As part of the City’s agreement to let the Met charge non-New Yorkers a mandatory admission fee, the museum is to give the City a portion of the new revenues for grants to other organizations. Now the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs has announced that it will distribute $2.8 million of those revenues to 175 groups throughout the five boroughs. – ARTnews
Tag: 03.18.19
La Scala To Return €3 Million Of Saudi Money
“The Teatro alla Scala in Milan on Monday decided to return more than three million euros in funding to Saudi Arabia, amid growing criticism that Italy’s premier temple of music should not accept money from a country with a jarring human rights record. Mayor Giuseppe Sala said the theater’s board of directors had deliberated over the issue and ‘unanimously decided to return the money.'” – The New York Times
How Nightclub Culture Drives Popular Culture
Anyone with an Instagramaccount, a fashion magazine subscription or an interest in social activism is ultimately engaging with club culture. Nightlife is like an angel investor in pop culture, silently incubating grassroots movements and social moments, and since the first iterations of the disco, clubs have been a breeding ground for cultural experimentation. – The Guardian
Thank Heaven for Museum Renovations!
I’ve been away for a few weeks, but I don’t want you to miss notice of an excellent exhibition at the Kimbell Art Museum: The Lure of Dresden: Bellotto at the Court of Saxony, which runs until Apr. 28. – Judith H. Dobrzynski
Culture Closures: Trump’s FY2020 Budget Proposal Would Axe NEA, NEH, IMLS
Is it mere coincidence that First Lady Melania Trump tweeted a shoutout to the National Endowment for the Arts on the same day that her husband released a FY2020 budget proposal that would eliminate the NEA and NEH? – Lee Rosenbaum
Patchel’s ‘Plinkout’
Keith Patchel, a New York-based composer and producer, has created a free online/mobile application called Plinkout, which he is touting as “the easiest way to teach anyone,” especially kids, how to play an instrument as well as how to learn “the core cognitive ideas of music.” – Jan Herman
One Of Philadelphia’s Last Independent Live Venues Is Set To Close
The iconic Trocadero is going out in May, according to owner Joanna Pang, who says (and this is depressing as heck) “The landscape of the business has changed in the last five years. It’s harder now to be an independently run venue — it’s a different world. There are bigger rooms run by bigger concert corporations.” That is, Live Nation. – Variety