Category: issues

Google Has Been Tracking Just About Everything We Buy Online

You know how many vendors want us to leave email addresses when we buy online? Well, Google knows all about that. It says it doesn’t do anything with the data. Maybe! “Google offers users a compromise that involves trading products and web services in exchange for data that the company will collect through a variety of means you may not know about and have little to no control over. That data is then used to help Google target ads, a division of its business that’s largely responsible for it becoming one of the most valuable corporations on Earth.” – The Verge

Belgium’s Royal Museum Says It Wants To Confront The Country’s Colonial Africa Past. There’s Just One Problem…

“I went there a month later, and spent two days trying to access its famed music archives, and mostly just looking around. And at the risk of spoiling any big, revelatory climax, I’ll just tell you: there’s basically nothing in the museum that honestly confronts what went on in Central Africa.” – The Outline

A New Tool Links The Arts To Measurable Social Impacts

Americans for the Arts CEO Robert Lynch says that his organization’s Arts + Social Impact Explorer “consolidates and highlights concrete ways in which the arts intersect with and have an impact on other sectors of society … [how, for example, the arts] help people with cancer cope with stress through painting, assist people with Parkinson’s increase their vocal strength through singing, and support patients undergoing treatment or unable to leave their beds with live, in-room performances.” – Inside Philanthropy

Art-Washing: Museums Face The Taint Of Donor Money

“Gifts that are not in the public interest.” It is a pregnant, important phrase. Coming on the heels of similar decisions by the Tate Modern in London and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the spurning of Oxy-cash seems to reflect a growing awareness that gifts to the arts and other good causes are not only a way for ultra-wealthy people to scrub their consciences and reputations. Philanthropy can also be central to purchasing the immunity needed to profiteer at the expense of the common welfare. – The New York Times

Caught In The Middle Of #MeToo: When The Same Union Represents Accusers And Accused

The dismissal and subsequent reinstatement of dancer Amar Ramasar at New York City Ballet is the most high-profile of several recent cases where a performer was fired after a credible complaint of sexual misconduct and his union pressed for reinstatement and/or compensation — very much against the wishes of other union members, among whom were the objects of the misconduct. – The New York Times

As Australia’s Elections Approach, Here’s Where The Parties Stand On The Arts

Jane Howard: “I frame this as a serious question: what is the use of investment in the arts if climate change is continually ignored? … Or, to put it another way, if politicians won’t even face the looming catastrophe that is global extinction, how low must the arts then rate on their interest scale? But, as an arts journalist, I must consider: what is there in this election for the arts?” – The Guardian (Kill Your Darlings)

Does A City’s Beauty Translate Into A “Better” City? This Study Takes Up The Question

The study by Gerald A. Carlino of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and Albert Saiz of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, examines the connection between a city’s beauty and key growth indicators. A raft of previous studies have found a connection between economic and population growth and urban amenities (a broad category ranging from parks to restaurants, art galleries, and museums). But this study takes a much closer look at the effects of beauty itself. – CityLab

The Arts Funder Created To Get Away From The Culture Wars Fought Over The NEA

In 2006, weary of the endless political battles over the NEA and worried about the cuts to its funding, the Ford, Prudential, Rockefeller, and Rasmuson Foundations joined forces to create a private-sector equivalent, United States Artists. Says former chair Susan Berresford, “There was an idea that outside the government, there could be an endowment to free yourself from understandable political pressures [in order] to take some risks.” – New York Observer

After Firing Two Museum Directors, Czech Culture Minister Gets Fired Himself

“A former mayor of Olomouc, [minister Antonín] Staněk made headlines several weeks back when he fired the director of the National Gallery in Prague, Jiří Fajt, and the head of Olomouc’s Museum of Art, Michal Soukup, accusing them of improper management. The domestic arts scene rose up almost in unison against the sackings.” (And then there was a disastrous interview last week.) – Radio Praha