How did this building, initially embraced as promising, if not visionary, come to ignite a scorched-earth debate in its final stages? The story of LACMA’s campus reconstruction—and the current opposition to it—reflects some of the thorniest questions at play in the operation of museums today: what they are meant to be, who gets to decide, and who is meant to pay for them. – Artnet
Blog
How To Maintain (Or Renew) Your Relationship With Shakespeare: Read Him
It’s certainly true that people have been reading Shakespeare’s plays for almost as long as they have been watching them. Within two or three years of his first, collaborative efforts on the London stage, Shakespeare’s first play in print was the gory tragedy Titus Andronicus (1594). Only one copy of this edition exists, now in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. That scarcity itself tells us something about reading: playbooks were small, consumable pamphlets often read into oblivion, not literary trophies to be venerated. – The Guardian
There’s Going To Still Be Theatre. But What Will It Be?
Said Chay Yew, “We’ve always complained about how the American theatre doesn’t work. I for one find the blank slate exciting. We either repeat what we did before or we don’t. The structure will have to come down.” Joe Haj conceded that if the crisis “ends in six weeks, we may be much like we were before. But if not, or there’s another spike in the virus, we may need to rethink our model entirely. There’s a huge role for leadership. We need to be able to dream ourselves forward.” – American Theatre
Can Looking At Art Online Beat The In-Person Experience?
“It’s definitely less trouble. You can stroll around the masterpieces at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, while seated at home in front of your laptop. Naturally, it’s far less crowded that way than it would be in reality. In other respects, though, the process is almost the same. You can select a Vermeer or a Frans Hals, and move in to examine it close up, read the information, move back — and, if you want, listen to a rather noisy narrated analysis of Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’.” – The Spectator
Bookstores Had Staged Something Of A Comeback. And Now This
In a 2016 study, the median small business had enough cash to last just 27 days, while a 2018 survey found that 21 percent would fail after a month without cash flow. Bookstores run on even slimmer margins than the typical mom-and-pop shop—but the ones that have survived in the Amazon era have made it for a reason. – Slate
Ancient Egyptian Pigment Has Become Biomedical Research Tool
“A researcher at the University of Göttingen, Sebastian Kruss, has used [Egyptian Blue], which is also known as calcium copper silicate, to produce a new nanomaterial that improves infrared spectroscopic and microscopic imaging.” – Artnet
They don’t trust me with cheese
‘The man next to us is honking like a seal,’ whispered my friend Mel at the interval of One Man, Two Guvnors at the National Theatre back in 2011. Tonight the National Theatre will stream their film of the show (available on YouTube for a week afterwards), and I’ve just found the review I wrote for Plays International. – David Jays
COVID Response: Panic Buying Of Pianos?
“Many see the period of isolation as an opportunity to pursue passions that might have otherwise lain dormant. Music-learning apps and sheet music sites like nKoda have boomed, and, contrary to trends across the rest of the retail sector, so have instrument sales.” – Van
Libraries As ‘Second Responders’ In The COVID Crisis
“When libraries closed their doors abruptly, they immediately opened their digital communications, collaborations, and creative activity to reach their public in ways as novel as the virus that forced them into it. You can be sure that this is just the beginning. Today libraries are already acting and improvising.” Deborah Fallows gives some examples of what they’re doing. – The Atlantic
Canada Council Launches Emergency Funding Plan
The Canada Council for the Arts has announced $60M in advance funding to arts organizations that have approved funding from the 2019/20 season. This amounts to the equivalent to 35% of the annual grants held by all core funded organizations. The funding is designed to help arts not-for-profits meet short term financial commitments to the artists and cultural workers they employ. Ludwig Van