While visits fell across the five London museums by 4.4% there was an 11% surge at Asian museums. The report suggests this was fuelled by “an emerging middle class with rising levels of education, cultural awareness and disposable income,” and “exposure to global cultural trends through online and social media”.
Blog
Dallas Symphony Gets A New Music Director
In addition to his post at the Zurich Opera, Fabio Luisi is the principal conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and is succeeding Zubin Mehta as the music director of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Earlier this decade, many observers had expected Mr. Luisi to become the next music director of the Met. He won over critics and audiences while filling in for an ailing James Levine in the midst of a new production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, and was named principal conductor in 2011. But Mr. Levine returned after two seasons away and resumed his post.
I’m A Minor Writer. I’m Okay With That
“There is no shame in being a minor writer. Some of my favorite writers were, in their day, considered minor writers: Nathanael West, Charles Bukowski, Mikhail Lermontov, Blaise Cendrars, Flann O’Brien, and even Gertrude Stein. It is an honorable way to make a living. Certainly I’ve done less damage to the forests of America than my better-selling peers. And while a major writer can be reassessed and reduced in stature in posterity, for a minor writer, there is only potential upside.”
Why Academia Has A Problem With Beauty
That academics encounter beauty in their private lives as a mystifying or corrupted alien force was a cliché by the time Stanley Fish cast his eye on the faculty parking lot. Yet the inconsistent treatment beauty has received in scholarly research demands explanation. In the humanities, beauty is ignored or seen as a vague embarrassment, and in the social sciences the topic is treated only superficially. If beauty remains a serious subject of study anywhere, it is in the sciences, certain corners of which have enlisted beauty as an organizing ideal.
Report: Arts Organizations Are Severely Undercapitalized
Not surprising was the finding that museums had larger working capital reserves than did performing arts organizations. What was somewhat surprising was the finding that smaller budgeted organizations had larger relative cash reserves than did larger budgeted organizations, due in part to their smaller fixed expenses allowing them to be more nimble.
He Strolled Into Art Museums All Over Europe And Stole Liberally. And Then…
For over six years, Stéphane Breitwieser, an ordinary Frenchman with an extraordinary love of art, trolled museums and private collections across Europe, helping himself to the pieces that caught his eye. He amassed a private collection of his own, to the tune of 239 pieces of art and priceless artifacts from 172 institutions totaling over a billion dollars. He was one of the most prolific art thieves in modern history.
Could Pro Sports Offer Some Lessons For The Ailing Gallery System?
“It’s not just because of my brain’s well-documented penchant for drawing outlandish parallels that I bring up sports here. As preposterous as it would have seemed to me when I was a disaffected art kid growing up in Midwestern (American) football country, professional sports at least offer food for thought, if not a full game plan, for how the gallery sector could claw its way out of this mess.”
Houston Grand Opera’s Heroic Post-Flood Story Is One Of Resilience
Recently, I found myself blinking back tears while chatting with a colleague as I was summarizing the story I had seen at the Houston Grand Opera’s Resilience Theater. It really was a beautiful story about, and told by, people who had refused to accept the risk of losing the place that they call home.
What’s Up With The Gender Imbalance In Britain’s Comedy Writing Prize?
The Wodehouse prize is 18 years old, or just about as old as this millennium, and it’s been given to men 15 times. Marian Keyes, who’s sold 33 million comedic books, says she’s never been shortlisted and wonders what women have to do to get noticed by the mostly male judges (who insist, of course, they only pick the best – and who picked no one in 2018).
Public Political (But Not Partisan) Art Is Coming To A Billboard Near You
It’s an ambitious, 50-state campaign by a group called For Freedoms, a campaign that intends to pay artists, enlist museums, run Kickstarters and do a lot more before the midterm elections in November. One of the founders of For Freedoms said, “We are hoping to bring art to the center of public life in the lead-up to the midterms, which is where we think art should belong.”