ArtsJournal Classic

AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only

DANCE

    IDEAS

    • Good Morning

      It is no longer a question of if artists will adopt AI, but how thoroughly it has already permeated the creative process. A new survey reveals that a staggering 87 percent of musicians are now using AI tools in their work, powering a new era of “self-sufficient” production (Hypebot). Yet as The New York Times argues, the existential threat here isn’t to human creativity itself, but to the basic ability to make a living from creative endeavor (The New York Times).

      That fragility is being mirrored by institutional retreat. The Poetry Foundation has announced it will discontinue all public programming (Publishers Weekly), shifting its focus entirely to grantmaking. Across the Atlantic, the pressure is top-down: a new government report calls for a “thorough reform” of Arts Council England (The Guardian), demanding the agency cut bureaucracy and scrap its controversial “Let’s Create” strategy.

      At the top of the food chain, the battle for scale continues. Warner Bros. Discovery has officially rejected Paramount’s $108 billion hostile takeover bid (The Hollywood Reporter), leaving the media landscape in a tense stalemate. For others, the stakes are far higher than corporate control: the Russian government has officially labeled Pussy Riot an “extremist organization”, effectively banning the group’s activities and threatening prosecution for anyone who even supports them online (ARTnews).

    • How They Put Paddington Bear On A Stage And Made All London Swoon

      One could say that they just put an actor in a bear suit, but it really isn’t that simple. There’s some real theatrical magic at work. – The New York Times

    • Marie Rambert And The Origins Of British Ballet

      “Having worked with the Ballets Russes, most notably with Vaslav Nijinsky …, Marie Rambert became a pioneer in British ballet: setting up a ballet school, and then establishing her own company, the first in the UK, Ballet Rambert, which she led for 40 years after its founding in 1926.” – Bachtrack

    • When Your Ownership Of Something You Bought Depends On Continuing To Pay

      With the Internet of Things, and more broadly the layering of networked computers into every interaction, the function of almost anything, or the availability of any service, can be made contingent on the provider and the customer keeping a good relationship, subject to terms of service set unilaterally, revocable at will. – Commonplace

    • Now That We’ve Lost Trust In Institutions, Can We Get it Back?

      Now that so many of us say that we mistrust or distrust things like Big Pharma and the government, we need to think about what the consequences of a breakdown in institutional trust would be. – Psyche

    ISSUES

    • The Art Market Roars Back In the Fall

      Sellers tracking the market downturn started slapping lower price-tags on their pieces as well, which stoked momentum in the second half of the year. Overall, Sotheby’s and Christie’s sales topped $13.2 billion in 2025, up from $11.7 billion the year before. – The Wall Street Journal

    • The Arabian Peninsula’s Museum-Building Boom

      In Abu Dhabi, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, a bumper crop of lavishly funded art and history museums is growing. They’re largely designed by foreign architects and, at least for now, developed and run by foreign consultants. Is enough local talent being trained to take over in the future? – Artnet

    • How Small Museums Are Going Viral

      Small museums, looking to raise their profiles and educate the masses, are turning their paintings, sculptures and tapestries into the unlikely stars of TikTok microdramas. – The Wall Street Journal

    • After 14 Years, Libya’s National Museum Reopens

      “The National Museum of Libya – housing Africa’s greatest collection of classical antiquities in Tripoli’s historic Red Castle complex – had been closed for nearly 14 years due to the civil war that followed the former dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s downfall.” – The Guardian

    • Time For The Art Market To Be “Right-Sized”

      There is another way of looking at the shake-ups and shutdowns that have defined the art trade in 2025. Instead of a collapse, the process might better be thought of as the right-sizing of an industry where collectors were not alone in making big speculative bets on enormous growth that simply did not materialise. – The Art Newspaper

    MEDIA

    MUSIC

    • Poetry Foundation To Discontinue All Public Programs

      The organization announced on December 1 that it intends to phase out all public programming, beginning with the discontinuation of its Forms & Features workshops and Library Book Club in the new year. A more recent statement stressed that the Foundation is transitioning into a grantmaking organization. – Publishers Weekly

    • The Re-Rise Of The Middlebrow?

      Whereas the modernists and postmodernists tended to use low culture as a vast reserve of references, tropes, and stock characters to be deployed as needed within the novel-as-polyvocal-assemblage, our recent crop of “genre-benders” instead work from within the given structures of genre plots, out of which they develop more traditional “literary” elements. – LA Review of Books

    • North Carolina County Dissolves Library Board Over Decision On Book About A Transgender Boy

      Kasey Meehan, director of the Freedom to Read program at free-expression advocacy group PEN America, said Randolph County’s decision to dissolve its library board is among the most severe penalties she has seen in response to a controversial book. – Washington Post

    • “Slop” Is Merriam-Webster’s 2025 Word Of The Year

      “’It’s such an illustrative word,’ said Greg Barlow, Merriam-Webster’s president. … ‘It’s part of a transformative technology, AI, and it’s something that people have found fascinating, annoying and a little bit ridiculous.’” – AP

    • Librarians Are Struggling To Keep Up With Bad AI Queries

      Around 15 percent of all the reference questions received by her staff are written by generative AI, some of which include imaginary citations and sources. This increased burden placed on librarians and institutions is so bad that even organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross are putting people on notice about the problem.

