Money please!
Plus, why the kids aren't reading.
Hello. Since the last time we spoke, I have:
Watched Tarsem Singh’s The Fall (2006)—via Mubi—and Sean Wang’s Dìdi (2024).
Enjoyed New York City Ballet’s All Peck program, celebrating 10 years of Justin Peck acting as a resident choreographer for the company. I loved seeing the Sufjan Stevens-scored Everywhere We Go for the third time and the Philip Glass-soundtracked In Creases for the first time. I was also delighted to learn, via a pre-show short film, that one of my favorite college professors, dance critic Mindy Aloff, was the first person to ask Peck, “Have you ever thought about choreographing?” You can still see this program next weekend on the 12 and 13. Next Sunday is also your last chance to see NYCB until the company is back for The Nutcracker in late November.
Enjoyed a night at the opera seeing Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded, which was the perfect length and an overall disconcerting experience (positive). Grounded runs through October 19.
Finished Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo and have…thoughts…that I will perhaps write about. Got halfway through Sarah Manguso’s Liars and similarly have…thoughts… I am very eager to read Parul Sehgal’s review once I’m done.
Who funds the arts? asks Kate Dwyer in a well-reported piece for Esquire. The answer is ultimately complicated. Foundations have played a considerable role in funding the arts and humanities since at least the mid-20th century, but many smaller foundations are not in the position to fund individuals or organizations indefinitely; such was the case for the Lannan Foundation, which wound down operations last year. Often, nonprofits rely on donations for their operations, or at least to fortify their endowments, but as charitable giving dipped 2 percent last year, that’s not an assuring model, either. And, of course, while larger arts organizations—Lincoln Center, for instance—are able to build up multi-million dollar endowments from institutional support and individual donors alike, there are countless smaller organizations that are not in that same boat.
We know full well that the United States government is not the savior arts nonprofits seek. While the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1965, may have an annual budget of $200 million, that can’t quite scratch the surface of the budgets that the U.S.’s more than 100,000 nonprofit arts and cultural organizations must abide by. Nor is the NEA even the largest funder of the arts in America: The Mellon Foundation, established in 1969, has given more than $300 million in grants annually since 2019 and has an endowment of $7.9 billion.
(Side note, did you know that the far-right Heritage Foundation is explicitly against the NEA for reasons such as the arguments that “the arts will have more than enough funding without the NEA” and “the welfare is a welfare for cultural elitists.” I laughed out loud. I will not do the Heritage Foundation the courtesy of linking to their website but you can Google it if you want, I guess.)
It also isn’t enough for funding to simply be available for the taking. A study published by Northeastern University earlier this year found that—unsurprisingly—donors are more likely to fund arts organizations in their own state, and more prestigious institutions are more likely to get funding than smaller or lesser-known ones. You can easily imagine the consequences. What’s more, as Dwyer notes in her piece for Esquire, some philanthropists have also shifted the focus of their giving to various causes; perhaps, in some cases, from the arts and humanities to science and the environment. None of these “causes,” of course, exist in a vacuum separate from one another.
One solution Dwyer ponders is if individuals may be able to play a greater role in the financial future of arts institutions they have come to love; for this to work, those institutions must ensure that patrons feel a sense of engagement, community, and ownership, in order for them to be willing to lend their financial support. I will admit that I am a bit less optimistic about this strategy. It is important for organizations to think deeply about what they are doing and why in order to foster a greater sense of engagement, but I also think that there should be a place for art that is not at all what audiences may not at all expect. I also worry, increasingly, about just how much the U.S. public really values the arts and humanities to begin with. I can’t stop thinking about Else Frenkel Brunswik’s postwar research about ambiguity intolerance and its correlation with acceptance of authoritarianism and how popular postmodern culture—Marvel movies, consumption-driven microtrends, decreased media literacy—suggest a total rejection of ambiguity.
There cannot be one solution to supporting the arts and humanities. We must employ every possible option to ensure that the funding that does exist does not reach only the largest organizations but instead fosters a society that, from the bottom up, finds value in what the arts and humanities have to offer.
The kids aren’t reading these days, reports The Atlantic, on the ground at Columbia University. I might normally consider this piece a type of rage bait, but sadly, the reporting holds its merit. High school students increasingly report being assigned fewer full books, and thus, when they get to college—even at elite universities—they struggle to keep up. As a result, even Columbia’s core LitHum class has reduced its required reading. Professors hope that this will allow students to “read the remaining texts in greater depth” and give them time to teach students how to read.
There are a lot of reasons for this—many of them rather obvious. Standardized testing has impacted the way teachers feel they must teach, but even more recently, this year, the SAT changed to make its reading sections even shorter. Phones and social media have had such an impact on the focus of the overall population that I don’t need to bring in any supporting statistics here for you to get the picture. Even I, at this very moment, have my phone placed on the opposite side of the room to resist the temptation to scroll. The rise of the business major, The Atlantic adds, has also impacted the way that students may value their reading, and I will also throw in my belief that BookTok and Goodreads have had a significant, and dare I say detrimental, impact on what people choose to read. If you have a numeric goal—as I did for much of my early to mid-20s—of course, you will feel discouraged from reading long books. It has only been in the past two years that I’ve gotten over my own vanity-driven reading habits and have spent proper time with Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, and 2666.
