Category: issues

“She has become known in the art world as a progressive figure and as someone who seems to care much more about culture than her father does.” Yet the group, even as it goes so far as to march in front of her apartment building, doesn’t expect much direct effect from their efforts.

How should artists respond in times of crisis? Leonard Bernstein suggested burrowing deeper into art. “A generous interpretation of Bernstein’s words suggests that musicians can transform art’s political impact by doing what they’re already doing – only better. But I’m skeptical of the idea that a more perfect art can really bring into being a more perfect union. Bernstein makes vague allusions to Kennedy’s presumably political “goals,” but the only goals he names are musical ones: intensity, beauty, and devotion. Are these really the ultimate aims of musical performance in a time of violent crisis?”

“Donations increased at 316 NPOs, adding £13.2m to their revenues, but a further 253 saw the value of their donations fall by a total of £12.3m compared with the previous year. Loss of income from trusts and foundations affected 231 organisations, where revenues from this source fell by £15.7m, while 311 benefited from a growth in this income stream, worth £13.5m.”

When Hepworth Prize for Sculpture winner Helen Marten announced that she would share her prize money with the other four nominees, David Lister writes, “she didn’t question the actual idea of cash awards. I do.”

Siddhartha Deb: “The idea of the great, undomesticated artist is itself, of course, one of the enduring fictions handed down to us by the industrial age. … If domestic responsibilities appear singularly detrimental to artistic practice, it is not because of the repetitive tasks they involve.”
Dana Stevens: “I’ll get back to you on that question as soon as I’m done picking these rainbow sequins up off the floor one by one, then sorting this mountain of discarded clothes into boxes.”

Sure, you might be tired of A Christmas Carol – but if you’re the theatre putting it on (or the ballet company putting on The Nutcracker, or … ), it can help pay for those experimental plays you produce the rest of the season. And a holiday show “sparks multi-generational sales, with families taking in the show together, bringing the average up to five tickets per sale. You don’t have to be a marketing wiz to see how such math benefits the organization.”

The routine went over well on Russian reality TV – but not on social media: “Former Olympic figure skating champion Tatiana Navka and actor Andrey Burkovsky wore striped concentration camp uniforms and yellow Stars of David for their performance on state-owned Channel 1’s ‘Ice Age’ show, in which professional skaters are paired with celebrities.”

They call him the Trump of architects, and here’s why: “Abolish social housing, scrap prescriptive planning regulations and usher in the wholesale privatisation of our streets, squares and parks. That was the message delivered by Patrik Schumacher, director of Zaha Hadid Architects, to a stunned audience of architects and developers at a conference in Berlin last week.”

“The cultural transformation of Shanghai has been astonishing. But it risks threatening the kind of complex, nuanced and sustainable engagement that a lively arts sector needs. If local government can encourage affordable spaces for young artists and help promote a climate in which artists and art professionals can thrive, then this most dynamic of cities might truly have it all.”