This Week’s Highlights:
The question running through this week’s stories isn’t whether cultural institutions are in trouble. It’s who gets to decide what they’re for. At the Kennedy Center, a former staffer describes being told to “get rid of everything” in the permanent collection (The Atlantic). In Paris, more than 100 authors walked out of the storied publisher Grasset after its billionaire owner forced out the editor who’d run it for 26 years (The Guardian). The V&A quietly censored its own exhibition catalogues to satisfy a Chinese printer (The Guardian). And the Trocks — beloved for 50 years — say some American venues are now afraid to book them (The Irish Times).
Meanwhile, the gulf between haves and have-nots is widening. The Met is mid-renovation at $1.5 billion (New York Times). NPR landed $110 million in philanthropic gifts (Editor & Publisher). But a 36-year-old Berkeley theater is closing because nobody wanted the job (San Francisco Chronicle), Hampshire College is shutting down (WBUR), and San Diego wants to slash city arts funding by 85% (San Diego Union-Tribune). The money hasn’t disappeared. It’s just not going where it used to.
All this week’s stories below, organized by topic.
