Balancing between the creative imperative and the bottom line is an art perfected by top museums like the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

Picture yourself in a museum of modern art. On the walls of the gallery are two Picasso paintings, “Dish of Pears” and “Seated Nude,” alongside other paintings by European artists active in the early 20th century. Step into a room nearby and there is another Picasso, “The Three Dancers,” among a selection of masterpieces by international Surrealists. Elsewhere in the museum, in another curated show, you find again the unmistakable hand of Picasso in “Weeping Woman.”

In “Networks on the walls: Analysing ‘traces’ of institutional logics in museums’ permanent exhibitions,” Anna Zamora-Kapoor, assistant professor of sociology at Washington State University, and colleagues unravel the question by analysing artist selection and the underlying networks among artworks in the permanent collections of three top museums of modern and contemporary art: Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou in Paris and MoMA. They show that elite museums’ selection of artists and the way in which they display the latter’s works are subject to forces of state, market, and aesthetics as well as to the compromises these often conflicting forces engender – dynamics similar to what businesses in the creative and innovative industries face.

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Knowledge

The blurring of work and home lives might not be just a temporary side effect of the pandemic. Though children will (hopefully) go back to school in the fall, many white-collar workers will be strongly encouraged to work from home at least some of the time over the next year or so. While working remotely confers some mental-health and other benefits, the “job” as we know it might never be the same. Conferences, in-person meetings, and even handshakes might be deemed not worth the risk of infection. What might emerge is a future in which results-oriented introverts prevail while those who thrive on face-to-face interactions and office politics fumble. In the post-pandemic workplace, nerds may get their revenge.

Companies have been reluctant to allow employees to work from home because of inertia and entrenched norms, says Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter. But the pandemic has forced nearly two-thirds of Americans to work remotely, making it clear just how much work can get done from home, even despite the presence of children. When people get certain perks from their jobs, they tend to value those perks more than they used to, according to research by Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson, a sociologist at Washington State University. Workers might resist being yanked back into offices after they’ve enjoyed the luxury of never changing out of their pajamas.

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The Atlantic

Revelations that Washington State Patrol troopers are searching people of color at rates much higher than whites have prompted the Washington House of Representatives to propose restarting bias studies that the Patrol quietly discontinued 13 years ago.

The House’s proposed supplemental operating budget contains $50,000 to fund a collaboration between the State Patrol and Washington State University to analyze traffic stops for evidence of bias. The State Patrol contracted with Washington State University researchers to conduct similar studies in 2003, 2005 and 2007.

Clayton Mosher, professor of sociology at WSU Vancouver, who was involved in the 2003, 2005 and 2007 studies that raised red flags about the disproportionate search rates of Native Americans, said researchers didn’t find a “systemic problem” within the State Patrol. The new studies need to drill down into the regions where the searches are happening, and the State Patrol needs to be willing to intervene with individual troopers who might be responsible for the disproportionate search rates, Mosher said.

“I was disappointed that they stopped [the studies], so I’m pleased to hear they’re doing it again,” Mosher said of the budget proposal. “It shows transparency.”

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