Sir Hans Sloane, whose collection first formed the basis of the museum, gained much of his wealth by enslaving people. The museum moved his bust “from a plinth to a smaller display case accompanied by text discussing the naturalist’s connections to the slave trade.” – Smithsonian Magazine
Blog
How ‘Orange Is The New Black’ Changed Some Of Its Actresses’ Lives
“Eight years ago, Samira Wiley and Uzo Aduba were struggling New York actors working service jobs when they auditioned for a new series from a movie-rental service-turned-streaming site called Netflix.” And Aduba isn’t taking anything for granted. “There was a lifetime of famine. The appreciation is there. It’s not like it was 50 years ago when I used to work at that restaurant. We can touch that time.” – The New York Times
She Said She Would Write The Essay Herself
On reading, and really feeling, Virginia Woolf as a middle-aged writer. – LitHub
Fake Rembrandt May Be Fake News
In other words, the painting fragment consigned to the basement of the Ashmolean at Oxford may be a real Rembrandt. – The Guardian (UK)
Tracee Ellis Ross On Finding Her Way In Hollywood
To be fair, she wasn’t lost. The system was. “Representation isn’t the same as legitimization. When Girlfriends aired, shows featuring Black casts were categorized as ‘Black,’ a label that was perceived as less serious, less substantive. (The show was often called the ‘‘urban’ version of Sex and the City‘—a descriptor that, when I reminded Ross of it, made her put her head in her hands.) By the time Black-ish arrived in 2014, a new vocabulary for talking about representation had, too.” – The Atlantic
The Coming Coronavirus Changes To Museum Architecture
Some ideas: “Study the chokepoints, bottlenecks, and pinch points that museums share—such as the entrances, queuing zones, and access area for exhibits. … Look at ways that all food may be consumed outdoors, which works for museums with the right environmental conditions. Similarly, those cultural venues may have opportunities for outdoor temporary exhibitions, if their artworks and exhibits can be properly protected.” But that’s all with the hope that this will be temporary. With a vaccine, and in a few years, we’ll know more. – American Alliance of Museums
How Chadwick Boseman Made Dignity Look Interesting
That’s a hard task for any actor, and Boseman had to – got to – play Thurgood Marshall, James Brown, and Jackie Robinson (not to mention embodying the fictional King of Wakanda, T’Challa). “I’ll confess to finding it odd that Boseman played these three roles so quickly. It seemed at first like a joke on the movies’ ongoing obsession with stories about exceptional Black Americans or like Hollywood was too lazy to imagine anyone else inhabiting the exceptions. The truth is that Boseman actually cornered a market with his inner elasticity and, at least for me, exploded the parameters of what biographical moviemaking ought to be.” – The New York Times
Banksy Funded (And Painted, Using A Fire Extinguisher) A Refugee Rescue Boat
The boat ran into trouble over the weekend – every refugee aboard was rescued by another boat – because it was overloaded, but: “Named after Louise Michel, the 19th century French feminist and anarchist, the boat features elements of Banksy’s idiosyncratic visual language.” The refugees await what’s known as “a Port of Safety,” in official terms. – Hyperallergic
Figuring Out Love, And Intimacy, In The Middle Of A Pandemic
Writer Akwaeke Emezi and photographer Texas Isaiah, with the help of many couples, try to figure it all out. “I have never spent this much time with myself;to become my own favorite companion is a new and strange thing for me. I was always looking for someone else, and now I’m terrified of finding them. Perhaps they don’t exist outside of my imagination.” – The New York Times
CAMI Abruptly Shuts Down
One of the most powerful agencies in the classical music industry, Columbia Artists Management Inc. sent a statement to its clients on Saturday saying that, due to the “prolonged pandemic environment,” it is closing its doors on Monday (Aug. 31) and entering liquidation. – Yahoo! (AP)