To date, the company’s outstanding debt stands at $467 million (plus interest), according to the latest documents. It has to pay more than one quarter of that—$119 million—in interest and principle this year, and around $84 million for each of the next four years. That debt burden, coupled with an extended period when Sotheby’s isn’t generating the kind of revenue it would in a non-pandemic year, resulted in the release of Deloitte’s “emphasis of a matter” related to Sotheby’s own focus on the business as a “going concern.” – Artnet
Blog
Archaeologists Discover Ancient Egyptian Funeral Workshop
When at last the chamber was empty, the team was surprised to discover that it wasn’t a tomb. The room had a raised, table-like area and shallow channels cut into the bedrock along the base of one wall. In one corner, a barrel-sized bowl was filled with charcoal, ash, and dark sand. An older tunnel—part of a network of passages that honeycomb the rock beneath Saqqara—moved cool air through the space. The clues suggested that the chamber had been a mummification workshop, complete with an industrial-strength incense burner, drainage channels to funnel blood, and a natural ventilation system. – National Geographic
Hans Ulrich Obrist: Gaming Out Scenarios For A New Art World
The scenario that pays off in the end is the Leviathan Scenario, where everyone makes sacrifices and is mobilized to develop local solutions, creating bottom-up experimentation with government support. There is a focus on public goods and social welfare, transforming the economy and creating a more resilient and sustainable foundation. This will lead to post-crisis recovery and result in a New New Deal. – Artnet
Broadway Ponders The Scope Of Issues Before Shows Can Reopen
Actors’ Equity Association is rethinking almost every direction: How can more space be added to dressing rooms? Which costume fabrics resist the virus better? How many people need to touch a prop in a 10-minute period and how can that prop be cleaned? They’ve hired David Michaels, who ran the Occupational Safety and Health Administration under President Barack Obama, to advise. – AP
Martin Lovett, Cellist Of Amadeus String Quartet, Dead Of COVID At 93
“When the playing of his three colleagues – all Austrian exiles – threatened to become too sweet, Lovett could be relied on to bring them back to the right side of good taste with a finely drawn phrase from his Stradivarius instrument.” – The Guardian
What Comes Next?
I fear that the rampaging growth of income (and most other) inequality is going to be a raw wound on the other side of this crisis and that the nonprofit arts industry could be caught up in a widespread reaction against it. This post and others that follow will explain the fear. – Doug Borwick
Viewing from Home
What has interested me right now are online videos in which dancers, sequestered in their homes, keep in shape. Their charm lies in how the dedicated, witty performers interact with their locations. When did you last see a crackerjack dancer toss off a high kick between her refrigerator and her stove? – Deborah Jowitt
Crisis Engagement: Offering a Webinar for Surviving the “Raw Normal”
Difficult times are a form of truth serum. They force clear priorities. For me, that’s meant reaching out nationally to offer, at no charge, a webinar for nonprofit leaders: “CRISIS ENGAGEMENT: 12 Tasks to Sustain Donors in Turbulent Times.” – Matt Lehrman
Time To Revive The Plague Column? (Some Ideas)
Plague columns haven’t been much in fashion for nearly 300 years. But as the horrendous toll of death and suffering from today’s modern coronavirus plague continues to climb, the time may have come to consider reviving this once common genre of public art. – Los Angeles Times
‘Darkness Residencies’: Four Writers Spend Hours In Completely Blacked-Out Rooms
Artist Sam Winston, as part of his project A Delicate Sight, invited Bernardine Evaristo (co-winner of last year’s Booker Prize), Raymond Antrobus (winner of last year’s Folio Prize for poetry), Don Paterson, and Max Porter, “to spend hours in blackout before writing something inspired by heightened senses, identity, imagination, sensory reduction and rest.” – The Guardian