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There’s A Fundamental Problem With Trying To Justify Why The Arts Are A “Good” Thing

Carter Gillies: “Either we say that improving health, wellbeing and social outcomes is our proper motivation, or we admit that the value of the arts is different to this. If instrumental benefits are what truly matters, then it may be necessary to sacrifice some art that doesn’t meet these criteria. We can hold on to the ideal of instrumentality, or to art that does not show evidence of instrumental benefits. But we can’t have it both ways.” – Arts Professional

A Deal With The Devil? Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’, 30 Years On

It was on Valentine’s Day of 1989 that the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his notorious fatwa decreeing that author Salman Rushdie should be executed on grounds of blasphemy for the novel, as should anyone who helped in its release. Riots, death threats, bomb threats and a few murders ensued; Rushdie himself had to spend almost a decade in hiding. Scholar Kevin Blankinship looks back at both “the Rushdie Affair” (which few people under age 30 know about) and what really is, and is not, in the book. — Los Angeles Review of Books

With Arrival Of Social Justice And Inclusion Movements, Museums Have To Question Everything About Themselves

“Recently, activists have begun to apply increasing pressure on a number of leverage points in museum systems: leadership and curatorial staff, financial backers, and the institutions’ narrative habits, as well as the provenance of institutional holdings. The question becomes, ‘Whose knowledge is it?’ — and, by extension, ‘Whose world?'” — Nonprofit Quarterly

How Wildfire-Ravaged Paradise, Cal. Managed To Put On Its ‘Nutcracker’ (Even If It Was A Month Late)

The worst fire in California destroyed Trudi Angel’s ballet school in Paradise, along with costumes and sets for the Nutcracker she’d been putting on there for 33 years (and along with pretty much everything in the entire town). But Angel’s young students pleaded with her to keep the show going this year — and the many people she knew in the wider ballet world pitched in to help. — San Francisco Chronicle

Classic Hubris? The Rise And Fall Of The Newseum

“The distress sale of its building to Johns Hopkins University … has become a cautionary tale of bloated budgets and unrealized ambition. The museum has been weighted down by crushing debt and beset by management upheaval, and its downfall has long been foretold, but it is still a gut punch to an industry labeled the ‘enemy of the people’ by President Trump and struggling with digital-era financial troubles galore.” — The Washington Post