“There has long been concern over the ease with which suspect funds can be laundered through the buying and selling of art. Now, at last, we are seeing a concerted attempt to get to grips with the issue, which — even if welcomed by most — has sparked resentment and wariness. This almost unregulated sector doesn’t take easily or kindly to attempts to legislate it.” – Financial Times
Tag: 02.20.20
Even Great Journalism Isn’t Enough To Fully Understand #MeToo. We Need Fiction.
“It’s a truism to say our society doesn’t do well when faced with competing stories about what happened; that’s what ‘he said/she said’ has become a shorthand for. … To overcome that reflex, … we need to practice on something with lower stakes than the literal lives of accusers and accused. We need Me Too fiction and metatexts that help us understand this problem outside of a news cycle. And recently, we’ve been getting them.” – Slate
The Globally Networked Museum – Could It Be The Museum Model For The 21st Century?
Greece and Britain have the opportunity to renew their respective stories by leading the way in creating a museum for the 21st century. How it would be organised would be open to discussions. But at a minimum, it would be a consortium of museums from around the world prepared to contribute works from their own collections to tell the story of human history. The exhibits would depict the way that past thought, religion, politics, art and history has formed a platform for each stage of human development. – The Guardian
Construction Of Trump’s Border Wall Is Endangering Ancient Heritage
“This turn of events has been both somehow shocking and predictable. In June of 2019, archaeologists surveyed some of the area awaiting construction, which would include replacing existing fencing erected under the Obama Administration with a 30-foot-tall steel palisade, roadwork, and surveillance equipment. The team spent five days walking just a portion of the construction area. ‘Numerous previously unrecorded archaeological resources were identified, plotted, and evaluated,’ the survey report summarised. ‘These include 35 isolated [artefacts], 20 isolated features, and five archaeological sites.’ ” – Apollo
Behind The US Government’s Algorithm That Denied Forensic Architecture’s Eyal Weizman A Visa To Enter
Two days before Weizman, a professor at London’s Goldsmiths College, was due to fly to the US from Britain, he received an email from the US Embassy telling him that the visa waiver on his British passport had been revoked. When he went to the embassy in London last week, an official would only tell him that an algorithm had identified a related “security threat. That association could involve any aspect of his work with Forensic Architecture, which painstakingly pieces together evidence from a variety of sources when investigating human-rights violations and miscarriages of justice, often challenging the official versions of fatal events. – Artnet
Warning: Post-Brexit Border Policies Could Be “Disaster” For Creative Industries
“Although it is theoretically ‘points-based’, the reality is that it will be impossible to accrue enough points with a salary below £25,600 (without a PhD) unless the role is on the shortage occupation list; a list which excludes many highly-valued creative professions. In our sector, high skill levels do not always equate to high salaries. There must be recognition of sector-specific means of assessment including auditions, work experience and portfolios.” – The Stage
Artist Bans Critics Who Are Not “Indigenous, Black Or People Of Color”
“This choice might immediately strike some as counterintuitive; it certainly runs against the dominant conventions of criticism, in which theatres offer free tickets to all critics actively reviewing in their market, in exchange for reviews of their shows. Those reviews serve a number of functions including critical evaluation, historical record and support for future funding applications and, more immediately, they help get word out that the shows are happening.” – Toronto Star
How Language Mutates In The Corporate World
“No matter where I’ve worked, it has always been obvious that if everyone agreed to use language in the way that it is normally used, which is to communicate, the workday would be two hours shorter.” – New York Magazine
How Pianist Igor Levit Hacked The Attention Economy And Made Himself Into A ‘Thought Leader’
“Levit’s career is a stark demonstration of the dissolving boundaries between art and commerce, journalism and public relations, particularly in Germany. … He is a friend to media personalities and politicians. Journalists ask his opinion on climate change, the rise of the far right, books, the ideal body weight. He works with artists and comedians, performs at the Bundestag in Berlin and for the Greens. In England, he’s enraged Brexiteers; in the U.S., he’s ‘The Pianist of the Resistance.'” His media presence has reached the critical mass at which coverage leads inexorably to more coverage.” – Van
Study: Freedom Of Expression… Except For Arts Workers
More than eight out of ten survey respondents agreed that “workers in the arts and cultural sector who share controversial opinions risk being professionally ostracised”. The overwhelming message that comes across from more than 1,000 free text comments – running to 60,000 words – is neatly summed up by one person, who said “I often feel pressured to self-censor for fear of being ‘cancelled’ or bullied for not conforming to the orthodoxy”. – Arts Professional