AJ Four Ways:
Text Only (by date) | headlines only
- The First-Ever Film About Robots Has Been Rediscovered. It Was Made In 1897.
“A copy of Gugusse and the Automaton, an 1897 short made by legendary film pioneer George Méliès, was discovered by a man in Grand Rapids, Mich., in a box of films that had been owned by his great-grandfather. The Library of Congress revealed the find on its blog (last month).” – San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)
- Eight Projects By This Year’s Pritzker Prize Winning Architect
Following the news that Smiljan Radić has won this year’s delayed Pritzker Architecture Prize, we round up eight projects from the Chilean architect’s experimental career. – Dezeen
- World Café Live In Philadelphia Files For Bankruptcy, Changes Name
The venue, named after popular a public radio music show, has been in turmoil for a year, since a new management team led by CEO Joe Callahan took over from founder Hal Real. What’s now called World Stage still faces a pile of unpaid rent, tax and utility bills. – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
- Why Aren’t Frank Lloyd Wright Houses Selling?
The architect’s passion for combining design and nature meant that many of his residences were built in rural areas. Because of their pedigree, they now tend to be among—if not the most—expensive property available in the communities in which they’re located. – Architectural Digest
- Classical Music Magazine Is Shutting Down
The magazine was sold to Mark Allen by Rhinegold Publishing in December 2018, together with other titles such as Music Teacher, Choir & Organ and International Piano. It had been flourishing since the late 1970s but was facing declining interest and online competition. – Slipped Disc
- Those Who Resist Super-Popular Culture
I’ve come to call it “hype aversion”: an avoidance of the pop-culture products that seemingly everyone insists I would like. It’s not that I’m somehow above it all or too cool (I don’t consider myself cool at all). Some people are early adopters; others are late adopters. I’m simply a weirdly resistant one. – The Atlantic
- 70 Years Into Their Partnership, Maltby And Shire Are Still Writing Revues
Lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. and composer David Shire met as Yale freshmen and have collaborated ever since, creating the musicals Baby and Big and the revues Starting Here, Starting Now and Closer Than Ever. Their new show, About Time, grew out of a performance they gave at their 65th Yale reunion. – TheaterMania
- What Entertainment Might Look Like Years From Now
What kinds of disruptive changes will the next two decades bring? We asked five entertainment experts to predict one big change we’ll see in their field. – The Wall Street Journal
- Calgary Is Making Enormous Investments In Arts And Culture. It Shows
“As we make our way to two million, there’s the 35,000-foot level where the role for artists to play is quite significant and very much needed. That’s more on the philosophical side: Why arts are a must-have, not a nice-to-have, in my opinion.” – Calgary Herald
- Why Competitive High School Scrabble Has Become A Mess
It’s not just because of the intensity of the competitors, though that counts for a lot. Stefan Fatsis recounts a contested play at last year’s North American championship and the confusion arising from — let’s call it a breakdown of lexical authority. – Unabridged
- Atlanta, Once The “Hollywood Of The South,” Sees Its Film/TV Industry Shrink
After hitting a peak of $4.4 billion in 2022, spending on film and TV production in Georgia has tumbled, reaching just $2.3 billion in the last fiscal year, as total productions dropped from 412 in 2022 to 245 last year. – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
- Kosman: The Disappearing Music Critic
The time when every musical event, every world premiere, every opera opening, was the spark for a lively public discussion is gone. In its place we have, or soon will have, silence. – On a Pacific Aisle
- Big Loss: One Of LA’s Best Dance Companies, Bodytraffic, Will Close
