Until just a few years ago, the august Florence museum “acted like the internet didn’t exist”: it didn’t even launch a website until 2015 and only got itself a Facebook page after the COVID lockdown started this past spring. At the end of April, in an effort to reach young people, the Uffizi opened a TikTok account and started posting inventively humorous videos incorporating art in its collection — for instance, Botticelli’s Medusa turning a coronavirus to stone. – The New York Times
Category: AUDIENCE
Please (Don’t) Touch (Without Hand Sanitizer): How Children’s Museums And Interactive Exhibits Are Trying To Reopen Safely
“As states ease restrictions, many museums and animal attractions are next in line to reopen, if they haven’t already. Like other businesses, they must enforce social distancing rules and reduce touch points, measures that run counter to their high level of interactivity. … To better understand how attractions are reimagining their experiences, we reached out to several museums, aquariums, zoos and wildlife centers in the country. Here is a snapshot of their look-Ma-no-hands plans.” – The Washington Post
How America’s Big Three Cinema Chains Messed Up Their Reopening Plans
Last week, AMC, Regal, and Cinemark all issued elaborate safety plans for reopening — but all three said that they wouldn’t require patrons to wear masks except where local governments ordered them to do it. Why? Because, as AMC’s CEO put it, “we want to keep the politics out of our theaters.” And the response to that was so negative that AMC and Regal reversed themselves the next day. – The Hollywood Reporter
Louvre Plans Four-Year Overhaul Of How It Displays And Explains Its Art
“To counter its elitist image, the museum will strive for a ‘cultural democratisation’ to make its treasures more accessible with improved presentation, labelling and curating. [Director Jean-Luc] Martinez, who comes from a working-class background, said he wanted to build on the outreach success of the Louvre’s outpost museum in Lens, a poor former mining town in northern France.” – France 24 (AFP)
Time To Do Away With The Movie Multiplex?
What the past three months of relative confinement—and the resulting shift from theatrical to online releases—have proved is that movie theatres, particularly the multiplexes, hardly matter now. The widespread shutdown has only exaggerated and accelerated a shift that was already occurring. – The New Yorker
Black-Owned Bookstores Are Suddenly Getting More Business Than They Ever Planned For
“As Americans grapple with the country’s history of racism, many of them have turned to books, propelling titles like How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi and So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo to the best-seller lists. … All that demand, however, is becoming a challenge for some Black-owned bookstores around the United States, as they attempt to manage the deluge of orders, a handful of titles that are out of stock, and occasionally, customers angered by the delays.” – The New York Times
Glyndebourne Festival Opera Will Do An Outdoor Season This Summer
“Offenbach’s 1858 Mesdames de la Halle is the first opera to be announced. It will be staged with 12 singers but no chorus, with 13 orchestral musicians instead of the usual 40, and with a limited audience of 200 people [spaced apart outdoors]. … Taking place throughout July and August, the series will include concerts from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and London Philharmonic Orchestra.” – Classic FM
In This Pandemic Summer, Dance Companies Reconceive Their Work For The Outdoors
“We all know it’s safer to be outside and socially distanced, but that doesn’t mean we are confined to an outdoor stage with chairs placed six feet apart.” Here’s a look at what companies in Tampa Bay, Houston, Seattle, and rural Connecticut (yes, Pilobolus) are coming up with. – Dance Magazine
‘Drive-Thru Drama’: Another Solution To The Theatre-In-The-Age-Of-COVID Problem?
“With the usual model of theatregoing currently out of the question most everywhere, a handful of theatres have taken a cue from an old concept: medieval pageant wagons. Only this time, instead of the artists driving from audience to audience, the audience drives from artist to artist.” – American Theatre
The Summer Of Drive-In Culture
Up and down the country, drive-ins are opening as canny entrepreneurs see a business opportunity. It’s going out but staying in at the same time, and only a cynic (that’ll be me) would suggest it combines the worst of both. Cinemas, concert halls, theatres, galleries and standup gigs are closed, festivals abandoned. And yet we yearn for live art and entertainment. Hence recent drive-in gigs at an airport in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and at a car park in Bratislava, Slovakia. Across the world, people are leaving lockdown, getting into their cars and chasing down what passes for live culture at this difficult time while still socially distancing. – The Guardian