Saturday 20 February 2016

Reading list, 20 February 2016

An interview with Meg Rosoff, author of one of my top 10 books, How I Live Now.

Grim reading from the Canadian equivalent of our briefing for the incoming minister on the underfunding of capital works and programmes at Canada's national cultural institutions.

We currently have a paucity of long-form recording and analysis of art exhibitions in New Zealand. That's why Francis McWhannell's piece on Auckland Art Gallery's Necessary Distraction for Pantograph Punch was such a pleasure to read.

Toby Morris and Toby Manhire produce a weekly column for the Radio New Zealand website, a combination of their political and social insight shot through with pop-culture references and enhanced by Morris's cartooning skills. It's a form of critique and storytelling that I find really compelling. This week's column was about Christchurch, the aftershocks, and mental health funding.

God it's hard to rebrand a museum. Just ask the Metropolitan Museum of Art. With bonus reactions in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, proving that people hate change and suggesting - to my mind, anyway, that while the Met wants to 'be for all', people expect a certain kind of stately grace from it. 

The Cooper Hewitt adds collecting wall panel text to the Pen's capabilities (and more importantly, gives an object lesson in continual improvement).

I'm really enjoying Seph Rodney's pieces on Hyperallergic: the latest is on three New York museums that have built in or around spaces for public programmes and participatory art.

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