Category: issues

“We live in an age where a million things are easily accessible online, including videos of just about anyone we bring in,” Matt Bunzl says. “One could fear that no one would move their butt to our events. But the opposite seems to be the case. In a world where everything is so easily attainable, there’s a new premium on the in-person experience. The sense of community that is created when people are sitting in a room together—because of the digital universe we’re in—that has actually become more attractive.”

“Because almost everything about the ways that artists work seems to defy typical practices for collecting labor and earnings statistics, which may also speak to the larger problems with the ways we collect labor statistics in this country in general, but that’s a discussion for another day.”

Protesters of “The Death of Klinghoffer” are upset by the way terrorists are portrayed. “Apparently, the Achille Lauro hijackers are only to be represented as the cackling villains of fairy tale – evil just because they are evil. Yet if we take the position that terrorism cannot ever be understood, we are unlikely ever to defeat it. Surely the rise of homegrown terrorists is proof of that.”

“I recently got asked by an administrator at the Library of Congress to do unpaid labor for its website. … I was dumbfounded to get hit up by a federal agency with an annual budget of $750 million. Yet clearly my experience was not a random event.” Gioia proposes “five simple rules of etiquette for this ugly new beggar-thy-neighbor economy:”

James McQuaid looks at four assumptions arts organizations tend to make that, all too often, simply don’t hold up.

James McQuaid offers some strategies for shaking off the faulty assumptions arts organizations tend to make, and suggests some organizations we could learn from.

“There’s one very clear take-away from the latest report released by the collective BFAMFAPhD: … ‘the fantasy of future earnings in the arts cannot justify the high cost of degrees’.” Alexis Clements crunches the numbers.

“That theater is supposed to be the crown jewel of the center. For many, the center won’t be complete without [it]. … It converts hydraulically from an opera house to a symphony hall and the seats can turn upside down into a flat floor. … But the center needs another $40 million in private donations before it can continue with [that phase] of the project.”

“In an era of tighter federal funding the Smithsonian is increasing its private fundraising efforts to pay for its stepped-up ambitions at its sprawling network of museums and galleries, the National Zoological Park and research centers, one of the largest collections of museum and research centers in the world.”

Officials at the Opéra-Bastille asked a woman seated in the front row, a tourist from the Persian Gulf area, to either remove her niqab or leave the theater after some cast members refused to begin the second act while she was there.