This past Friday night, as the KCPD prepared to confront people demonstrating against police violence in Minneapolis and elsewhere, security guards on duty at the closed museum agreed to police requests to park squad cars there — and the Nelson-Atkins got some harsh criticism online when photos of those police cars hit social media. Museum director Julián Zugazagoitia says that when he found out about this after midnight, he asked the KCPD to vacate: “It is exactly the opposite of what the Nelson stands for, what the museum stands for, what we want to do as work and what we have been doing as work.” – KCUR (Kansas City)
Category: issues
Amid Protests Over George Floyd’s Death, Smithsonian’s African-American Museum Launches Online Portal To Look At Race In The U.S.
“‘Talking About Race‘ is a Web-based initiative that uses videos, role-playing exercises and question-based activities to explore the origins and definitions of race and identity. Built on the museum’s long-standing educational work, the project was released Sunday to respond to the current crisis, according to [the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s] director of teaching and learning.” – The Washington Post
Fighting Over Who Gets To Use The Term Anglo-Saxon
Racists would love to co-opt the term “for their ethno-historical myths,” but that doesn’t mean historians and archaeologists have to abandon it altogether, argues one. “When researchers and educators today talk about the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon England’, they aren’t discussing a ‘racial’ group. The terms don’t even encapsulate one thing, but rather seven centuries of change and very different kingdoms and communities, from Kent to Cumbria, from East Anglia to the Welsh borders.” (But will facts matter to white supremacists?) – Aeon
Police Fire Rubber Bullets, And Use Batons On, Actor On HBO’s ‘Insecure’ During LA Protests
Kendrick Sampson of Insecure and The Flash was streaming LA’s protest on Instagram Live “when the officers began firing rubber bullets at protestors. He was also hit by police multiple times with a baton in a moment that was captured in a CNN live broadcast as well as on his Instagram.” Sampson wrote, “This was completely peaceful. All these folks started in a park, pouring libations, praying, and talking about what we can do to build up our communities. I was about to go home.” – Vulture
Time To Rethink The Entire Restaurant Industry
The current crisis has turned the industry’s cracks into chasms, exposing the ways in which it fails its workers almost by design. It has also raised the question of what restaurants will look like—and how they could survive—once this is all over. But a better question might be whether they should survive as they currently exist. What could restaurants look like if we threw out the old system and built something better? – The New Republic
Polish Government Fines Artists Who Protested At Parliament, Then Backs Down
Earlier this month, 11 artists from a collective called the Consortium of Postartistic Practices carried a 46-foot-long letter about 1¼ miles to the Parliament building in Warsaw as lawmakers debated whether to hold a presidential election during the COVID lockdown. The artists were subsequently fined about $2,500 for violating social distancing rules — until a public outcry led officials to reverse that decision. – The Art Newspaper
‘Deeply Disappointing’: Arts Officials Say Culture Is Being Cut In EU’s €750 Billion COVID Recovery Plan
“The European Commission announced an ambitious seven-year budget yesterday to bail out the EU’s 27 member states from the economic impact of COVID-19, but culture representatives say it fails to provide enough protection for their industry, which is one of the economic sectors that has been hardest hit by the pandemic.” In particular, the representatives say, “cuts to three programs — Erasmus+, Creative Europe, and European Solidarity Corps — send a ‘terrible message’ to the cultural, creative, and media sectors.” – Artnet
Cruise Ships Have Gone Away. And Port Cities Are Reconsidering…
In ports of call known for their cruise appeal, the disappearance of boat-borne tourism has been greeted with mixed feelings. Many towns and cities depend in part on revenue from these vacationers. But the boats bring problems, too: Critics often cite the industry’s environmental record and dubious economic impact — study after study show that passengers on short stopovers contribute relatively little to the local economy. – CityLab
The Last Of Paul Allen’s Arts Projects (Museums, A Theatre, Etc) To Lose Support
Many of the projects under Vulcan’s Arts + Entertainment division stemmed from Vulcan co-founder Paul Allen’s personal interests, and served as showplaces for his collections: his movie costumes and memorabilia at Cinerama; his vintage computer collection at the Living Computers: Museum + Labs; and his military aircraft, vehicles and artifacts at the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum. – Seattle Times
Michael Kaiser Has Become Therapist/Life Coach For Pandemic-Panicked Arts Orgs
The former CEO of the Kennedy Center and his colleagues at the DeVos Institute of Arts Management are giving pro bono consultations to more than 400 organizations. “In phone calls with groups as varied as Mosaic Theater Company in [D.C.] and the Women’s Museum of California in San Diego, Kaiser tosses out suggestions as each outlet lays out its predicament.” – The Washington Post