“It would be easier to count up all the squirrels in New York City than the artists who live here. But that’s not stopping a new cultural think tank, the Institute for Culture in the Service of Community Sustainability, from trying. … Does it matter if there are actually far more working artists than the city knows about?” (Yes.)
Tag: 03.28.11
Fighting Back In The Culture Wars: Artists Need Broader Base
“Not only do those protecting free speech and artistic freedom need to be clever, they need to be better organized and bring in more allies, such as libraries.” Says one gallery director, “We have to get better at discourse and have discourse that can be at a level that is honest and in layman’s terms.” (Then why is she using the word “discourse”?)
Remembering The New Deal’s ‘Living Newspapers’
“[In] the 1930s, as part of the Works Project Administration and under the aegis of the Federal Theater Project, the Living Newspaper came into being and codified the genre [of modern docu-drama], drawing on techniques first introduced by Bolshevik artists and the Italian futurists.”
D.C.’s Politics And Prose Bookstore Has A Buyer
Just under six months after the death of one of the beloved Washington shop’s founders, two former Washington Post writers, Bradley Graham and Lissa Muscatine, are purchasing the store for a price said to be around $2 million.
Smithsonian Cancels Plan To Buy Contested L.A. Murals
The institute’s National Museum of African American History and Culture has withdrawn “its bid to buy an important pair of 1949 murals from a historic building in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles and relocate them to Washington” after protests led to a local effort to keep the works in California.
Was ‘The World’s Most Expensive Painting’ Really Worth $106.5M?
Last year, Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves and Bust drew the highest price ever for a painting at auction. Now “Tate Modern has The Most Expensive Painting on view, thanks to the anonymous owner and widespread press coverage of the loan. So now we can go along to Bankside and ask a somewhat crude question: is it worth the money?”
Tennessee Williams, Social Critic And Comedy Writer
Michael Billington: “In some quarters, he is still seen as either a steamy, sexual sensationalist or as a tragic poet of frustration and loss. I’ve always seen Williams in rather a different light: as a robust social commentator and a comic writer acutely aware of the absurdity of the human predicament.”
Global Music Sales Fell 8.4 Percent In 2010
“Global recorded music sales fell by almost $1.5bn last year as digital piracy continued to take its toll on the industry, with the UK losing its mantle as the third largest music market after “physical” sales of CDs collapsed by almost a fifth.”
Prima Ballerina Karen Kain At 60
“For some it may seem like yesterday that the National Ballet’s artistic director was thrilling audiences as one of the world’s top dancers but despite her youthful looks and enviable figure, Canada’s perennial ballet sweetheart is turning 60.”
The New Richest Museum In The World?
It’s Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim’s new Soumaya Museum. “It would take four more museums of the same size to house the entire collection of Mr Slim’s conglomerate, Grupo Carso. It includes 70,000 pieces that span almost 10 centuries.”