Artistic or creative pursuits, endeavors that are typically pursued for the intrinsic joy of sharing one’s gifts, are also frequently commoditized and placed on the market. Are they part of the gift economy or the transaction economy? – Image Journal
Blog
Do Musicians Need A Federal Works Progress Program To Survive?
Musicians have lost the battle to monetize recordings. With the internet awash in cheap streaming and free videos, our income now comes from live performance alone. Even if livestreams end up being only a short stopgap, offering them up for free on a large scale sets a dangerous precedent. Forced to be pioneers in this nuanced, digital field, we need to set the standard now—past performance footage is different than creating totally new content, for example. How do we assign value in an array of contexts? – Middle Class Artist
Online Music Streaming Is Up 32 Percent
The two leading platforms are Spotify with 35 percent and Apple Music, with 19 percent. Amazon Music is third with 15 percent of market share. Paid subscriptions represented 80 percent of total revenue, with advertising and brand partnerships rounding out the remaining 20 percent. – Ludwig Van
Leading Thinkers Speculate On What A Post-Virus World Will Look Like
As it has always been, history will be written by the “victors” of the COVID-19 crisis. Every nation, and increasingly every individual, is experiencing the societal strain of this disease in new and powerful ways. Inevitably, those nations that persevere—both by virtue of their unique political and economic systems, as well as from a public health perspective—will claim success over those who experience a different, more devastating outcome. – Foreign Policy
Violinist Commissions Composers For Online Fragments
Jennifer Koh got to work on Alone Together, an online performance series for which she hyper-compressed her usual process of discovering composers by asking 21 of them with some level of financial security (be it from salary or grants) to donate a new work between 30 seconds and one minute long, as well as to nominate 21 freelance composers for new commissions funded by Arco. – Washington Post
This Ballet Company Is Sending Practice Barres And Special Flooring To Its Dancers In Lockdown
Says the Head of Performance Health at Queensland Ballet in Brisbane, “They’ve been using everything from bench tops, to tables to ironing boards as well as ballet barres, and practicing on surfaces that can be slippery. Keeping 60 company dancers fit and injury-free is challenging at the best of times. At least now we know they have a small surface and barre which is closer to their normal situation, where they can practice safely.” – Limelight (Australia)
Judge Throws Out Musicians’ Lawsuit Over 2008 Fire That Destroyed Master Recordings
Representatives of those artists or their estates sued Universal in June, arguing that the company had been negligent in protecting their tapes and that the company had a duty to share with artists any income it received from an insurance settlement over the fire. – The New York Times
With Everyone Else Avoiding Museums, Will Thieves Stay Away, Too?
Recent thefts of van Gogh and van Dyck paintings indicate that the answer is no. “Alarm systems and uniformed guards are still in place, of course, and the sale of museum-famous stolen art has never been easy. But … cavernous floors are now largely empty throughout the day, not just at night. Police departments in many places are stretched thin by illness. Social distancing has meant that the many people who might once have witnessed a burglary are now tucked in at home.” – The New York Times
The Greatest Scam In Canadian Art History
“[It’s] the greatest art scam in Canadian history,” says art dealer Don Robinson, who suffered a stroke because of the stress he endured in his campaign against a market awash with forgeries. “The more you dive into a pool of garbage, the more you get to know the garbage within it,” says Ritchie Sinclair, Norval Morrisseau’s former assistant and another key figure in exposing the scandal. – The Art Newspaper
Bringing An Indigenous American Language Back From The Very Brink Of Extinction
Journalist Lorraine Boissoneault looks into the effort — using classroom lessons, software, and the memory of one of five native speakers left — to revive and teach the Menominee language of Wisconsin. – The Believer