“Totalitarian systems don’t last, it is my fervent belief. Some of them have lasted longer than others. When they come apart, what is it that causes them to fall apart? … [And] how do you get to be a high-ranking person within a totalitarian dictatorship? Either you’re a true believer from the beginning, at which point you’re probably going to get purged later on, or you’re an opportunist. Or it can be fear … I would put fear as No. 1: If I don’t do this, I will be killed.” – The New York Times
Tag: 09.05.19
In Trial For Oakland’s Ghost Ship Fire, One Defendant Acquitted, One Gets Hung Jury
Three years after three dozen people died in the flames at the warehouse-turned-artist-colony, Max Harris, the 29-year-old resident caretaker, was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter; jurors deadlocked 10-to-2 over Derick Almena, the 49-year-old master tenant and organizer of the derelict warehouse’s informal transformation into a live-work complex. – San Francisco Chronicle
Arts Council England Defends Its New ‘Relevance’ Funding Requirement
Simon Mellor, the Council’s deputy chief executive: “To be clear, of course we’re not going to be asking organisations to justify the relevance of individual works of art. We do, however, think that it is not unreasonable to expect organisations in receipt of the public’s money to be relevant – to ensure that the way they work, including their public programmes and other activities, is valued by their communities and stakeholders.” – Arts Professional
Dallas Opera Cancels Plácido Domingo Gala Following Latest Sexual Misconduct Allegations
The tenor’s performance at the benefit concert next March would have been his first appearance with The Dallas Opera since his U.S. operatic debut in 1961. (The one accuser in the latest report who was willing to be named publicly, soprano Angela Turner Wilson, is the daughter of the president of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.) – The Dallas Morning News
Toxic or Tonic? The Late David Koch’s Munificent Cultural Philanthropy
It remains to be seen whether his cultural benefactions will be augmented by bequests. I’m guessing that museums on the receiving end of such bequests, unless encumbered by unacceptable conditions, won’t abjure them as toxic. Nor should they. – Lee Rosenbaum
Propwatch: the photo album in ‘Appropriate’
In Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast has some advice about hoarding: Don’t hold onto anything you don’t want your kids to have to sort through once you’re gone. For the Lafayette family in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Appropriate, it’s an album stuffed with vintage photos of lynchings from the American south. – David Jays
V&A Director Defends Accepting Sponsorship From Fossil Fuel Companies
Tristram Hunt: “I think that the pre-history of fossil fuel companies in muddying the science about climate change, in lobbying, in their political acts, have been pretty criminal and they will be judged on that. But, I also think they will be part of the solution to dealing with climate change and they are engaged with it. … So, I don’t have a problem with having relationships with those organisations, like for example BP who are thinking very carefully about a zero-carbon future.” – The Art Newspaper
Boris Johnson’s Government Promises 4.1% Increase In UK Culture Funding
According to the government’s spending review for 2020-21, “the budget of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will increase by 4.1% in real terms to £1.6bn, after inflation is taken into account.” The Treasury announcement said that there will be “over £300m to support the UK’s world-class national museums and galleries … [and] over £500m for Arts Council England and Sport England.” (Guess it’ll come out of all that money Britain will no longer be sending to Brussels, right?) – The Art Newspaper
Eleven More Women Say Plácido Domingo Kissed, Groped, And Pursued Them In Opera Houses — And Management Knew
Additionally, “several … backstage employees described for the AP how they strove to shield young women from the star as administrators looked the other way.” (These include staffers at Los Angeles Opera, where Domingo remains General Director.) “Taken together, their stories reinforce a picture of an industry in which Domingo’s behavior was an open secret and young women were left to fend for themselves in the workplace.” – AP