Looking back across this week, it’s striking how many stories were about who gets to control cultural narratives — and how much that fight has escalated. Congressional Republicans introduced a bill that would take book banning national, the Trump administration was sued for rewriting history in national parks, and at the Smithsonian, volunteer citizen historians are quietly documenting every gallery to track whatever the government changes next. Meanwhile at the Berlinale, the festival director may lose her job over how she handled political speech by artists — another institution discovering that “artistic freedom” has invisible asterisks. I explore this topic further in my new weekly AJChronicles essay here.
Arts budgets got slashed from Nova Scotia to Australia, the UK is reconsidering free museum entry, and three-quarters of Chicago’s indie music venues are now unprofitable. France had its own institutional earthquake — the Louvre director resigned after a year of strikes, scandals, and a crown-jewel heist, the culture minister quit to run for mayor of Paris, and Macron filled both jobs in days. Netflix dropped out of the Warner bidding war, handing the win to Paramount Skydance — over a company that lost $252 million last quarter. Hard to see how the business model works here. Confirmation? Netflix stock soared after it pulled out of the deal.
A dystopian short story apparently spooked Wall Street out of $200 billion this week, 35 forgotten Rembrandt etchings turned up in a Dutch family’s safe, and legendary editor Ann Godoff was remembered as someone who made writers — and publishing — better than they knew they could be. Literature: still powerful enough to move markets, if not always Congress.
All of this week’s stories below.
