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Two hours a day. That’s the average screentime of the 700 million people now watching microdramas — cheap, vertical, minute-long episodes — and the case is being made that they are the artform of our time (New Left Review). The sophisticated science programming legacy media used to produce now draws tens of millions on YouTube, made by individuals (TheWrap). Whatever else those stories say, demand for culture isn’t the problem.

Institutions, meanwhile, are arguing about who pays. Staff at the Whitney, Brooklyn Museum and American Folk Art Museum voted to strike over wages below what a single adult needs to live in New York (ARTnews). San Francisco Opera is dark through Sunday as its orchestra strike continues (San Francisco Chronicle). The Louvre’s new director is in Tokyo and Hong Kong passing the hat for a €1 billion renovation (South China Morning Post). And a proposal to privatize the Smithsonian as its cleanest defense against political interference (The Wall Street Journal) assumes donors want less control than governments do.

The generative exception: MoMA has handed its atrium to choreographer Sarah Michelson for four weeks, and her piece’s animating question — what is a dance? — is the one institutions should be asking about their own forms (The New York Times).

Ruben Santiago-Hudson says he and August Wilson fought constantly; every time the cast predicted he’d be fired, Wilson wrote him another role instead (The New York Times). Note to managements.

All of our stories below.