Ben Folds

It's really sad. The Kennedy Center had so many great missions, and it is a memorial as well. It's as close to sacred stuff as you can get for our federal government. But aside from that, it really is playing out roughly the way that it felt it would for me a year ago.

En ole sanonut, että ymmärsin, miten tapahtumat tapahtuivat, mutta se oli selkeästi ensimmäinen asia,

uh of uh it was it was an authoritarian move it was an authoritarian first first step and like obviously they weren't going to start by trying to steamroller late night comedians they thought they would run over us first and that's that's much easier because it's close to home and they know what they're you know how to do it um but now the things that are happening are no surprise because

Se ei ollut vain häneltä. Mielestäni ihmiset ymmärrettävät, että se ei ollut vain häneltä, joka halusi kirjoittaa bansseja tai jotain. Se oli ymmärrettävä hallitukset ja taiteet. Ja sitten sieltä...

Se on käsitystä. Se on käsitystä. Sitten jatketaan järjestelmään. Stephen Colbertin, Jimmy Kimmelin 60 minuutin jälkeen jatketaan käsittämään. Olin syvällä, kun lopetin. Tiedin, että he pysyvät järjestelmään. Ei kuitenkaan, että he päättivät.

had any experience in arts administration, but that was never the point. Point was to take that, run over it and move on. So it's rotting over, you know, next to the Potomac in the moment. And it's like, it's just sad, you know.

Mutta national symphony orchestra, yksi ensimmäisistä osallistujista oli Rostropovich. Hänen nimi on niin pitkä, että kaikki kutsuvat hänet slavaan. Hän oli Shostakovich, suomalainen Dmitri Shostakovich, suomalainen komponistti. Hän oli periaatteessa oikeanpäin ihminen, mahtava kielistys ja mahtava sopimus.

He fled the Soviet Union and he found himself the director of the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. His homie Shostakovich was constantly in danger of being arrested, his friends being arrested, tortured, killed.

koska hän yritti tehdä taiteellisia taitoja, joten mitä tiedät, kun näet, että paikka on otettu ylös niin, että voit ajatella, mitä Slava olisi ajatellut, jota hän olisi ajatellut, jota hän olisi ajatellut, jota hän olisi ajatellut,

voida soittaa hänen ystävänsä Shostakovichin musiikkiaan ilman, että häntä vaikuttaisiin, koska hallituksella ei ollut mitään, hallituksen, hallituksen, diktatiolle ei ollut mitään taistelua. Jätät sen ylös, se on ihmisten kanssa. Kun he haluavat ottaa sen ylös,

That's just propaganda. And so that is what made me sick to begin with. And nothing that's unfolding now seems surprising. Putting Trump's name on the place, it is. It's like, yeah, it's like he's...

Hän painoi nimen hänen puolestaan, mutta se oli vielä keskustelussa. Hän oli juuri vastaamassa. Minusta se muistuttaa kuvan tai Hitlerin kuvan yläpuolella Eiffelin puolella. Katsokaa, mitä minulla on. Se on se, mitä se näyttää, kun hän laittaa nimen hänelle.

How do you navigate this? First, what does it say to you about the resignations? How do you think people navigate it? Well, it's tricky because it's really different for everybody. I mean, for instance, my friends in the National Symphony Orchestra, some of them have varying views about how they should be handling this, but nobody's happy or inspired by it. They're really worried about their jobs and they're in a different position than me. I was in a position to draw attention to this, and I knew that as a curator,

ettei ole mitään tapaa, jotta voisin kirjoittaa tarkemmin ja turvallisesti. En voi tuoda taiteilijoita, jotka voivat olla erilaisia näkökulmia kuin Rick Grinnell tai Trump. En voi tuoda niitä ihmisiä esiin. Katsokaa, heillä oli Yasmin Williams,

you know, booed that they're paid to do it. So yeah, I think that everyone has to find their own space there. I personally wouldn't touch the place while it's nuclear right now, because I don't think that you're really, I wouldn't feel safe playing there.

i wouldn't think that i was in good hands i wouldn't think people are going to show up even if i'm just going to be a total capitalist about it it's like yeah let the market speak how's the kennedy center doing oops don't play there that venue that venue can't draw a crowd so they don't know what they're doing there so um i don't see any reason to be there now you know like an organization like the the uh the opera

They have a board. They have a whole kind of contracts with them. We'll see what happens. But the individuals that work for them are just people trying to make a living in the arts. And they just got to show up at work. And it's really, really unfortunate. It's really sad. It makes me sad for all of them.

Mielestäni taiteilijat ovat samaa mieltä kuin vuoden aiemmin. Mielestäni taiteilijan on oltava oikeus kertoa itselleen.

It's a little bit sometimes like reportage. It's a little bit like journalism. I think that that is what artists need to do right now, while we still can't. Obviously, you don't have to do it at the Kennedy Center. It was an amazing place with an amazing mission and all kinds of access to facilities. It was beautiful. By the way, it used to make some money.

it's like not run well but the artist right now we should all be expressing ourselves with no there was a time uh i think and i came up in this era of the 90s this sort of shut up and sing era where you're worried you're going to alienate your artist i think right now is the time to absolutely stand up and and express yourself if that's political do it if it's social