The company’s end wasn’t planned, but it became necessary when its artistic director and co-founder, Tina Finkelman Berkett, decided to step back from her role, citing fundraising fatigue and a desire for change. – Los Angeles Times
- Tony- And Olivier-Winning Actress Jane Lapotaire Dead At 81
She won an Olivier in 1979 and a Tony in 1981 for the title role in Piaf; alongside film and television roles — including a starmaking performance as Marie Curie in a BBC miniseries — she had a long career as an admired classical stage actor, in particular with the Royal Shakespeare Co. – The Guardian
- Conductor Juanjo Mena, 60, Will Retire Due To Alzheimer’s
Early last year, the Basque maestro — former chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic and the Cincinnati May Festival and a very busy guest conductor — revealed his diagnosis. He has now announced that the disease has progressed and that, following final concerts this month, he is ending his career. – IMG Artists
- Banksy’s Identity Uncovered, Says Reuters Report
“The British street artist’s identity has been debated, and closely guarded, for decades. A quest to solve the riddle took Reuters from a bombed-out Ukrainian village to London and downtown Manhattan — and uncovered much more than a name.” – Reuters
- I Was A Recipient In Ireland’s Guaranteed Basic Income For Artists Scheme
Caelainn Hogan: “I am a freelance writer who, like most artists, has always had to work outside my creative focus to afford to live. … As such, the basic income was life-changing. Only months into the scheme, I found out I was pregnant.” – The Guardian
- Oldest Surviving Photos Of Enslaved People Go To International African-American Museum
“The 1850 daguerreotypes, a precursor to modern-day photographs, are of an enslaved man named Renty, his daughter Delia and five others known as Jack, Drana, Alfred, Fassena and Jem. … Harvard University turned the photos over to the International African-American Museum in Charleston after a seven-year legal fight.” – AP
- Boston Philharmonic To Shutter As Director Benjamin Zander Retires
Next season, 2026-27, will be the last for both the Boston Philharmonic and its associated youth orchestra. The identity of the organization is thoroughly bound to that of Zander, the conductor who founded both ensembles and is now 87. – Boston Classical Review
- WBUR Boston Rejects Suggested Merger With GBH, City’s Other Public Radio Station
In response to a statement to The Boston Globe by GBH’s CEO proposing a merger, WBUR CEO Susan Low said that she and the station’s board have “very closely” examined the idea but that “WBUR and GBH are also very different organizations. And we believe the community benefits from that.” – WBUR (Boston)
- One Of Boston’s Two NPR Outlets Says It’s Open To Merging With The Other
The CEO of GBH, which operates one of the U.S.’s leading PBS television stations as well as a public radio outlet, says that merging with WBUR would end competition for donors and more efficiently utilize resources in the wake of federal defunding of public broadcasting. – The Boston Globe
- Good Morning
Two big entertainment deals closed last week — Paramount sold, Live Nation tightened its grip on ticketing — and I argue in Diacritical why these commercial infrastructure moves should alarm anyone running a nonprofit arts organization. The pipes matter, even when they’re someone else’s pipes.
The art market grew in 2025, but the fine print is instructive: auctions bounced back, galleries barely budged, and nearly all the gains came from a handful of very expensive works (ARTnews). Meanwhile, fewer than ten full-time book critics remain in the United States (Book Work). The BSO’s break with conductor Andris Nelsons — players and board in apparent “disrepair,” future vision unspecified — fits the same picture (The Guardian).
The Pritzker went to Chilean architect Smiljan Radić Clarke, who responded to learning he’d now be famous by saying the prize “will probably mean being far more exposed than I would like” (NPR). Relatable.
All of our stories below.