    PEOPLE

    • Good Morning

      It is no longer a question of if artists will adopt AI, but how thoroughly it has already permeated the creative process. A new survey reveals that a staggering 87 percent of musicians are now using AI tools in their work, powering a new era of “self-sufficient” production (Hypebot). Yet as The New York Times argues, the existential threat here isn’t to human creativity itself, but to the basic ability to make a living from creative endeavor (The New York Times).

      That fragility is being mirrored by institutional retreat. The Poetry Foundation has announced it will discontinue all public programming (Publishers Weekly), shifting its focus entirely to grantmaking. Across the Atlantic, the pressure is top-down: a new government report calls for a “thorough reform” of Arts Council England (The Guardian), demanding the agency cut bureaucracy and scrap its controversial “Let’s Create” strategy.

      At the top of the food chain, the battle for scale continues. Warner Bros. Discovery has officially rejected Paramount’s $108 billion hostile takeover bid (The Hollywood Reporter), leaving the media landscape in a tense stalemate. For others, the stakes are far higher than corporate control: the Russian government has officially labeled Pussy Riot an “extremist organization”, effectively banning the group’s activities and threatening prosecution for anyone who even supports them online (ARTnews).

    • How They Put Paddington Bear On A Stage And Made All London Swoon

      One could say that they just put an actor in a bear suit, but it really isn’t that simple. There’s some real theatrical magic at work. – The New York Times

    • Marie Rambert And The Origins Of British Ballet

      “Having worked with the Ballets Russes, most notably with Vaslav Nijinsky …, Marie Rambert became a pioneer in British ballet: setting up a ballet school, and then establishing her own company, the first in the UK, Ballet Rambert, which she led for 40 years after its founding in 1926.” – Bachtrack

    • When Your Ownership Of Something You Bought Depends On Continuing To Pay

      With the Internet of Things, and more broadly the layering of networked computers into every interaction, the function of almost anything, or the availability of any service, can be made contingent on the provider and the customer keeping a good relationship, subject to terms of service set unilaterally, revocable at will. – Commonplace

    • Now That We’ve Lost Trust In Institutions, Can We Get it Back?

      Now that so many of us say that we mistrust or distrust things like Big Pharma and the government, we need to think about what the consequences of a breakdown in institutional trust would be. – Psyche

    PEOPLE

    • Good Morning

      It is no longer a question of if artists will adopt AI, but how thoroughly it has already permeated the creative process. A new survey reveals that a staggering 87 percent of musicians are now using AI tools in their work, powering a new era of “self-sufficient” production (Hypebot). Yet as The New York Times argues, the existential threat here isn’t to human creativity itself, but to the basic ability to make a living from creative endeavor (The New York Times).

      That fragility is being mirrored by institutional retreat. The Poetry Foundation has announced it will discontinue all public programming (Publishers Weekly), shifting its focus entirely to grantmaking. Across the Atlantic, the pressure is top-down: a new government report calls for a “thorough reform” of Arts Council England (The Guardian), demanding the agency cut bureaucracy and scrap its controversial “Let’s Create” strategy.

      At the top of the food chain, the battle for scale continues. Warner Bros. Discovery has officially rejected Paramount’s $108 billion hostile takeover bid (The Hollywood Reporter), leaving the media landscape in a tense stalemate. For others, the stakes are far higher than corporate control: the Russian government has officially labeled Pussy Riot an “extremist organization”, effectively banning the group’s activities and threatening prosecution for anyone who even supports them online (ARTnews).

    • How They Put Paddington Bear On A Stage And Made All London Swoon

      One could say that they just put an actor in a bear suit, but it really isn’t that simple. There’s some real theatrical magic at work. – The New York Times

    • Marie Rambert And The Origins Of British Ballet

      “Having worked with the Ballets Russes, most notably with Vaslav Nijinsky …, Marie Rambert became a pioneer in British ballet: setting up a ballet school, and then establishing her own company, the first in the UK, Ballet Rambert, which she led for 40 years after its founding in 1926.” – Bachtrack

    • When Your Ownership Of Something You Bought Depends On Continuing To Pay

      With the Internet of Things, and more broadly the layering of networked computers into every interaction, the function of almost anything, or the availability of any service, can be made contingent on the provider and the customer keeping a good relationship, subject to terms of service set unilaterally, revocable at will. – Commonplace

    • Now That We’ve Lost Trust In Institutions, Can We Get it Back?

      Now that so many of us say that we mistrust or distrust things like Big Pharma and the government, we need to think about what the consequences of a breakdown in institutional trust would be. – Psyche

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