Reading list, 23 June 2018

Creative New Zealand recently released New Zealanders and the Arts, their regular research into how the arts are being experienced and perceived across the country. Likewise, Arts Council England has released a data map of arts engagement across England, which will guide their investment through a new £24m programme. And in Canada, Culture Track: Canada, a similar report but one funded by an advocacy group with contributions from corporate sponsors and institutions. (One interesting finding there: it's people who don't have English or French as their first language who are most culturally engaged.)

Jason Farago breaks down *that* video: At the Louvre, Beyoncé and Jay-Z Are Both Outsiders and Heirs.

Rachel Wetzler on the "that photo is just like a Renaissance painting!" meme:

A contemporary photograph simply can’t be “like a Renaissance painting” because it partakes of another kind of social relationship, conditioned by a different set of conventions for making and seeing images.

I've kinda missed reading good old-fashioned deep dive explanations of fairly straightforward digital projects, like Colin Brooks's Answering the question “what’s on today?”, about the changes made to the Whitney's 'what's on today?' feature, which also successfully flowed through to their public wifi log-in.

Is the Art World Too Big for Its Own Good? - The NYT's T Magazine gathers NYC dealers Paula Cooper, Elyse Derosia, Bridget Donahue and Sean Kelly to 'discuss art fairs, auctions and staying in business'.

This account of a new gallery in the Uffizi to house some of their Renaissance heavy-hitters cracked me up: on the one hand, the director is receiving updates on climate control around the works on his cellphone; on the other hand, there's this photo from the transfer of the paintings, which my registrar would shoot me if I posted on Insta:

Museum workers carrying the dual portraits of Agnolo Doni and his wife, Maddalena Strozzi, from the Palazzo Pitti to their new location in Room 41 of the Uffizi. Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

And this beautiful piece: Natural Causes by Annie Godfrey Larmon, on environmental change and America's heroic 20th century land art icons.