- Paramount and Live Nation/Ticketmaster Won Big Last Week: Here’s why Orchestras and Theatres and Museums (and Consumers) Lost
Two huge culture industry deals in the past week, both in entertainment, and maybe they don’t seem connected. Certainly not connected to non-profit arts. But these are exactly the kind of culture infrastructure deals that should worry anyone in the commercial or non-profit culture business because they impact us all. Here’s why. - Big Candy Makers Are Cutting Way Back On Cocoa In Their “Chocolates”
The climate crisis has caused devastated cacao farming in West Africa, causing huge price spikes and volatility in the cocoa commodity market — leading companies like Hershey’s and Cadbury, which manufacture inexpensive chocolate products for ordinary consumers, to start using other ingredients. – The Guardian
- There Are Fewer Than 10 Full Time Book Critics Left
By some measures, there are as many as 1 million books published annually in the US, and it’s a number that doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. The result is that there is intense competition for the small slice of the review landscape that remains. – Book Work
- Organ Harvesting: Nonprofit Is Rescuing Church Instruments From Decrepitude And Dismantling
Every year, over 400 church organs in the UK alone are sent to the junkyard or become unplayable due to neglect. The organization Pipe Up is rescuing some of those instruments which can be made playable at relatively little expense, then sending them to new owners ranging from London to the Philippines. – BBC (Yahoo!)
- What Happens When Art Experts And AI Disagree On Authentication?
Combining machine learning, deep neural networks and computer vision algorithms, Art Recognition’s approach can, in theory, be adapted to any painter with a big enough back catalog. To date, the company has produced models for more than 200 artists. – CNN
- The Art Market Grew In 2025. But…
The recovery, however, came with an asterisk. While auctions bounced back strongly, galleries barely budged, and much of the market’s growth came from a small number of very expensive works. – ARTnews
- Bernie Sanders Has an AI Proposal<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/03/bernie-sanders-has-an-ai-proposal.html" title="Bernie Sanders Has an AI Proposal” rel=”nofollow”><img width="150" height="150" src="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/BERNIE-SANDERS-750-150×150.jpg" class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image" alt="" link_thumbnail="1" decoding="async" srcset="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/BERNIE-SANDERS-750-150×150.jpg 150w, https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/BERNIE-SANDERS-750-100×100.jpg 100w, https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/BERNIE-SANDERS-750-200×200.jpg 200w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" data-attachment-id="72960" data-permalink="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/screenshot-339" data-orig-file="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/BERNIE-SANDERS-750.jpg" data-orig-size="750,1065" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"Screenshot","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"Screenshot","orientation":"1"}' data-image-title="Bernie Sanders" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="
Calls for a moratorium on new data centers.
” data-medium-file=”https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/BERNIE-SANDERS-750-211×300.jpg” data-large-file=”https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/BERNIE-SANDERS-750-721×1024.jpg”>He’s been called a luddite. But he rejects that and says he is calling for a moratorium on building new AI data centers because he is concerned about an existential threat to humankind. - What Percentage Of Americans Went To A Movie Theatre Last Year? (You Might Be Surprised)
According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in the summer of 2025, 53% of U.S. adults said they had seen a movie in theaters in the prior 12 months. A small but notable 7% said they had never seen a movie in a theater at all. – Variety
- Missing Page From Major Archimedes Manuscript Rediscovered In France
“A lost page from the Archimedes Palimpsest, among the oldest sources for the Greek mathematician in existence, has been discovered … at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Blois. The page in question contains geometric diagrams and a passage from Archimedes’s treatise on the sphere and the cylinder, hidden beneath a layer of later religious writings.” – Artnet
- Women-Owned Radio Stations And The Communities They’re Building
Whatever their mission and wherever their location, what the stations have in common is the amplification — literally and metaphorically — of women’s voices to create a community that might not otherwise exist, on-air or off. – NiemanLab
- Player Pianos, Automation And AI
Nearly every major pianist of the early 20th century made music for these machines. Echoing AI commentary today, some musicians viewed the player piano as not just replicating human playing, but exceeding it. – The Atlantic
- Damage To Iran’s Historic Sites Mounts
The strikes on Isfahan on Monday came a week after another cultural icon, the Golestan Palace, was badly damaged during an attack on a police station in downtown Tehran, according to the ministry. – The New York Times
- National Choreographers Initiative In Los Angeles Will End After This Summer
For two decades, NCI has offered four young choreographers the chance to spend three weeks creating works on professional dancers. In a Q&A, artistic director Molly Lynch talks about the initiative and why it is ending. – L.A. Dance Chronicle
