Today’s AJ highlights: The financial crisis in the arts now hits America’s largest arts organization. The Metropolitan Opera is facing a severe crunch, announcing executive pay cuts and layoffs while considering the sale of two prized Marc Chagall murals for $55 million (ARTnews ). On a much smaller scaler, the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art in Napa has listed its 217-acre estate for sale to address financial pressures (San Francisco Chronicle (MSN) ).
In Washington, an ideological shift is reshaping the role of federal cultural institutions. While the arts sector feels increasingly “invaded” by new priorities at the NEA, NEH, and Kennedy Center (Joseph Horowitz ), a broader battle is being waged over the Smithsonian’s narrative, as Americans debate how museums of record tell the national story (The Atlantic ). This recalibration is also felt in Hollywood, where the era of “progressive sincerity” has reportedly evaporated as the industry shifts away from liberal bulwarks (The New York Times ).
Against this backdrop, human creators are drawing a line in the sand. Some 800 artists have signed onto the “Stealing Isn’t Innovation” campaign, condemning what they call AI-driven theft at a grand scale (The Verge ). This friction extends to academia, where scientific journals are sounding the alarm as they become clogged with “AI slop” (The Atlantic ).
Finally, Ryan Coogler’s vampire epic Sinners has set an all-time record with 16 Oscar nominations (Variety ), and researchers have identified the world’s oldest cave art in Indonesia, dating back over 67,000 years (The Conversation ).
All of our stories below.
