Required Reading

• This WBUR radio program in Boston discussed the current call by some protesters for ICA Boston to close its Dana Schutz exhibition. Featuring curator Eva Respini, director of the Trotter Institute for the Study of Black History and Culture at UMass Boston Barbara Lewis, and artist and professor Steve Locke. It is required listening.
• OK, everyone is talking about the crazy Scaramucci “interview” at The New Yorker, and well … I just can’t:

“Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said, speaking of Trump’s chief strategist.”

Related:

• Ethan Pierce reflected on his experience at a failed art start-up and wrote this thoughtful piece, which is a good read:

Those early days were filled with passion. But passion won’t put a roof over your head, even in New York City. To make ends meet, I rented out my bedroom 15–20 nights per month and slept on my roommate’s floor. I became infamous for my ability to live on a diet of coffee and mac and cheese.

I lived and breathed Palette. I had no job and no money. But I had purpose: I was helping to democratize access to art, and I couldn’t have been happier.

By November, we were cooking. We began to get sign-ups from outside of our social network. I hand-delivered artwork to our first customers. Angel investors entrusted us with their money to build our dream. We pitched our product in the Yale Entrepreneurship Institute competition and won capital and resources to build bigger, better, faster.

I thought to myself, maybe I’m meant to be an entrepreneur.

• This is FiveThirtyEight’s very useful eclipse map for the continental US and Canada:

• India’s national airline, Air India, is in financial trouble, and the government is considering the sale of their multimillion-dollar art collection:

Dubbed “the Maharajah’s collection” — after the airline’s portly, mustachioed mascot — the works have long been a subject of wonder in India’s art world. For several decades beginning soon after India’s independence in 1947, Air India was one of the country’s biggest corporate collectors of contemporary art, sculpture, textiles and artifacts.

Driven by founder J.R.D. Tata’s philosophy that its offices should reflect national culture and achievement, the airline deployed buyers to galleries across the country and acquired early pieces by some of India’s foremost painters — including M.F. Husain and V.S. Gaitonde — sometimes in exchange for plane tickets.

India has few public galleries, so artists and patrons cheered Air India’s announcement two years ago that it would open a museum to showcase its collection in one place for the first time. Those plans are on hold because of the possible sale.

• I had no idea there was such a thing as “competitive table setting,” but after reading this article, I find the whole idea fascinating:

Overman spends as much as six months planning her tables. She has accumulated enough materials to fill two storage sheds in her backyard, and has a dummy table that she places over her own dining table in order to lay out her designs.

In addition to creative pressures, tablescapers must also have an encyclopedic knowledge of the lost art of how to set a table. The dishes, glasses and flatware must correspond with the proposed menu, and those items must be laid out perfectly, down to the direction of the knife blade. Mistakes cost competitors points, detracted by anonymous judges whose choices can sometimes feel arbitrary.

• A must-read study explains why some people are certain they’re right, even when they see evidence that they’re not. It appears religion plays a role:

In the first study, 209 participants identified as Christian, 153 as nonreligious, nine Jewish, five Buddhist, four Hindu, one Muslim and 24 another religion. Each completed tests assessing dogmatism, empathetic concern, aspects of analytical reasoning, and prosocial intentions.

The results showed religious participants as a whole had a higher level of dogmatism, empathetic concern and prosocial intentions, while the nonreligious performed better on the measure of analytic reasoning. Decreasing empathy among the nonreligious corresponded to increasing dogmatism.

• All junkies are not equal, and a report in CJR looks at the different ways black and white drug use is photographed in the US:

What are the larger themes of photo coverage of the opioid crisis, centered on rural and suburban white America, and where do they contrast with coverage of drugs in cities? Photos are almost always shot in color rather than the starker black and white. We typically see daytime or well-lit indoor photos, as opposed to night action on seedy streets or dark alleys. There is minimal engagement with courts, jail, or the police. And there is a stress on domesticity. The photos often are shot at a home, the spaces mostly tidy or pulled together. Bedroom portraits are common.

Opioid stories typically stress the bonds and commitment of family, extended family, and community.

• Did you know you couldn’t say “God” on Star Trek? And it’s by design.
• And there were transgender soldiers serving in the US Civil War.

Required Reading is published every Sunday morning ET, and is comprised of a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts, or photo essays worth a second look.

• Art
• Required Reading
• Weekend