Two big entertainment deals closed last week — Paramount sold, Live Nation tightened its grip on ticketing — and I argue in Diacritical why these commercial infrastructure moves should alarm anyone running a nonprofit arts organization. The pipes matter, even when they’re someone else’s pipes.
The art market grew in 2025, but the fine print is instructive: auctions bounced back, galleries barely budged, and nearly all the gains came from a handful of very expensive works (ARTnews). Meanwhile, fewer than ten full-time book critics remain in the United States (Book Work). The BSO’s break with conductor Andris Nelsons — players and board in apparent “disrepair,” future vision unspecified — fits the same picture (The Guardian).
The Pritzker went to Chilean architect Smiljan Radić Clarke, who responded to learning he’d now be famous by saying the prize “will probably mean being far more exposed than I would like” (NPR). Relatable.
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