Why did the protesters pull down Edward Colston’s statue? “The 18ft bronze statue, erected in 1895, has long been a focal point for anger at the city’s role in the slave trade and the continued commemoration of those who were involved in it.” – The Guardian (UK)
Category: issues
Lebrecht: Privatise The South Bank Centre
Save that? Better to take the South Bank apart, piece by piece, in a period when there is no performance, so that it can put it together again under entrepreneurial management over the next year, ready to serve the public interest once concerts resume. It was the public, after all, who paid from their LCC rates to have the place built in 1951. That public has been given no say in its destiny ever since. – The Spectator
Venetians Are Loving This Not-Utterly-Overrun-By-Tourists Thing. Is There Any Hope Of Preserving It?
Residents and interested observers have been concerned for years about the local economy’s addiction to mass tourism and the ills that accompany it. Italy’s COVID lockdown has, at least temporarily, returned Venice to its own people, and many of them are wondering how they might be able to keep it. – The New York Times
Bail-Outs For The Arts Aren’t Enough
Virus impacts aren’t a short-term blip for the funded arts to be ameliorated by nifty footwork, strategised centrally and ‘top down’ in the coteries of arts power. Short-term bail-outs are insufficient for the enormity of the task. No amount of skilled fundraising and better marketing technique will save the plethora of slow-moving, risk-averse arts organisations in the recessionary world ahead. – Arts Professional
Why Buy The Cow When The Milk Is Free? Performing Arts Companies, Don’t Do What Newspapers Did
“There’s a long-running adage about working for free in the performing arts. ‘The problem with working for exposure,’ it goes, ‘is you can die from exposure’.” With arts companies all over the world pouring free content onto the web as their venues are closed during the pandemic, creative industries scholar Caitlin Vincent issues a warning. – The Conversation
The Worst Of Times Or The Best Of Times To Be An Arts Administrator?
Executives’ job descriptions are changing under their feet, requiring skills in handling not only a global health crisis but also issues of racial equity. – The New York Times
What Was The Point Of Blackout Tuesday?
“I don’t understand the point of asking people who were already posting non-stop about George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and protests and racism and police brutality and links to financial and community resources and anti-racist reading guides to pause all of that just to fill their timelines with…black squares. And now our “protest” is the same protest as the San Fran Fucking 49ers’s protest? If the point of the campaign was to do literally the opposite of what it was intended to do, mission accomplished.” – The Root
What Art Will Come Out Of These Difficult Times?
What then can we expect of the contemporary artistic community by way of helping us digest this experience of physical confinement and anxiety? Some have already shared their creations during confinement through social media. – The Art Newspaper
Face Masks Have Become Banners In America’s Culture Wars
Amanda Hess: “The mask is a public health device, but it has also revealed itself as a mask in the more traditional sense: a tool in a social ritual, a fetish object that signifies a person’s politics, gender expression and relationship to truth itself.” – The New York Times
Arts Organizations Look To Draw Down Their Endowments During Crisis
The Chicago Lyric Opera plans to spend $23 million from its $173 million endowment this year, almost triple what it typically takes. It canceled its season in March, furloughed staff and cut salaries, but is still facing a huge deficit. “This is an unprecedented situation,” said Anthony Freud, the Lyric’s general director. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is drawing down $37 million from its endowment, more than twice what it would normally take. – The New York Times