Reading, absolutely, can be entertainment. I don’t want to shame people for their choice in books, and I think it is perfectly fine if folks prefer fluffier fare. But I do think it is worth interrogating why young people are reading less and why books that may be longer and written at a higher reading level are considered work, and even then, what has changed to make more people so resistant to such work. Obviously, the answer is postmodern capitalism. But how can we resist that system?
Fighting gun violence with poetry. A new program in Germantown, Pennsylvania, called Healing Verse Germantown will offer residents 10 free poetry workshops over the next five months, culminating in a public art project. With the help of a $1 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the project, run by poets Yolanda Wisher and Trapeta Mason, and curator Rob Blackson, aims to foster peace in the community, which is disproportionally prone to gun violence. “It’s not just about public art. It’s about public healing,” Blackson said during the launch event, Philadelphia public broadcast station WHYY reported on the scene.
When should you clap during a classical music concert? A great question posed by Interlochen Public Radio, which an audience member at NYCB this week could have used the answer to. Ultimately, there is no perfect answer, and there is some debate about whether it is appropriate to clap in between movements or only at the end of a full piece. Here is what I say: If you are ever unsure, all you really have to do is make sure you’re not the first person to put your hands together. And don’t go on for too long if the performance isn’t fully over.
Just a few weeks after the Just Stop Oil activists who threw soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in 2022—leaving the glass-covered painting undamaged—were sentenced to two years and 22 months, respectively, in jail for their climate protest, two more activists from the same group who glued themselves to the frame of a J.M.W. Turner painting in 2022 were let off by a Manchester judge. “The artists of tomorrow and many around the world right now are having their chance to create stolen by the climate crisis,” defendant Paul Bell told the press. “We have a right to art and a right to life. The expansion of fossil fuels directly opposes this. I am very pleased that in Manchester Magistrates Court the Judge found our actions to be proportionate.”
Yes, great art does affect you, so finds a new neuroscience study. Researchers found that when looking at Vermeer’s masterpiece, The Girl With the Pearl Earring, they enter a “sustained attention loop.” The study, which tracked visitors to the Mauritshuis museum in the Hague, also found that the neurological experience of viewing paintings in-person at a museum is more affecting than looking at poster reproductions of the same paintings.
2024 proves to be a big year for museum patriation, which we’ve discussed a few times now. The good news: There is now a way to view looted artifacts wherever you are as they make their way back to their rightful owners. The online Museum of Looted Antiquities launched over the summer, and its goal is to “preserve, display and study” these objects’ ownership history, which is often lost when artifacts return home. Ownership history can tell us a lot—about economics, illicit trade, war. This is important context that shapes the overall historical relevance of any object.
People to watch. The MacArthur Foundation revealed its 2024 fellows, who will each receive a no-strings-attached grant of $800,000 in order to better meet their potential. Fellows are chosen because of their “exceptional creativity,” promise of future accomplishments based on a track record of success, and potential for the fellowship to “facilitate subsequent creative work.” Fellows do not apply; they are nominated. One thing of note: While these fellowships are commonly referred to as genius grants, the MacArthur Foundation actually discourages use of that term: “We avoid using the term ‘genius’ to describe MacArthur Fellows because it connotes a singular characteristic of intellectual prowess. The people we seek to support express many other important qualities: such as the ability to transcend traditional boundaries, willingness to take risks, persistence in the face of personal and conceptual obstacles, and the capacity to synthesize disparate ideas and approaches.”
This year’s class of 22 fellows includes individuals such as the fiction writer Ling Ma, Disability Visibility Project founder and writer Alice Wong, transdisciplinary scholar Ruha Benjamin, choreographer Shamel Pitts, and visual artist Wendy Red Star.
More boundary-pushing ballet. The U.K.’s Northern Ballet has commissioned a production inspired by Anne Lister—the historical figure who served as the blueprint for the BBC TV show Gentleman Jack. “The story of someone many call the first modern lesbian is a perspective we rarely see represented through ballet, and with her connection to our home in Yorkshire it feels like a perfect fit,” says artistic director Federico Bonelli. The ballet will premiere in Leeds in 2026.
Endless loss. Hurricane Helene has destroyed Asheville’s River Arts District, which was home to more than 300 artists. The New York Times reports:
Worrying about a city’s cultural vitality can seem secondary when so many people have lost their homes and lives. But culture has been an economic engine for this part of North Carolina as well as a point of pride. And the many artists and craftspeople who live in this region have been among the hardest hit. Their recovery is likely to be an important anchor as the community rebuilds.
The River Arts District is accepting donations on its website for its Flood Recovery Fund. The Washington Post also put together a helpful guide on how to help Asheville recover from Helene. ▲
I was also at that NYCB All Peck performance with the rogue clapper. Truly the most bizarre performance experience I have had.