Justin Davidson: “The Berkshires, the bucolic swath of Western Massachusetts where urban refugees can get their weekend dose of gardens, waterfalls, and even the occasional moose sighting, enjoys the cultural life of a major city, spread out over an area half again as vast as Houston.” – New York Magazine
Blog
Early Newspapers Were Essentially Letters To The Editor, Messy And Boistrous
“Printed news started out as, essentially, collections of letters to the editor. Newspapers did not routinely employ full-time reporters until the 19th century. At that point, the older meaning of ‘journalist’ – someone who keeps a journal – disappeared, and the word began to refer solely to news-gatherers. Similarly, interviews and in-person reporting did not become common until the 19th century.” – Aeon
Artists Join Protests In Hong Kong
Since the protests began on June 9, artists have been wondering about their role, and many have taken up the job of disseminating information to the wider public. – Artnet
Artists Join Protests In Puerto Rico
“It is impressive how the process has been turned into memes and audiovisual content with such extraordinary speed. There are artists creating posters and songs and whatnot, but artists also provide work strategies that contribute in many ways to these processes that don’t necessarily entail creating work for or inspired by the political processes.” – ARTnews
The Fascinating Ways How An AI Machine Learns Ideas From Stories
“Genesis was capable of making dozens of inferences about the story and several discoveries. It triggered concept patterns for ideas that weren’t explicitly stated in the story, recognizing the themes of violated belief, origin story, medicine man, and creation. It seemed to comprehend the elements of Crow literature, from unknowable events to the concept of medicine to the uniform treatment of all beings and the idea of differences as a source of strength.” – Nautilus
Who Gets To Fund Culture? (Is There A Scale Of Evil?)
“Museums depend heavily on philanthropy. How do they start dissecting what’s okay and what’s not in terms of their policies?” says Komal Shah, a trustee of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Tate Americas who worked for many years in the tech industry. “There’s no black and white. Since I come from the tech world, I’m wondering if at some point Google or Facebook was deemed evil, do museums stop taking their money? And what is considered evil? How do you really define?” – Artnet
Ballet World Pushes Back Against Arts Council England’s Plan To Fund ‘Relevance’ Over Excellence
As one senior ACE executive put it this spring, “Relevance is becoming the new litmus test. It will no longer be enough to produce high-quality work.” Now many ballet company execs, choreographers, and dancers are trying to convince ACE to drop or modify the plan. One told this paper, “This idea has been dreamt up by people who simply don’t understand reality. They mean well, but they’ll end up putting us out of business.” Few of these figures will speak out publicly, though Matthew Bourne tweeted, “Is giving pleasure not enough anymore?” – The Telegraph (UK)
Frisco Frescoes: What to Do About Controversial WPA Murals at George Washington High School
My own views on this contretemps are conflicted. By all accounts I’ve seen by art professionals, this is a powerful work, intended by the Russian-American artist to be seen as a critique of the historic cruelty suffered by African-Americans and Native Americans. In cases like this, I give myself what I call the Holocaust Test. – Lee Rosenbaum
Can Theatre Motivate Action On Climate Change?
“It’s all about awareness and action. The artist’s job is to raise consciousness and cut through the complacency. I asked playwrights to meditate on the theme of, ‘Wake up—act now!’ We’re creating awareness, and stimulating action.” – Pacific Standard
How They Design The Cards For ‘Magic: The Gathering’
“Mark [Rosewater, head designer,] explains how, once he and his team come up with the creative concept for a particular Magic set, there are lots of other things to think about. They have to figure out not only how that deck works on its own, but also how it fits into a game that has tens of thousands of cards already out there — not to mention all the various ways the massive fan base can play with those cards. The calculations are so complex that they even have a full-time economist on staff.” (podcast) – Slate