The debate here echoes similar ones going on throughout the art world. What is the purpose of the encyclopaedic museum: to present a rational version of the world in discrete categories, as they’ve functioned since the 19th century, or to challenge those hierarchies, taking into account the opening up of the canon that is taking place? – Apollo
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Chloe Aaron, Who Molded PBS Into A National Network, Dead At 81
She helped create the series Live From Lincoln Center, Dance in America, and Live From the Metropolitan Opera. And in 4½ years as PBS’s senior vice president for programming in the late 1970s (she was then the highest-ranking woman in American television), she convinced the various local member stations to carry the same prime-time programming for four evenings a week — giving PBS a national identity as a network for the first time. – The New York Times
The Culture We’re Losing Beyond The Non-Profits
Los Angeles is full of odd and quirky cultural enterprises, many of them precarious in the best of times. Mandatory closures that may extend for weeks, if not months, might end up converting temporary shutdowns into the permanent closures of some of Southern California’s most overlooked fountains of culture and history. – Los Angeles Times
Jerry Saltz Obsesses On Bruegel’s Vast Vista Of Mass Death
“This is Pieter Bruegel’s circa 1562 world-masterpiece painting The Triumph of Death, a panoramic pandemonium of an army of skeletons laying waste to a barren burning landscape while murdering every human being in sight. Lately, I have spent so much time contemplating this painting, I feel I have almost been living inside it.” – New York Magazine
Not That It Matters Much At The Moment, But Here Is The List Of 2019’s Most Popular Museums
And shows, where a Dreamworks show took honors. Repeating this year as most-trafficked museum is the Louvre in Paris, which welcomed 9.6 million visitors, easily beating No. 2, the National Museum in Beijing. – The Art Newspaper
Penguin Classics Is Diversifying Its Line Of Classic Books
“The imprint at Penguin Random House [is] responsible for publishing some of history’s most canonical authors, from Homer and Marcus Aurelius to James Joyce and George Eliot. Elda Rotor, who has helmed the imprint for 14 years, said the shift to diversify the imprint’s vast catalog has been intentional.” – The New York Times
Inside The War Room: NY Arts Orgs Deal With Catastrophe
As the covid-19 disease has escalated, turning New York into a crisis epicenter, the resolve of a multibillion-dollar arts community has intensified to try to temper panic and pool advice. And what was once a routine monthly call among 34 arts and cultural organizations that receive significant money from the city has ballooned into a daily emergency call-in with as many as 170 anxious arts administrators and advocates. – Washington Post
Six-Year-Old Thrown Off Tate Modern Balcony Last Summer Can Sit Up And Speak
“The French tourist, who was visiting London with his parents, was pushed from the gallery’s 10th floor viewing platform by a teenager with a history of mental health problems. … The boy has now gained the ability to sit up on his own, and he is able to feed himself soft foods with his right hand. He is still working on the coordination of his left side but is making small advances.” – Artnet
The Choreography Of Social Distancing
“In this time of confinement, we have been given one immeasurable gift — the freedom to go outside. In exchange, we must abide by a simple rule: Stay six feet away from others. As choreographic intentions go, that’s not remotely vague. Yet during my runs and walks in Brooklyn over the past few days, I’ve noticed that six feet doesn’t mean the same thing to everybody.” Gia Kourlas looks at how (and why) social distancing plays out as it does — and gives instructions to the more oblivious among us. – The New York Times
Attendance At Public Events May Not Recover Post-Pandemic: Study
“In a survey of 1,000 consumers in the U.S., 44% of respondents said they would attend fewer large public events, even once they are cleared by the CDC, with 38% saying they’d attend about the same number … And 47% agreed that the idea of going to a major public event ‘will scare me for a long time.'” (They’re most leery of theme parks and indoor concert and sports venues.) – Variety