Category: issues

Ta-Nehisi Coates: “I take it as given that black people, because they are human beings, generally didn’t like being slaves. … Having said that, I think that just as the photography of the Civil War is interesting from an artistic perspective, the oral histories of slavery are interesting to me from a literary perspective. Looking at them as literature – and the recollection of specific individuals, not agitprop for anything – I’m never surprised to come across black people saying that they liked being slaves.”

“Already a big trend in retail and catering, this year the established names in the arts have embraced the idea of using short-lived venues for exhibitions, dance, theatre and film. … Garages, car parks, warehouses and disused transport terminals are all being given an unexpected afterlife this summer as hundreds of pop-up shows bloom across the nation.”

“This time it is not a result of the ‘stuff happens’ chaos that followed the American invasion in 2003, but rather the bureaucratic indifference of Iraq’s newly sovereign government. … A new antiquities police force, created in 2008 to replace withdrawing American troops, was supposed to have more than 5,000 officers by now. It has 106.”

When the kolkhoz at Nikola-Lenivets, a few hours south of Moscow, dissolved along with the old Soviet Union, people there were left without work and spent their days with vodka. Then a group of artists and architects led by Nikolai Polissky began employing the villagers – first to build art projects and subsequently to make commercial art objects as well.

“Locally and nationally, as large arts organizations plan for their next fiscal year — which for many begins in July — some are cutting deeper than they have even the previous year. They’re reducing hours, eliminating positions, freezing or cutting pay, and halting employer matches for retirement funds.”

“Los Angeles Unified School District officials are expected to restore $5 million to elementary arts programs that were cut in half as part of efforts to balance next year’s budget.”

“Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, the resting ground for such 19th-century titans as jeweler Charles Lewis Tiffany and pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk, is running out of its main source of revenue: burial plots. To keep it alive, the 200-year-old cemetery’s president, Richard Moylan, turned it into a nonprofit that gives guided tours and hosts cultural programs and art exhibits.”

“The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on Tuesday approved an agreement under which the city [of New York] will reimburse the authority up to $44 million for building underground foundations and infrastructure for a performing arts center at ground zero.”

“BP Plc, which has shed 45 percent of its market value after causing the U.S.’s worst-ever oil spill, said it will keep sponsoring the British Museum, the Royal Opera House, Tate Britain and the National Portrait Gallery in London.”

“The study showed a 71% decrease in performance anxiety in the biofeedback group compared with the control group. The biofeedback group had a 62% improvement in performance” and “said they had an overall increased sense of calmness, slept better, were more relaxed and had less anger in their everyday lives.”