They closed from neglect. Most were abandoned or turned into storefronts. Now, one-by-one they’re being restored and reopened. It’s quite grand. – BBC
Tag: 04.18.19
Italian Futurism Led Straight To Fascism (And The Same Could Happen Again Elsewhere)
“There are lessons to be learned for today’s technologists and futurists in Marinetti’s [Futurist Manifesto], and it would be foolish to ignore them. Let’s first take a look at the words often used to describe the Italian Futurist movement: invention, modernity, speed, industry, disruption, brash, energetic. … Does any of this sound familiar?” – Wired
Penguin Random House Starts Airline-Style Frequent Reader Program
The PRH Reader Rewards Loyalty Program will let members enter proof-of-purchase info online; when you reach 120 points (roughly ten books, the company says), you get up to $30 credit toward ordering Penguin Random House titles. – Publishers Weekly
Guggenheim’s Hilma Af Klint Show Is Most Popular In Museum’s History
“The solo show for the Swedish artist, which has been widely praised by critics, has drawn in over 600,000 visitors. That influx of foot traffic has been accompanied by a 34 percent increase in membership to the museum.” – ARTnews
Baltimore Symphony Gets $3.2 Million From Maryland Legislature
“[The move is] a potentially crucial step toward resolving a contentious labor dispute” — the musicians have been playing without a contract since January — “and allowing the organization to remain a year-round ensemble.” – The Baltimore Sun
Former Volunteer Docent Leaves Surprise $8 Million To Philadelphia Museum
Estelle Rubens, who died in January of 2018, was a popular guide at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts for about 15 years, and she had told officials there that she’d leave the museum and school “a little something.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
We Can Bring Peace, Afghanistan’s First All-Female Orchestra Tells Taliban
Says Negin Khpelwak, the 22-year-old leader of the Zohra Orchestra, “We can bring freedom, peace and honor to Afghanistan. Women can’t go back to the dark days — they can break our instruments, they can ban the music, but they never take it from our hearts.” – Bloomberg
New Orleans African American Museum Opens — For The Third Time
“Last week, in the historic (and historically black) Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans, the city’s African American Museum officially opened its doors to the public after a six-year closure.” Well, part of it did. “So, what is behind the re-reopening — or more importantly, the repeated closures — of a nonprofit cultural institution that debuted in 1998 but has since been shuttered twice, in each instance for several years at a time?” – Nonprofit Quarterly
The Complexity Fetish
If you’ve been to any leadership development or organizational change workshop lately, you’ve heard about complexity quite a bit. But I’ve slowly (slowly) started to realize that I, and many in my crowd, love complexity just a bit too much. – Andrew Taylor
Tracing Bloodlines
The Stephen Petronio Company at NYU Skirball Center on April 12, 2019. – Deborah Jowitt