Hilary Mantel: Women Writers Should Stop Making Female Characters More Powerful Than They Are

“Many writers of historical fiction feel drawn to the untold tale. They want to give a voice to those who have been silenced. Fiction can do that, because it concentrates on what is not on the record. But we must be careful when we speak for others… If we write about the victims of history, are we reinforcing their status by detailing it? Or shall we rework history so victims are the winners?”

Emmett Till, The Hanging Of Native Americans, And Who Gets To Make Art About Them

“Central to both cases” – Dana Schutz’s Open Casket, over which there was a noisy controversy at the Whiney Biennial, and Sam Durant’s Scaffold, now being removed from the Walker Art Center’s sculpture garden – “are issues of cultural appropriation and artistic freedom. Should white artists, no matter how well intentioned, represent harrowing stories that are not their own to tell? Conversely, should any subject matter be off-limits to artists because of their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or other life experiences?”

Why Eliminating The NEA Would Hurt Rural Americans Most

“In reality, the NEA has an outsized impact in rural communities and less densely populated states, where funding from private foundations and wealthy philanthropists is harder to obtain.” What’s more, “the NEA’s outsized impact on rural areas and less densely populated regions is reinforced by the way it distributes the funding it provides directly to states.”

L.A. Dance Project’s Memorial Day Weekend Livestreams Reached More Than 500,000 People

The most popular segment of the series, transmitted from the company’s residency at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, drew 211,300 views by itself. “What’s interesting is that this livestream wasn’t what we’re typically used to: It was more of a live dance film happening in real time than an intimate peek in on rehearsal.”

The Icelandic Publisher That Prints Books Only At The Full Moon, Sells Them Only That Night, Burns The Remainders, And Calls It All A ‘Poetic Act’

“Why? While most books can survive centuries or even millennia, Tunglið – as its two employees tell me – ‘uses all the energy of publishing to fully charge a few hours instead of spreading it out over centuries … For one glorious evening, the book and its author are fully alive. And then, the morning after, everyone can get on with their lives.'”

A Show Of Fakes Makes Them Real As It Gets

Here is a Rothko that isn’t a Rothko, a Coco Chanel suit that isn’t a Chanel, a Babe Ruth baseball glove that the Babe never set eyes on, and let’s not forget all the silver by Alt-Paul Revere. You name it, and Treasures on Trial: The Art and Science of Detecting Fakes probably doesn’t have it, but it might have something that might be. In the immortal words of master forger Elmyr de Hory: “If my work hangs in a museum long enough, it becomes real.”

So A Robot Is Going To Steal Your Job? Maybe Not!

“Another story is emerging from several recent papers and columns by economists and economic writers. Instead of a world without work, they say, there is currently more evidence for a world with too much work—and not enough humans to do it all. Rather than high-flying investment in machines and similarly high unemployment, there is strangely low investment and happily low joblessness. How can anybody say robots are killing jobs when the killer is nowhere to be seen and the supposed victim isn’t even dead?”

Blouin Art Magazines Terminate Staff

Roughly 20 to 30 full-time employees in New York, including editors, ad sales and office workers, were told last week that they were all being terminated in two weeks — but could “reapply” for their jobs as contract freelancers. Louise Blouin’s mini-art publishing empire, which includes Modern Painters, Art + Auction and the Web site Blouinartinfo.com, has struggled financially in recent years.

We’re Safer And More Powerful Than Ever In History – So Why Do We Feel So Fragile?

“Beyond doomsday proclamations about mass extinction, climate change, viral pandemics, global systemic collapse and resource depletion, we seem to be seized by an anxiety about losing the qualities that make us human. How did we arrive at this moment in history, in which humanity is more technologically powerful than ever before, and yet we feel ourselves to be increasingly fragile?”