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- Recreating The Mona Lisa, By Plane
“Pilots looking to clock in flight hours and practice tricky turns can have a bit of fun by tracing the shapes of animals, words, phrases, or in Mr. McDaniel’s case, world-class art. Mr. McDaniel’s Instagram moniker is Pilot Picasso.” – The New York Times
- Lessons about Value and AI from the Digital Revolution
Twenty-five years ago the digital revolution rewrote the ways culture gets found, valued and paid for. The battles were fought in a series of skirmishes over disruptive technologies that remade the ways creative marketplaces were organized. AI is poised to do the same. So… lessons? - If We Force Chatbots Into Third Person, Will People Stop Thinking Of Them As Sentient?
Sherry Turkle: An AI is “really not afraid of death, it’s not afraid of illness, it’s not afraid of pain, it doesn’t love its children, and it doesn’t care if you kill yourself or make dinner.” – Wired
- Is It Possible To ‘Do Jane Austen Justice’ With Movie Costumes?
Says the new Sense and Sensibility‘s costume designer, “It was an amazing experience to try and fight those two sides, making historic accuracy marry up with how I wanted to give us a more modern take in the film.” – Variety
- Peter Nagy, Artist Turned Influential Art Dealer In India, Has Died At 66
Nagy was “a prescient artist turned canny art dealer who brought the New York gallery system to India and contemporary Indian art to the world.” – The New York Times
- Playing A Rock Concert Is Like Giving Yourself A Concussion, Doctors Tell Billy Joel
His neurologist says performing is out for now. “He describes the combination of extreme sound volume, lighting, stress and energy as the concern. Further testing, he adds, will help determine whether he can return.” – The Hollywood Reporter
- Creating Art In A Time Of International And Creative Crisis
Elif Shafak’s latest book “arose out of our own historical moment, which Shafak has dubbed ‘The age of three As: Angst, Anger and AI.’” – The Guardian (UK)
- It’s A Good Thing This Artist Signed Her Paintings
Otherwise, they likely would have been described as her father’s work, or taken as simply someone from his atelier. – The New York Times
- Remounting A Rarely Seen Balanchine Gives A Window Into The 1960s
“Pithoprakta is a wrenching, urgent work that pushes ballet’s otherworldly quality to a darker dimension, both uncanny and mystical. This is no place for chiffon. It’s not polite.” – The New York Times
- Isabel Allende, Writing Under A Pseudonym, Wins A Major Literary Prize In Spain
“The prize is open to unpublished manuscripts, with the option of submitting under a pseudonym, and Allende entered under the name Luz Ventura, with the fictional title Los que faltan.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Does Frankfurt Have The Best Book Parties Of The Year?
It’s definitely got big, not to mention packed and chatty, fêtes. “In an era when book auctions are held regularly over email, it’s that sense of community that keeps the publishers coming back.” – The New York Times
- How – And Why – NBC Brought Back Live Musicals On TV
Nobody quite knew what they had when 2011’s first revival started. But “Sound of Music Live delivered an astounding 18 million-plus viewers — well past the hope internally that it would reach at least 10 million.” – Variety
- Texas School Board Say That It’s Not An Anti-Drag Law, But An Anti-DEI Law, Stopping Little Shop Of Horrors
“However, there was no explanation given of exactly how a girl performing as a male character runs afoul of the more recent SB12, leaving only the implication that perhaps gender equality has been nixed under its provisions.” – Downstage Center
- During And After Protests, Gangs Spread Fires Across France
In Limoges, the city hall burned. At the actual protests, demonstrators “complained about inflation sent soaring over 3% by the war in the Middle East. Others slammed perceived police brutality in student protests that have gripped France over the past four weeks.” – Le Monde English
- TikTok Has Banned The Musk Documentary Advertiser From The Platform
Hunh: “Distributor Bleecker Street was informed Friday afternoon a ‘permanent suspension’ was coming regarding any ads it tried to buy, and the company was unable to do so shortly after.” – The Hollywood Reporter
- Getty Images Heads to Bankruptcy With Koch’s Backing
This Week’s Highlights:
Getty Images, whose photographers cover most red carpets and owns a significant portion of the world’s historical photo archives, plans to go private through Chapter 11 with up to $533 million from Charles Koch’s investment firm; its iStock stock-image business is losing demand to AI tools, while its news-photo division is forecast to grow from $369 million to $400 million by 2029 (The Hollywood Reporter).
Netflix has used AI on roughly 300 titles (The Hollywood Reporter) and this week laid off about 1,000 employees while profitable (Variety). Staff at HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette tell Wired their executives are directing them to use ChatGPT and Claude for publicity copy and cover art (Wired).
The Public Media Bridge Fund has raised about $87 million and stabilized 186 public radio stations, and is starting a $38 million drive to make those stations sustainable without federal money (AP). After Pensacola State College dropped PBS on July 1, residents formed Emerald Coast PBS, which goes on the air November 1 and needs $1 million in its first year (NorthEscambia.com).
Hadestown, filmed at London’s Lyric Theatre, opened in North American cinemas to $10.2 million, a record opening weekend for a live-theatre film (ArtsHub).
The Kennedy Center, mostly closed while a court weighs the closure, named Rick Canny, a talent manager and consultant there since April 2025, its artistic director (The Washington Post).
