Just a few days after a letter, written by 30 prominent poets and now co-signed by roughly 2,100 people, called for the resignation of the $250 million foundation’s president and board chair and a detailed plan for the organization to hire from and support the work of marginalized groups and to “eradicate institutional racism,” president Henry Bienen and board chair Willard Bunn have stepped down. – Chicago Magazine
Tag: 06.10.20
Banksy’s Bataclan Mural, Stolen From Paris, Found In Italian Farmhouse
The memorial to the victims of the 2015 terrorist attack at the Paris rock club was painted at the venue in 2018 and was stolen by thieves using angle grinders the following year. French and Italian law enforcement recovered the mural during a raid in Italy’s Abruzzo region. – ARTnews
When to Stop? My essay in “A Moment on the Clock of the World” in the context of Covid-19 & Black Lives Matter
My essay, “To What End Permanence?,” seeks to get beyond the question of economic solvency to examine other signs that it may be time to shut a thing down and other motivations for closing. – Diane Ragsdale
Back to the ’60s (again): Ex-Whitney Trustee Warren Kanders’ Dow Chemical Moment
After initially resisting the resisters’ demands that it halt its production of napalm, Dow stopped making it in 1969. Now Warren Kanders, who resigned under political pressure last July from his position as vice-chairman of the Whitney Museum’s board, has announced a similar reversal. – Lee Rosenbaum
NY Philharmonic Cancels Fall Season
The decision not to resume performances before Jan. 6, 2021, at the earliest came the week after the Metropolitan Opera said it would not reopen before the end of December. Like the Philharmonic, the Met has been closed since March, and has furloughed its orchestra, chorus and stagehands and some administrative staff, while continuing to provide them with health benefits. – The New York Times
London’s First Purpose-Built Theatre Found In East End
“The Red Lion is thought to have been built around 1567 and probably played host to travelling groups of players. … Archaeologists are as certain as they can be that they have found its remains at a site in the East End of London where a self-storage facility once stood.” – The Guardian
There Is No “Try”
Long ago Barry Hessenius charged us to move from thinking of the pursuit of equity as a “issue” to making it an obsession. So, if “doing” is where we go now, what does the doing look like? – Doug Borwick