Category: issues

“Despite Spain’s record unemployment and economic recession, ‘most artists have stuck to their line and there’s been no new movement really linked to the crisis,’ said Antonio Sanz, the director of [Madrid gallery] Ivorypress.”

“Raising money for a nonprofit isn’t as bad as people think. People admire you for doing this work, and they’re not insulted to be asked. The worst they can do. is say no.”

“Interdisciplinary is often the word invoked when an arts center lacks focus and a mission: think of arts complex as rental space. One thing institutions should have learned by now from a history of sorry experiences is that when an arts building is designed to be adaptable to everything, it can wind up being not especially good for anything.”

A mural on Mohamed Mahmoud Street in Cairo tried to insult the city’s police (widely criticized for using excessive force on demonstrators) by showing two officers kissing and the words “Cops are Gays” in English above their heads. Well, the text on the painting has changed …

“Applause, participatory and observational at the same time, was an early form of mass media, connecting people to each other and to their leaders, instantly and visually and, of course, audibly. It was public sentiment analysis, revealing the affinities and desires of networked people. It was the qualified self giving way to the quantified crowd.”

“If it adds nothing more than a speech or a newspaper report could do, then it is not art. That we may approve of the message doesn’t make it good. It needs to expose the truth, but not one that we can see easily for ourselves.”

“The chief executive of Big Corp has to deal with shareholders, staff and customers. Arts managers have a fraction of a corporation’s turnover yet have many stakeholders: often three levels of government, multiple donors and sponsors. The level of stakeholder servicing can seem grossly disproportionate to the sums involved.”

“In the arts, of necessity, for the most part we are all of our own gatekeepers, and we invariably figure out ways to guard against unwanted intrusions into our time and space because that time and that space is equally important to us as it is to the big shots.”

“Worse, the edited lede … still highlights her as ‘world’s best mom’ rather than focusing on her status as a female pioneer in science.”

“Simon Klose would like you to steal his movie. Stream it, download it, share it with someone in Croatia or Brazil and remix it with videos of kittens playing patty-cake, if that’s your kind of thing.”