“Someone – and absolutely no one involved seems ready to say who – came up with an idea in 2012 for a patron to purchase 2,070 photos by the American portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz and then donate them to … the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia … Four years later, though, a Canadian government panel that must sign off on the deduction is still balking at approving it, partly because the panel won’t accept a $20 million valuation for a collection that the donor purchased for just $4.75 million.”
Blog
They’re Going To Try A Biennial In 30 Cities At Once
“The first International Biennial of Contemporary Art of South America (BienalSur) launches this September across 30 cities … Although its main hub is in Buenos Aires, the show extends beyond Argentina – to Santiago, Rio de Janeiro, Havana, Paris, Berlin and Tokyo, among other cities.”
An Arts Festival In The Middle Of The Atlantic
“For the first edition of the Walk & Talk festival in 2011, its current artistic director Jesse James and fellow co-founder Diana Sousa wanted to bring ‘just one artist’ to Ponta Delgada, the capital of the Portuguese Azores islands. Now, in its seventh edition, the festival (until 29 July) has grown with more than 70 participating artists, from around the world and working across different disciplines.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.25.17
Benefits of the Arts (Again)
Summer is an excellent time to review topics covered before and evaluate whether they should be raised again. Four years ago I offered a preliminary overview of a way of discussing the benefits of the arts. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-07-25
“Deeply Opposed”: Joint Statement by AAMD & AAM Blasts Berkshire Museum’s Planned Art Sales
I predicted in my previous post that the Association of Art Museum Directors and the American Alliance of Museums were “likely to exert pushback” against the Berkshire Museum’s deplorable deaccession plans. Now they have, … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-07-25
Seattle Debates A Funding Proposition To Fund Access To The Arts
“Indeed, this is the county where dreamers built worldwide institutions that reached the sky (Boeing), are working to end disease (The Gates Foundation), put computers in our homes (Microsoft), made artificial intelligence affordable (Amazon), and fueled us for the daily battles we take on (Starbucks). That creativity and imagination was surely nurtured by the art and science education that the county could continue by passing Prop 1. Without it, how will we nurture the minds that create the solutions for the struggles of the day — and the future?”
Richard Florida: Even As NY City Gets More Expensive, There Are More Artists Than Ever
“There is little doubt that New York has become prohibitively expensive for many artists, young and old alike, just as it has for middle-class people and working-class families, never mind the poor and truly disadvantaged. But according to a study released last week by the New York-based Center for an Urban Future (CUF), the city is actually home to more artists than ever.”
Report: Five Years Later, Arts Funding Has Become Even Less Equitable
“Apparently, despite all our best intentions and our good will efforts, not only have we failed to make even a slight dent in the inequity of funding disproportionately going to the big, white, rich urban cultural organizations – at the expense of the smaller and rural organizations, especially those serving people of color, people with disabilities and the LGBT community. MORE of the total funding is now going to the largest cultural organizations, not less. So far anyway, all the efforts to the contrary have not yielded any substantial or measurable change from the situation five years ago. Indeed, from an equity standpoint, things are worse, not better.”
Bring Arts Education To Students Around The World? Hmnnn…
“These countries are tending not to prioritise the arts in national curriculums, assessments or in depictions of effective pedagogy. Given the extraordinary and immediate challenges they face in terms of pupil enrolment, teacher quality and learning outcomes, this may not be surprising but it may also be a missed opportunity.”
Three Essential Lessons We Can Learn From The Nuyorican Poets
“Wow! That’s a powerful and inspiring mission that would certainly get me out of bed and into work every morning. It doesn’t get bogged down in the what-we-do or how-we-do-it. And it is outwardly focused, offering a value proposition to the neighborhood, the community and the country.”
How Magicians Exploit The Brain’s Inability To Notice Details
“Inattentional blindness is just one example of a more general feature of our visual experience known to cognitive scientists as ‘the grand illusion’. When we look at the world around us, almost everything in our visual field appears clear, vivid and rich in detail but, in experiments, our objective ability to detect change is more suggestive of an observer with a bag on his head, with just a small hole through which to see anything. This observation hole can be moved around by the observer himself or it can be manipulated automatically when interesting events occur in the environment.”