“Their sentiments run the gamut from hope to doom (‘I’ve been wondering when the next mass extinction event would come. This is it.’) and collectively form an uncertain picture of the future of film.” – Vulture
Blog
There Will Be No Spoleto Festival USA This Year
“After spending about $4.5 million that can’t be recovered, [the] Festival now must cope with a projected $756,000 deficit for 2020. (It did manage to avoid spending another $4.5 million that had been budgeted.)” No job cuts or furloughs are planned, and much of this year’s programming will be moved to 2021. – The Post and Courier (Charleston)
Ojai Music Festival Cancelled
“The Ojai Music Festival has joined the list of coronavirus cancellations, … marking the first time since its founding in 1947 that the annual celebration of experimental classical music will not be held.” This year’s guest music director was to have been German composer Matthias Pintscher. – Los Angeles Times
San Francisco Art Institute Stops Enrolling Students, Prepares To Lay Off Faculty And Staff
The nearly 150-year-old school, which counts Ansel Adams, Richard Diebenkorn, and Dorothea Lange as former faculty, says that it can’t continue to operate in the near term unless it joins a larger and more stable institution. Administrators expect to cancel all fall semester classes. Students graduating this spring will get their degrees; others are being strongly encouraged to transfer elsewhere. – San Francisco Chronicle
Do Cities Work Against Us When The Pandemic Comes?
Michael Kimmelman: “The coronavirus undermines our most basic ideas about community and, in particular, urban life. Historians tell us that cities emerged thousands of years ago for economic and industrial reasons — technological leaps produced a surplus of agricultural goods, which meant not everyone had to keep working the land. Still, cities also grew, less tangibly, out of deeply human social and spiritual needs. The very notion of streets, shared housing and public spaces stemmed from and fostered a kind of collective affirmation, a sense that people are all in this together.” – The New York Times
When Art Became Advertising – And The Man Who Helped Make It So
“Advertising was like art, and more and more art was like advertising. Ideally, the only difference would be the logo. Advertising could take up the former causes of art—philosophy, beauty, mystery, empire. There are no ethics in fashion. There are no ethics in magazines. There are no ethics in advertising.” – New York Review of Books
A History Of Being Alone
Virginia Woolf insisted on the need for a room of one’s own, but only the upper middle classes could have afforded one at the time. In the 19th century, only 1% of the British population lived on their own; in 2011 it was 31%, or some 8 million people. Yet as urbanisation and large families pitched people together, the anonymous world of industrial capitalism also split them apart. Rural life may have been rough, but at least you knew who lived next door. So if a longing to be alone became more acute, so did a sense of being forsaken. – The Guardian
Bitcoin And Shares In Art – Is The Idea Dead?
Two years ago this was a hot idea as a way of expanding the art market. You could own shares in works of art. But then bitcoin value cratered and things have stalled… – The Art Newspaper
As Restoration Of Notre Dame Pauses, Thieves Break In
According to a report by Le Parisien, two men face charges for allegedly attempting to steal various stones from the cathedral after the government ordered a pause on reconstruction so as to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. A spokesperson for Notre-Dame told the publication that the thieves likely intended to sell the stones on the black market. – Artnet
Systemic Failure: Virus Shutdown Highlights Precariousness Of Arts Economic Model
The economic fallout of the virus has made the disparity between employed workers and independent contractors clearer than ever. New York has a paid-sick-leave law, but it does not cover contract workers. Many freelance workers in the arts have high self-employment taxes and health-insurance costs; they do not have 401(k) matching programs or employer-backed disability insurance, or severance when work is called off. If artists have health insurance through a guild or a union, coverage is usually dependent on working for a certain number of weeks every year. – The New Yorker