Today’s AJ highlights: Well, he finally broke it. The Kennedy Center, that is. Donald Trump has announced plans to close the Kennedy Center for two years for a “complete rebuilding” to create the “finest facility in the world.” This comes as the Washington National Opera exits, forced out (supposedly) by a new mandate requiring performances to break even solely through tickets and sponsorships—a move critics say is a total misunderstanding of the arts funding model in America.
Catherine O’Hara has died at 71. While she became a global household name through Home Alone and Schitt’s Creek, her true legacy remains the improv-driven brilliance she brought to the Christopher Guest mockumentaries.
The “credibility crisis” of the modern museum is deepening. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is facing a community-wide crisis of confidence following layoffs that many view as a retreat from DEI values in the face of political pressure. This institutional fragility is mirrored globally: Glasgow’s Center for Contemporary Arts is entering liquidation, while in Portland, the fate of the city’s primary fine arts venue is being debated behind closed doors .
Finally, as all eyes turn to Bad Bunny and the Grammys tonight, Neil Young is taking a hard line against the streaming giants, declaring his entire catalog will never return to Amazon so long as Jeff Bezos owns it. And on the lighter side, the aesthetics of the past are under investigation in Rome over a restored angel that suspiciously resembles Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
All of today’s stories below:
