Category: issues

Rip Rapson, president of the Kresge Foundation: I choose “to view this moment as an inflection point, not a new stasis. It is a call to reassessment … recalibration … recommitment. The nonprofit and philanthropic sectors have spent decades trying to create and assemble the building blocks of opportunity and justice. That architecture is woefully incomplete to be sure. But it is an architecture at once complex, dynamic, and resilient. Our charge is to continue fitting together those building blocks in a coherent, inclusive, impactful way.”

“Like many a New Yorker right now I talk a good game but my mind is scattered, disordered. To me, the city itself feels scattered, out of sorts; certainly carrying on like London, like Paris, but also, like those places, newly fearful, continuing with its routines while simultaneously wondering whether it still wants to, considering decamping to the countryside while being repulsed by that same thought—oh, and a ragbag of other random thoughts and anecdotes that will now converge in the next paragraph like a half-dozen strangers united for a moment on a street corner.”

The case was brought by a freelance photographer against several publications, including Yahoo! Sports and the Boston Herald, for embedding a third-party tweet that included his photograph of star quarterback Tom Brady. As Krista L. Cox, an intellectual property attorney for various nonprofits, writes, “What if every time you provided a link, you had to worry that you might be sued for copyright infringement? … It would destroy the way we communicate today, including interactions on social media platforms.”

“Given its four decades of life and enduring heavy traffic, it comes as little surprise that the museum is now in need of major renovations. Acting on severe structural degradation as well as a desire to breathe fresh life into its air and space exhibitions, the Smithsonian has announced that a sweeping, seven-year upgrade will commence this coming summer. Happily, … only half of the space will be inaccessible at any given moment.”

Alexandra Lange makes the case that the MoIC, which opened in Manhattan a year ago last summer, actually functions as a playground. The problem is that, by intent or not, it has become a phenomenon like Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Rooms.

Based on new figures from the Centre for Economic and Business Research, the GDP of the arts and culture industry in the UK grew by 10.4% to £11.8 billion, in 2015, compared with the 2.2% recorded by the entire UK economy over the same period.

“As a sector, we regularly raise hundreds of millions of dollars to enable a single arts institution to build a single fancy building. But it’s basically impossible to scrape together even 1% of that total to study whether building fancy buildings is among the best uses of philanthropic dollars. It’s a real problem, and one that makes me concerned for the sector. And unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to get solved until we make some changes to how and what research gets funded.”

A Hum protest is visually striking: Up to several dozen RAR supporters position themselves alongside the professor and quietly hold signs reading “We demand space for students of color,” “We cannot be erased,” “Fuck Hum 110,” “Stop silencing black and brown voices; the rest of society is already standing on their necks,” and so on. The signs are often accompanied by photos of black Americans killed by police.

How do you regulate algorithms? “Digital capitalism badly needs new rules – because the old laws are no longer effective. They were made for an economy that traded in real goods and for which price was an important factor. That could all be taxed, controlled and, if need be, adjusted.”