“The site, launched in 2014, offers investment advice to subscribers—the current cap is ten—who pay $3,500 per quarter for early access to a ranking of emerging and blue-chip artists. Like a brokerage analyst’s report, it uses terms such as “buy,” “sell,” and the even more alarming “liquidate” to guide clients. ArtRank’s algorithm arrives at its valuations through a combination of publicly available data such as past sale prices, forthcoming exhibitions, and social media posts from art world influencers as well as insider advice from collectors and dealers.”
Tag: 12.09.16
Crowdfunding Has Become Increasingly Important For The Arts
“In the US, Kickstarter famously helped raise more funds for the arts than the National Endowment for the Arts. In the UK crowdfunding for the arts has also grown rapidly, with models such as rewards-based crowdfunding – the model most popular with artists and creatives – facilitating £42m worth of donations in 2015, a growth of more than 60% from £26m in 2014.”
Is The Only Way To Make Theatre Budgets Work By Underpaying Workers?
“The debate over these overtime rules — in this article, in my head, in my heart, in our boardroom, in a courtroom, in our communities as well as among members, sponsors, and donors, has to include asking whether the only way to balance a budget is by marginalizing those who pour all of their passion, time and talent into their organizations.”
Vinyl Records Are Hot Right Now (But For Classical Music?)
The new shops carry everything from folk to electronica to hip hop, but in many of them, the classical “section” amounts to a single milk crate on the floor near the back.
A Different Kind Of Year-End List: The Ten Best Audiobooks Of 2016
Laura Miller: “During this long, ugly year of shouting there’s been something profoundly restorative about just listening: popping in a pair of earbuds, taking a long walk (or clearing out a neglected closet), and immersing yourself in a world of someone else’s making.”
Text Of Andrew Norman’s Award Speech In Which He Questions The System
“The music of the past is undoubtedly transformative, powerful, and amazing; it is one of the great legacies of Western civilization, and it deserves and demands to be heard for generations to come, but I wonder sometimes if we aren’t sacrificing this art form’s future in order to preserve its storied past.”
Artists Should Be Entrepreneurs? Why?
“In the wake of this deprofessionalization, we find ourselves without professional careers, and so observe with common sense that we must go into business for ourselves, we must be entrepreneurs. Common sense, of course, as an expression of dominant cultural ideas, is the most ideological of the senses. We’ve become hybrids, hyphenates—just like actor-managers were. While we can think of this positively, that yes, we have diverse interests and opportunities as artists, we should remember the economic conditions that force us to be hybrids: single professional career tracks that would pay for our bills and our retirements are closed off.”
Westminster Choir College’s Parent University Considers Closing And Selling It
Back in 1992, facing severe financial problems, the revered school for choral conductors and singers merged with nearby Rider University. Now Westminster is healthy again and Rider is in fiscal trouble – and eyeing the cash it could get for Westminster’s Princeton campus.
Theatre, Out Of Its (Scripted) Echo Chamber In The Wake Of Brexit And Trump
Lyn Gardner isn’t cool with the usual suspects thrashing it out on stage without considering their audience. “If the arts, and theatre in particular, wants to genuinely respond and enter into meaningful dialogues with those who feel excluded and disenfranchised, it needs to look outward not inward.”
In Hallmark Christmas Land, Everyone Is White (And Straight), And It’s Canada’s Fault
Um. “When asked to elaborate on the nature of his company’s difficulties regarding hiring actors and actresses of color, Abbott cited the fact that the majority of production takes place in Canada … and the channel’s high volume of production.”