“The 20th century economy rewarded being the same, suppressing whatever made you weird and interesting. But this economy doesn’t reward that. This economy has shifted far more in the direction of rewarding uniqueness. So broadly speaking, more passion is more possible.” – Chicago Reader
Blog
The Difficulty Of Being A Cultural Ambassador For The US In The Time Of Trump
Under the Trump Administration, the challenge for cultural workers who agree to participate in official events is akin to swimming upstream in boiling waters. Civil servants, thinking of the long game—the point in the future when Trump will be gone and our democracy will be restored—task cultural workers with creating a counter-narrative of America while their employer puts forth a pernicious, deleterious version of the country. But how will this anticipated moment of restored democracy arrive if we behave as if events unfolding in this country were normal, as if our collective house were not on fire? – The New Yorker
There’s A Wave Of Forgeries Coming To The Print Market, Warn Art Experts
“Since the dawn of the internet, the problem of phony art being sold has only grown, experts say, and the primary coin of the forgery realm has long been the fake print, which is relatively easy to create, often difficult to detect and typically priced low enough to attract undiscriminating novice buyers. But now the problem seems to be escalating, according to law enforcement officials in the United States and Europe.” – The New York Times
The Virtue Of Being Able To Say Hard Things In Print… Have We Lost It?
Writers are individuals whose job is to find language that can cross the unfathomable gap separating us from one another. They don’t write as anyone beyond themselves. But today, writers have every incentive to do their work as easily identifiable, fully paid-up members of a community. Belonging is numerically codified by social media, with its likes, retweets, friends, and followers. Writers learn to avoid expressing thoughts or associating with undesirables that might be controversial with the group and hurt their numbers. In the most successful cases, the cultivation of followers becomes an end in itself and takes the place of actual writing. – The Atlantic
What’s The Most Physically Demanding Job In America? According To Insurers, It’s Dancer
“Researchers at InsuranceProviders.com analyzed data from the Occupational Information Network, a national organization developed through support from the U.S. Department of Labor …, to determine the 20 most physically demanding jobs in the country. They analyzed the level of strength, stamina, flexibility and coordination required for a host of jobs, and each category was assigned.” Dancer tops the list with 97 points out of 100. (Athlete came in third.) – Dance Magazine
Thomas Campbell’s Challenges At San Francisco’s Fine Arts Museums
It is not clear how Campbell will rebrand the museums, but he casts the de Young as a strong American arts institution and the Legion as a “treasure chest like the Frick, Kimbell or Neue Galerie, where we have an opportunity to double down on connoisseurship and scholarship of the European tradition with a nice vein of contemporary engagement spritzing things up”. – The Art Newspaper
Saying That Conditions Had Become ‘Impossible’, China’s Last Independent Film Festival Shuts Down
“The China Independent Film Festival has held 14 editions and shown some 1,000 films since it was established in 2003 in Nanjing, the capital of coastal Jiangsu province. Many of the titles it highlighted touched on topics like homosexuality or political history deemed sensitive or inappropriate by the ruling Communist Party. Other films were effectively underground titles as they lacked the government ‘dragon seal’ of censorship approval required for public screening.” A statement by festival organizers said that “it has already become impossible to organize a film festival that truly has a purely independent spirit and is also effective.” – Variety
Oregon Bach Festival Announces Three Finalists To Lead It
The festival has been in turmoil for the past few years after letting its artistic and executive directors. Finalists are conductors Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Craig Hella Johnson and Julian Wachner. – Eugene Register-Guard
Examining The Arguments Over Jeanine Cummins’s ‘American Dirt’
The author got a seven-figure advance, the first print run is half a million copies, the book jacket features gushing blurbs by famous writers, and the book got loads of coverage in The New York Times. But then the Twitterverse came after it, observers called out plot points that strain credibility, and even Cummins herself said, “I don’t know if I’m the right person to tell this story.” And then Oprah got involved. – Vox
Top Galleries Blast Art Basel In Letter Over Hong Kong Fair
The letter, addressed to Art Basel global director Marc Spiegler and Adeline Ooi, its director Asia, did not mince words when airing complaints about the state of the fair amid the Hong Kong protests, which have been going on for months. It claims that “many people who normally attend the fair have indicated that they will not attend this year” and that “many of our artists are unwilling to have their work shown at the fair” because participation in a territory under threat of increased Chinese control is not “consistent with their core belief in the freedom of expression.” – Artnet