Stonehenge’s Origins Questioned, UK’s Olympic and Cultural Budget Compared, Art Collective Calls Out Polluters and More: Morning Links for August 16, 2024

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THE HEADLINES

PRICE OF GOLD. It cost the UK more than $315 million of tax payers’ hard-earned cash to prepare its athletes for the Paris Olympics. Team GB won 64 medals, which equates to almost $5 million per podium place. To whittle it down further, each of the UK’s 14 gold medals cost an average of $22.5 million. What’s this got to do with art? Well, a writer from The Times crunched the above numbers and wondered why the government spends so much on synchronized swimming, breakdancing, and canoeing when arts funding in the UK has fallen off the cliff. “Against such a grim background [of the country’s slashed cultural budget], is it reasonable to spend £245 million of public money on training just 327 British athletes to win Olympic medals — or, in most cases, not win them?” Richard Morrison writes. “And let’s be frank, there were some real disappointments for Team GB in Paris. Our hockey teams didn’t get anywhere near the podium. That was £13.7 million of funding down the drain. (Don’t ask me why it takes £13.7 million to train two hockey teams.) In boxing we won just one bronze; not much to show for £12.1 million of investment.” He rages on, arguing that a “prosperous and civilized country” would value both the arts and sports equally.

OIL SOLD OUT. A Western Australian art collective called pvi has handed some oversized invoices to five corporations it claims are the state’s biggest carbon polluters. Eight members of the art group personally delivered the roughly 7-foot-tall mock bills to the Perth offices of BHP, Glencore, Inpex, Woodside, and Chevron. The invoices total tens of billions of dollars, which is what pvi say the cohort of polluting firms owe the community for the environmental and societal damage caused by their carbon emissions. Kelli McCluskey, pvi’s chief executive artist, told The Art Newspaper, “We’ve learned that coming at things with aggression doesn’t help,” taking aim at the Just Stop Oil members who are intent on covering paintings in soup. “We need to go the other way, and lead with kindness and humor. I think people are more open to humor than they are to aggression.” The artists call themselves The Social License Watchdogs and said the companies have 21 days to cough up the cash, and have the option of payment plan. “Six easy installments of $71 billion,” pvi kindly offered.

THE DIGEST

A wax figure of Taylor Swift in Germany’s Panoptikum Wax Museum is being “roasted” by her fans. “Completely unrealistic, someone did a terrible job,” one user wrote on Instagram. Have a look for yourselves. [Independent]

Researchers have discovered that one of Stonehenge’s six-ton rocks likely originated from the Orcadian Basin in north-east Scotland, not Wales as was previously thought. [The Art Newspaper]

​​​Are you a creative type who is struggling to keep your head above the water? Rolling Stone has some morale-boosting advice for you. [Rolling Stone]

Claudette Elaine Johnson, MBE, is one of four artists who have been nominated for a Turner Prize. Her inclusion is particularly noteworthy because she helped organize the first National Black Art Convention in the UK. The winner will be announced on December 3. [BBC]

THE KICKER

OLDER, ANGRIER, CRINGIER. Here’s another grey-haired man venting in The Times. Veteran art dealer Michael Findlay bemoans how the rich have ruined the art market. He says that when he arrived in New York as a fresh-faced 23-year-old, there was no such thing as an “art market”. The word wasn’t used at all. “The market meant a grocery store.” Apparently, the art world wasn’t always “so mercenary.” “The Sixties art scene conjured up by Findlay in his memoir ‘Portrait of the Art Dealer as a Young Man’ is maverick, experimental, and far less bothered about the bottom line,” journalist Laura Freeman, who interviewed Findlay, writes. In his book, Findlay recounts partying with Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, and Liza Minnelli, dropping acid, more partying. It’s hard not to cringe, like when a dad or uncle reminisces about their glory days. [The Times]