Kitty Kat Named Blinchik

This one is for Lisa, who eats 25 ruble blini with abandon and who should spend more time in Moscow.

Hilarious house kitten belonging to the blini place by Taganskaya

Protest to Save Tretyakov Gallery and TsDKh

For those not following the action, there are plans to tear down the building that houses the Central House of Artists (TsDKh) and the modern and contemporary art collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery. This building:


Home of one of Malevich's Black Squares and many of Russia's most important contributions to the history of 20th century art besides, it's the place where many of Moscow's artists and art historians (I am told) first gained a sense of direction and purpose in things art historical.

The 1979 building, however, is also waterfront property on the Moscow River.

Yesterday, there was a second picket/meeting to show popular opposition to proposed plans to replace the building with commercial property and move the space to some other as-yet unconstructed building, off "to the curb." You can see pictures of the protest on the page of the lj user nefte. (You may, if you look carefully, recognize a certain blue hoodie among the protesters.)

Personally, I'm conflicted. Of course, I support the protection of sovereign art spaces and reject the notion of profit and commerce elbowing its way into all available and unavailable space in the center of the city. Of course.

But unfortunately, I wouldn't say that the Tretyakov or TsDKh are the kinds of art spaces I would want for Moscow. They are stuffy, poorly hung, with boring and/or non-existent programming and generally seem to serve little affirmative purpose apart from keeping treasured works of art out of the rain and hosting interesting book fairs. I wish the art-loving population of Moscow would go to the streets demanding truly sovereign art spaces not controlled by an old-guard bureaucracy that is uninterested in moving beyond 1979 or by wealthy oligarchs and their art-appreciating girlfriends. It may seem like the urgent issue now is to hold the line and protect the space art already has. But from the generally sombre mood of yesterday's protest, it seems to me that some more inspiring plans for the future (new space, new structure, more than what's already there instead of going back to the same old thing) may be what's really in order now...

Semiosis for the Masses, or Conceptualism in the Streets

Sinkhole

omfg.

Speaking of the Economy...

Notes on Higher Ed

My friend CQ just posted an interesting piece wondering about the effects of the current financial crisis on higher education, where we and many of you are - or hope to someday be - employed. CQ writes:

But don't you just wonder what universities have been investing in all these years? Have they been buying these crappy mortgages? Hmmm, I hope no hedge funds. Weaker endowments could mean higher tuition, hence fewer students, hence other bad things. Bad for us.

Ahh, in fact universities ARE investing in hedge funds more and more. Or at least they were before all this shit hit the fan. We'll have to see what their next moves will be in light of all that CQ mentions.

Here's some interesting data from a 2007 article on university investment: "Over all, institutions still place around 78 percent of their investments in stocks and bonds, but the proportion of assets in alternative investments has more than tripled over the last decade, from 5.4 percent in fiscal year 2007 to 17.3 percent of portfolio worth in 2006."

Oh, and by "alternative," they don't mean solar and wind power. They mean hedge funds.* This is how that Wunderkind CIO from Yale got their endowment to grow 28% in FY2007!

With these kinds of numbers, it seems only logical that the institutions with the biggest starting endowments are in the best position to lose their hypothetical 17.3% down the mortgage crisis crapper.** Harvard had a $28.9 billion (!) endowment at the beginning of last year. I'm thinking they're not going to be suffering too much. The real question is what's the threshold for staying afloat? $28.9 million? $2.9 million? Too bad that NACUBO endowment study mentioned in the article costs either $89.95 or $335, cause I'd be interested in seeing the spreadsheet. Guess everyone's facing shortfalls.

*And private equity funds and assets like timber, oil, and gas. The thinking here is that you must avoid "risk" by "diversifying." Um...can someone please explain how investing in higher-yield, naturally riskier funds, even if you invest in more of them equals lower overall risk?

**Of course, we would assume that the smaller institutions invest proportionally less in higher-risk funds, but then that's where that $89 spreadsheet would come in handy.