All this week’s stories below, organized by topic.
Doug
- Ice Dancing Champion Tessa Virtue Makes Her Professional Debut Dancing On Dry Land
“In the studio, Virtue has found new freedom in the ‘ability to get grounded with the floor,’ she says. ‘I’m not just gliding across the surface, but I’m actually using the floor as an impetus to step and move and turn.’” – Dance Magazine
- London’s Art Market May Be Damaged But Small Galleries Are Sharpening Their Edge
Though Brexit and reforms to wealthy international residents’ tax arrangements have damaged the Britain’s art market, the depth and quality of London’s midsize and smaller gallery offerings still give the city’s art scene an edge. – The New York Times
- How Ukrainians Are Fighting Back Against Russia’s Destruction Of Their Books
“The Ukrainian response has been a renewal of patriotism and engagement with national culture, along with enthusiastic defiance: the queues outside bookshops that formed in response to … the destruction, the orders that flooded in for e-books, or customers content to wait months for physical copies.” – The Bookseller (UK)
- New from Moloko Print It Is Written: Times with Brion Gysin<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/10/new-from-moloko-print-it-is-written-times-with-brion-gysin.html" title="New from Moloko Print
It Is Written: Times - Bernie Sanders: Let’s Not Let Big Tech Dictate The Future Of Humanity
If these were the fantasies of teenage boys obsessed with science fiction, we could laugh them off. They are not. These are the foundational beliefs of the most powerful people in the world, who are mobilizing trillions of dollars to turn them into reality. – The Atlantic
- Opening Of New Brazil Pompidou Museum Delayed Until 2029
“The project is currently working toward an opening in 2029 and is in the technical preparatory stages for the bidding process,” a Pompidou spokesperson tells The Art Newspaper. – The Art Newspaper
- CNN Signs Deal With Google For Generative AI Development
CNN says the partnership would unlock “new pathways for audiences to access CNN’s unparalleled journalism while being compensated for the delivery and use of our unique intellectual property in connection with AI products.” – Variety
- Traditional Chinese Opera’s Biggest Star Is Also Its Most Controversial
Mao Weitao has performed in Yue opera (the form from the city of Shaoxing) for almost 50 years, and she’s one of very few performers in traditional Chinese theater to have achieved mainstream celebrity. And she’s done that in part by upending the conventions of the genre. – Sixth Tone
- How Florida’s New College Was Neutered By DeSantis’ Culture War
The report shows that NCF, with about eight hundred students, had both the largest administrative personnel and the highest operating expenses of any public college in Florida. – n+1
- Is Their A Limit To Human Knowledge? Or Do We Keep Moving The Goalposts?
Are certain questions closed to the human mind? Are there truths about the world that we can never know? – Aeon
- Ian McKellan To Perform As A Hologram In New Play
Sir Ian McKellen is set to star in the European premier of a play in which he appears as a hologram. – BBC
- Kennedy Center’s New Artistic Director Has Been Working With Trump’s People There From The Beginning
Since April 2025, two months after Trump’s takeover, Rick Canny has been a senior adviser to the Center, which has now amended his consulting contract to appoint him artistic director “in a designated executive consulting capacity.” Memos indicate that Canny wants authority to make a lot of changes. – The Washington Post (MSN)
- Comedy Podcasts Are Changing Funny
Comedians now routinely give their audiences hours of new material every week, in exchange for subscription and advertising revenue that, while amounting to much less than what box offices and network sales departments once commanded, also goes more substantially and directly to the artists. – The New Yorker
- Why Are Scammers Targeting Book Authors?
I’m not the only author to have found myself stuck in a Zoom book club with fake readers. Countless writers with published books have been receiving invitations from reading communities that start to unravel after a basic Google search. – The Dial
- Louvre Robbery Was A Preview For A Year Of The Art Heists
Police are still looking for the Louvre’s stolen trove of 19th-century jewelry, though French authorities arrested eight people in connection with the crime last October. But the subsequent heists across Europe suggest the Louvre heist wasn’t a one-off and might have emboldened copycats. – The Wall Street Journal
- A Broadway Theater Is Replacing “The Full Monty” With … Ionesco?
Roundabout Theater Company had planned for next spring a large-scale Broadway revival of The Full Monty. That has been postponed, and Roundabout has scheduled a star-studded production of the Romanian-French absurdist playwright’s Rhinoceros, about a town whose inhabitants are turning into half-blind, ill-tempered horned pachyderms. – The New York Times
- This Fund Was Launched To Save Public Radio Stations From Closing. Now It’s Helping Them Figure Out How To Stay Open.
“The Public Media Bridge Fund has raised about $87 million and stabilized 186 public radio stations that serve about 30 million people in the United States. (Now begins) PMC’s new $38 million fundraising effort to help stations become more financially sustainable without federal funding.” – AP
- San Francisco Looks To Start New Arts District Along Market Street
“The Market Street Arts & Theater District will initially focus on the 900 block of Market Street between Fifth and Sixth streets, with plans to activate one to two vacant or underused spaces; add lighting, banners and public art as part of beautification efforts; fund pop-up performances and other arts programming.” – San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)
- Netflix Is Profitable, So Why’s It Laying Off So Many People?
You mean it’s not just to pump up the stock price? Well, … – Variety