Dispatches

COVID-19 Impacted the Technology & Performing Arts Relationship

We will never get rid of “aliveness” in the performing arts, but for the sector to remain relevant, the “brick-and-mortar experience” needs to join a larger creative conversation involving new technologies and multiple platforms. (CSQ)

Phillips Launches Art Advisory Branch Aimed at Sourcing Works on Primary Market

The approach reflects Phillips’s attempt to meet increasing demand among collectors to source works by emerging and mid-career artists in high demand on the primary market, before their prices begin to skyrocket on the secondary market. (ARTnews)

Will the Arts be Talked Up or Down in the Australian Budget?

Ahead of the COVID-19 recovery budget, Esther Anatolitis looks at the narrative on the Creative Industries and what it might signal for future policy and funding in Australia. (ArtsHub)

NYC Launches a $25M WPA-Style Recovery Program for the Arts

The City of New York will put some artists to work this summer with a $25 million program inspired by the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration (WPA). Announced May 6, the recovery program will pay hundreds of local artists to beautify and activate public spaces across the city with murals, public artworks, performances, and more. (Hyperallergic)

Acropolis Renovation Plans Spark Accusations that it’s ‘Just Another Way to Fit in More Tourists’

Archaeologists fear the structural changes aimed to improve access to the Unesco site will “dramatically” change its form. (The Art Newspaper)

‘Intelligent Design’: Frank Gehry’s Surprisingly Subtle $233m Makeover of Philadelphia Museum of Art

The latest phase of a master plan for improvements that was approved by the museum’s board in 2004 and involved four years of construction, the so-called Core Project yields nearly 90,000 sq. ft of reimagined public spaces and new galleries that opened on 7 May. (The Art Newspaper) 

‘We’ve Had a lot of Museums Reaching Out’: How Nigeria is Getting Ready to Receive the World’s Benin Bronzes

With institutions across the globe rethinking their views on restitution, the African country’s focus is now on making a home for its heritage. (The Art Newspaper) 

Historians Say the Newark Museum’s Plan to Deaccession Art at Sotheby’s Will Inflict ‘Irreparable Damage'

More than 60 scholars signed a letter demanding that the museum abandon its plans to sell works from its collection to recoup pandemic losses. (Artnet News)

Thinking About the Intersection Between Human Rights and the Arts

The Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College aims to explore how today’s artists, especially those who work outside of hegemonic institutions, can impact contemporary politics. Artist Tania El Khoury and historian Ziad Abu-Rish speak about their aims for the center and how their work over the years has led them to this point. (Hyperallergic)

Decolonising Museums Isn’t Part of a ‘Culture War’. It’s About Keeping Them Relevant

The conservative position is that to “decolonise is to decontextualise”. But anti-racism in museums isn’t about pretending that colonialism never happened. It begins with not pretending any longer that colonialism and its consequences are wholly in the past. (The Guardian)

We Should Think Differently About the Preservation of Racist Monuments

Viewing contested monuments through the lens of Black life and protest opens up new possibilities for museum interpretation and disrupts narrow debates on whether monuments to white supremacy should be destroyed or preserved. (Hyperallergic) 

From Dada to Dumbo: The Rise of a New York Neighbourhood

Forty-three years ago, a gaggle of artists, writers and other creatives assembled in a Brooklyn loft, just next to the East River, to party — with a mission. (Financial Times)

“Blockchain is a Perfect Record Keeper”: Could the Viral NFT Craze Help Countries Reclaim Their Stolen Art?

NFTs are a flashy new digital trend geared toward the über-rich. But some experts hope to harness their blockchain technology to prove the origins of artifacts taken by European nations—and potentially upend the stagnated pecking order of the art world. (Vanity Fair)

Daniel Birnbaum Interview: From the Traditional Museum to the World of VR

The celebrated curator and former director of the Moderna Museet on why he moved to London to explore the possibilities of art and technology. (Frieze)

Van Dusseldorp's Future of Events

The world of online performances can sometimes outperform the real one, or let’s just say, bring you a new and different experience, as you can be closer to the performance and the performers than ever before. (Monique van Dusseldorp)

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