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Richmond’s New Institute For Contemporary Art Loses Its Director Three Months Before Opening

Lisa Freiman came from the Indianapolis Museum of Art (where she was the top curator for contemporary work) 4½ years ago as the first director of the museum at the city’s Virginia Commonwealth University. She gave no reason for her departure other than wanting to return to her scholarly work (she’s staying on at the university as a faculty member).

Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.11.18

Derision for Admission Revision: Parsing the Metropolitan Museum’s New Mandatory Fees
Although I share the dismay over the Metropolitan Museum’s new admissions policy (which, nevertheless, I grudgingly acknowledge may be necessary), I’ve been equally unsettled by the misconceptions and misinformation promulgated by many of the pundits … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-01-11

 

Could A Scheme Cooked Up For Cricket Coverage Work For Covering The Arts?

Despite the surge in peer-to-peer recommendation via social media, research by the National Theatre demonstrates that reviews by paid critics are still a key driver of ticket sales. If each network review persuaded its readers to buy as few as five £20 tickets for that show between them, an additional £75,000 would flow into theatre’s economy and the scheme would pay for itself.

The Creativity Construct

E. O. Wilson’s new book, “The Origins of Creativity,” is about the role of the humanities in an intellectual culture increasingly dominated by science. Wilson values the humanities, but he wants them to have closer ties to some of the sciences, an argument that draws on his view of the relationships between human biology, thought and culture.

Museum Values V. Trump Values

Adrian Ellis: “Whatever the longer-term causes and effects, the current reality is that his agenda—and the values he is modelling, encouraging and appealing to in his electoral base—are starkly at odds with the values that most museums hold at their core. This is an unusual and increasingly uncomfortable experience for a museum community whose priorities and rhetoric have been—throughout my professional life, at least—broadly congruent with the prevailing values of society and echoed routinely, albeit sometimes too faintly, by our political leaders.”

How Did The High-Culture New Criterion Possibly Come To Embrace Trump?

Traditionally we think of decadence as an excess of self-consciousness; when irony and reflection come to dominate a culture, we are told its faith in itself has been sapped and it has not long to go. But as the conservative intellectual teaches us, it is the lack, rather than the surfeit, of self-reflection that is really fatal. Without it, erudition calcifies into ornament, and the act of thinking itself becomes a mere pretense.

Live-Streaming Broadway Makes Sense. But It’s Been REALLY Hard To Get There

In reality, much of Broadway’s success comes from a handful of breakout hits, while the majority of shows never turn a profit. Long-running favorites like The Lion King or Wicked may consistently attract tourists, but that doesn’t help the houses that either struggle to fill seats or aren’t reaching their full potential. Of the 32 or 33 shows listed the boards during a typical week, some may not even bring in half of their earning capacity. Streaming could fill in those gaps, the argument goes, by either helping to promote shows while they’re still running or offering producers a new revenue stream that exists long after the show is closed. Easier access to shows could also help democratize Broadway’s stubbornly homogenous audience–last season, 77% of ticket buyers were white, and most had an income of over $75,000 a year.