Alejandra Frausto, Mexico’s secretary for culture, wrote an official letter to designer Carolina Herrera and her creative director, Wes Gordon, about a recent Herrera collection that Frausto described as “plagiarism”: “This is a matter of ethical consideration that obliges us to speak out and bring an urgent issue to the UN’s sustainable development agenda: promoting inclusion and making those who are invisible visible.” – The Daily Beast
Category: issues
Plagued By Construction Problems And Controversy, Berlin’s Humboldt Forum Postpones Opening
“The museum, one of Europe’s most ambitious and expensive current cultural projects, has been burdened … by accusations from academics and activists that it hasn’t done enough to determine the provenance of its objects that were acquired during the colonial era or to address whether it is appropriate to hold onto them. The opening of the permanent exhibition had already been delayed to 2020; the Forum was slated to open in stages, beginning with a temporary exhibition of ivory objects in November.” – The New York Times
Thirty Years Ago, The Corcoran Canceled A Mapplethorpe Exhibit, Setting Off Washington’s First Big Battle In The Culture Wars. Now The Corcoran Has A Show About That Cancellation
Few of the people involved in the controversy at the time imagined that the culture wars would still be raging three decades later. Kriston Capps reconsiders that battle and the way museums have addressed the wider issues, then and now. – The Washington Post
‘Little Fresh Meat’ — A New, Androgynous Style Of Masculinity Arises In China’s Pop Culture
“[The phrase is] a nickname, coined by fans, for young, delicate-featured, makeup-clad male entertainers.” (The Chinese Communist authorities, it seems, prefers to call them niangpao — “sissypants.”) “These well-groomed celebrities star in blockbuster movies, and advertise for cosmetic brands and top music charts. Their rise has been one of the biggest cultural trends of the past decade.” – The New York Times
My Right To Speak On Campus
“Debates over free speech on campus are not about formal rights but rather about what we might call real freedom. We have the formal right to speak freely on a given topic whenever there is no law preventing our doing so. But those who claim to have been silenced by political correctness typically have the legal right to say whatever it is they claim they cannot say. What they are really objecting to is the social pressure not to make use of that formal freedom — a pressure that, they argue, reduces their real freedom to express themselves.” – Chronicle of Higher Education
New Online Platform For African Writers And Musicians To Reach The Global Market
A Q&A with Chidi and Chika Nwaogu, twin brothers from Nigeria and the creators and chiefs of Publiseer. As Porter Anderson observes,”What’s at issue … is the question of where and how emerging markets are being surfaced in African publishing today. A part of the premise of the program is that ‘digital transformation is allowing these developing publishing markets to leapfrog into the future,’ something that a combination book-and-music platform’s creators surely know something about.” – Publishing Perspectives
Canadian Senate Committee Proposes Putting Cultural Diplomacy At The Center Of Canada’s Foreign Policy
The report said “cultural diplomacy” — the exchange of ideas, art and culture across borders outside of official political channels — should take a central role in Canada’s relations with other countries alongside traditional considerations, such as the economy and trade. – CBC
We Tried An Entirely Different Model Of Arts Criticism, And Here’s What We Learned
“We laid out some pretty bold premises when The Commons Crit, a collaboration with Carolina Performing Arts’ Commons festival, began. Here’s how they look from the other side.” – Indy Week (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC)
Drag, Inc.: When A Subculture Becomes An Industry
“In part, what’s surprising is how long that process took: After all, the impulse to devour cool for profit is just capitalism. Like camp, which began as a private joy, an in-joke for outsiders, drag has become an open buffet for mass consumption. … RuPaul now regularly appears on talk shows, and the most successful queens from [Drag Race] have their own makeup lines, TV shows, and fashion campaigns while shilling everything from Starbucks to vodka to McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches.” – New York Magazine
Concerns That Arts Council England Is Stepping Away From Funding Excellence
“Some members felt that the proposals were signalling a profound shift from ‘Great Art and Culture for Everyone’ to ‘Everyone has the right to access some art and culture’.” They “felt very strongly that the outcomes suggested the only justification for publicly funded arts and culture was public demand”. – Arts Professional