the story of his run for governor, as Mark Twain, in 1870 — well, fictional run, of course.” The story was placed on the school curriculum soon after the People’s Republic was founded and remained there for half a century. – The Buffalo News
Artists And Our Cultural Divide
What role can artists play in the healing of a nation wounded by a viral pandemic and the chronic diseases of racism, inequality and rabid partisanship? Even for the proponents of art for art’s sake, politics is inescapable. – Los Angeles Times
Daniel Menaker, Author And Editor, Dead At 79
“[He wrote] a half-dozen acerbic and poignant books and became a senior editor at the New Yorker and Random House. Along the way, he helped champion and shepherd works by authors such as Billy Collins, Alice Munro and George Saunders.” – The Washington Post
Quibi’s Closure Announcement ‘Blindsided’ People Who Actually Make Its Content
Said crew members on one of the service’s original short-form series, “We were blindsided. We had just signed contracts and turned down other jobs to keep working on this show. … Our own execs had to constantly hound Quibi for further information.” – The Hollywood Reporter
Venice’s Guidelines For New Flood Barrier Will Sacrifice St. Mark’s For Sake Of Container Port
There was huge relief and even some jubilation lat month when, for the first time, Venice’s long-delayed, wildly over-budget contraption for keeping flood tides out of the Venice Lagoon was successfully deployed and the city stayed dry. But new rules say the barrier should be used only when the water level is 103 cm, at which point two-thirds of the old city will be wet. (St. Mark’s gets flooded at 80-85 cm.) Why did the authorities decide this? Read on … – The Art Newspaper
Researchers Have Some Good News About Indoor Concerts And COVID
“Analysis of an indoor concert staged by scientists in August suggests that the impact of such events on the spread of the coronavirus is ‘low to very low’ as long as organizers ensure adequate ventilation, strict hygiene protocols and limited capacity, according to the German researchers who conducted the study.” Be aware, though, that the paper has not yet been peer-reviewed. – The New York Times