“Everywhere Tézenas went, he saw examples of the oblivious, sometimes offensive behavior one might expect of tourists at any popular attraction. In a torture cell in Cambodia, he saw that a tourist had written ‘I was here’ on a wall.”

“Such special payouts can put directors at odds with colleagues who do not receive similar perks, nonprofit specialists said. They can also appear out of step at a time when such add-ons have come under greater scrutiny in the corporate world.”

“The film, which paints a dark picture of corrupt provincial life in the country, has been denounced as anti-Russian by public figures ranging from politicians to clerics. The culture minister, Vladimir Medinsky, has said he doesn’t like the film’s depressing story and foul language.”

“Everyone is prejudged and sorted into preexisting categories. Man with guitar: songwriter. Man at a mixing console: Producer and mastermind. Woman with a shiny outfit: pop star.”

“Increasing numbers of people — if mostly women — are pushing back hard at the industry’s biases. And they’re pushing back publicly, a gutsy stance in an industry that runs on secrets, lies and fear.”

“Artists themselves are realising that their most devoted fans can bankroll the rest of their careers. Not only are they able to cut out the middle man, but they can make their runs far more limited – the extreme being just one person purchasing their goods. Here are some of the creatives who have cracked 21st-century patronage.”

“There is a severe problem with diversity in the arts, and the media, right across the board. It’s so obvious that you don’t even need statistics to see it. And it’s getting worse, now that the cost of living in many large cities plus, for example, the falling revenues in the music industry – means that it is much, much harder to make it. Those who do make it will typically have somewhere to crash during those lean years, and those who do are disproportionately well-off.”

“One is to start devoting as much energy to engaging Canadians in the arts as it does to helping art get made, a direction that is becoming politically important in a democratic culture where the barriers (and even the distinction) between consumer and producer are breaking down. The other is figuring out how to channel funding to younger artists without destroying the achievements of the previous generation.”

According to American Petroleum Institute, the pipeline is just like the Mona Lisa: “One of the world’s most recognized works of art was created by a painter who made his living on temporary jobs”

“The College Board’s decision to eliminate the vocabulary component from the reading section and redesign the essay portion has garnered lots of attention. But it’s the revision of the math section that could have particularly egregious consequences.”

“It speaks well of our own relatively flexible system that it can accommodate criticism and dissent without lopping anyone’s hands off. But this is also a backhanded testament to our society’s successful denaturing of satire, and the impotence of art in our own culture.”

“How then did we get to a place where American higher education appears more concerned with applicants’ test scores and alumni financial contributions than with the education of current students and the contributions of alumni to our society as a whole? A review of America’s curious history of—and relationship with—an obsessive culture of testing may help answer these questions.”

“For about a decade, the United States has implanted ‘beacons,’ which can map a computer network, along with surveillance software and occasionally even destructive malware in the computer systems of foreign adversaries.”

“The nominations of the director this time around, and a British actor, David Oyelowo, playing a heroic black figure in the American narrative — not the victim of white oppression, but a corrective to it — would have had particular resonance at this moment. This year is the 50th anniversary of both the Selma marches and the Voting Rights Act. And after months full of tragic news from Ferguson, Mo., Staten Island and all over America, race remains a persistent and complex issue that still has the capacity to divide.”

“At the time of its release, Mr. Leconte’s documentary did not make much noise. But after terrorist attacks that resulted in the deaths of 17 people in Paris last week, directors at several movie theaters decided to pay tribute to Charlie Hebdo by reprogramming Mr. Leconte’s documentary.”

“There are those who expect that whatever alternative cultures they encounter through social media must comply with their own aesthetic or moral framework. They feel entitled, not just to enter spaces and places where they do not necessarily belong, but also to demand censure and closure if they don’t like what they find there.”

Not really. “As for displacement — the most objectionable feature of gentrification — there’s actually very little evidence it happens. In fact, so-called gentrifying neighborhoods appear to experience less displacement than nongentrifying neighborhoods. It’s time to retire the term gentrification altogether.”

“In some of the discussion surrounding the case, there has been an implication that Muslims (and other non-Westerners, for that matter) don’t have the rich satirical tradition found in places like France. That’s not quite true. Satirical traditions may not be the same in France as they are in Iraq or Venezuela. But the mocking of rulers, politicians and pretensions has long had a place in every culture.”

“Cartoons depicting Muhammad are unthinkable in Muslim countries. But there are plenty of homegrown satirists poking fun at reactionaries, autocrats and jihadis. Our writers in Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon and Iraq explain where the line is drawn.”

“Having scored a $38 million Robert W. Woodruff Foundation grant in December, the Woodruff Arts Center announced Tuesday that it has a received a $6.6 million grant … [to fund] a new three-year program designed to better connect families and students with the arts center’s art and arts education offerings.”

“Last month, Opera Australia removed a music critic for the Sydney Morning Herald from its complimentary press ticket list after the company’s artistic director was reportedly “very offended” by a piece on the newspaper’s arts website. This was followed Jan. 2 by a similar “comp” list ban against a critic for the publication Stage Noise. And in New York, a theatrical press agent blacklisted Wall Street Journal writer Joanne Kaufman, after she admitted to “bolting” from Broadway shows during intermission.”

“The $1.1 million in state taxes that Brown wants to allocate for the arts council is one one-thousandth of a percent of the $113.3 billion in overall general fund spending he proposed last week. That continues a longstanding policy going back to the early 2000s in which California governors invariably have proposed anteing up the bare minimum from state tax coffers that’s needed to qualify for about $1 million in matching federal funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.”

“Music, performing and visual arts, one of nine sectors included as part of the creative industries, showed a 19% increase on 2012, which is second only to product, graphic and fashion design. The new figures also show a 46% increase in the music and performing arts sector since 2008. Meanwhile, film, TV, video, radio and photography was worth £9.3 billion in 2013, a decrease of 5.2% on 2012. The sector as a whole however has increased by 13% since 2008.”

“For every dollar of increased spending on artworks, $1.98 of total economic output is created. In the case of museums, every new dollar of demand creates $1.76 of gains. On the jobs side, every new publishing job created (which includes arts management software) produces a whopping 3.5 additional jobs throughout the economy, while each additional professional artist produces an average 2.9 jobs.”