AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Company Turns AI On Art Fraud
In practical terms, that means a knowledge graph representing thousands of artworks, with billions of nodes detailing the complex relationships its algorithms have identified between them. – Didginomica
- How A Grassroots Seattle Theatre Built Itself From The Ground Up
As Taproot’s current and founding artistic team members chat in the theater’s comfortable lobby, with its welcoming windows looking out onto North 85th Street in Greenwood, it’s hard to believe that the company’s permanent space was once an X-rated movie theater with a dirt floor basement. – Seattle Times
- Do The People Of This Slovakian Village Really Want To Lose UNESCO World Heritage Status?
That’s what all the headlines said, but the people of the well-preserved medieval village of Vlkolínec say it’s not that simple. They want to protect their small, still-living community from the pressures of overtourism, which could easily overwhelm it. – Deutsche Welle
- Two Pittsburgh Theatres Merge
Pittsburgh’s theater community is betting that a business deal of its own — the merger of the Pittsburgh CLO and the Pittsburgh Public Theater — will pay off. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
- When Superfans Go Too Far
In recent years, celebrities have attempted to set boundaries for their adoring, sometimes obsessive fans. – The New York Times
ISSUES
- Company Turns AI On Art Fraud
In practical terms, that means a knowledge graph representing thousands of artworks, with billions of nodes detailing the complex relationships its algorithms have identified between them. – Didginomica
- The Big Estate Sales That Are Reshaping The Art Market
The list of collectors whose art has arrived at auction over the past two years reads like the society pages of decades past. Some died; others have merely reached an age when keeping several hundred million dollars’ worth of paintings around no longer seems quite as important as it once did. – ARTnews
- Major Museums Are Forming Partnerships To Buy And Share Artworks
“Pooling resources now reflects a broader shift away from the competitive collection building of the 19th and 20th centuries. Increasing financial pressure plays an undeniable role, but so does a growing appetite for deeper institutional ties and shared expertise.” – Artnet
- Contemporary Art Museum Of Raleigh Is Selling Its Building
The museum paused its exhibitions and other activities last year due to financial troubles. The board and management have not announced any permanent closure; their statements indicate that they hope to keep operating without a permanent home. – The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC)
- Fra Angelico’s First Major Altarpiece Restored After Five Centuries Of Disrepair
The Fiesole Altarpiece, painted in the 1420s, suffered its first damage during an updating in 1501; it was subsequently broken up, had some of its parts looted or sold off, and was gnawed by wood-boring insects. The work has now been restored to roughly its 1501 condition with an ingenious spring-fitted wood frame. – Artnet
MEDIA
- Do The People Of This Slovakian Village Really Want To Lose UNESCO World Heritage Status?
That’s what all the headlines said, but the people of the well-preserved medieval village of Vlkolínec say it’s not that simple. They want to protect their small, still-living community from the pressures of overtourism, which could easily overwhelm it. – Deutsche Welle
- Dallas’s Perot Museum Of Nature And Science Seems To Be Planning A Big Expansion It Hasn’t Announced
The news comes from a filing the museum made last week with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation; management has also filed with the city of Dallas for a construction permit. Work is expected to start early next year. – The Dallas Morning News (MSN)
- The Problem With Super-Flexible High-Tech Performance Venues
Justin Davidson on New York’s Perelman Arts Center and The Shed: “Now the boldest experimenters can take advantage of walls that move at the touch of a button, precision lifts, rooms that shrink and expand, projected images (on) moving surfaces. … Yet the revolution, now that it’s here, feels anticlimactic and overpriced.” – Curbed (MSN)
- Sure, Attack The Smithsonian. But Americans Really Love It
Even now, as the museum complex continues to face a pressure campaign from the White House, public fondness for the Smithsonian—for its free entry and eclectic collections—is hard to break among those otherwise receptive to President Trump’s anti-institutionalism. – The Atlantic
- San Diego To Launch An Arts Pass Program
The San Diego Arts Pass — inspired by New York City’s Culture Pass, Britain’s National Art Pass, and the like — will offer purchasers reduced-price or free admission to over 40 organizations, including the Old Globe, San Diego Symphony, and La Jolla Playhouse, in San Diego County and metro Tijuana. – The San Diego Union-Tribune (MSN)
MUSIC
- Who Is Buying Massive Quantities Of Books?
We know that something mysterious is afoot. Someone—if not more than one group or company—has been snapping up massive volumes of books from shops around the world. – The Atlantic
- Author Denies He Used AI To Write Book That He Sold For Millions
The author accused of using artificial intelligence to craft the debut novel that landed him a multimillion-dollar book deal said he was innocent and that the claims against him were racially motivated. – The Wall Street Journal
- Russian Airstrikes Have Destroyed Almost Three-Quarters Of Ukraine’s Book Output This Year
Just since May 1, Russian drones and bombs have damaged or burned at least 9.65 million books. That equals 74% of the Ukrainian publishing industry’s output so far in 2026 and nearly 29% of books printed throughout the country in all of 2025. – United24 Media (Ukraine)
- Torn To Shreds: The Writers Workshop
Joyce Carol Oates is known for her strict style. One of her students once described her crossing through the first several pages of a story and asking: “What’s the point?” I commiserated with him, but he looked at me and said: “No, that’s what I want. To be ripped to shreds.” – The Guardian
- Looks Like An Educational-AI Company Scraped The Poetry Foundation’s Website For Content
“According to its website, Giggle Academy is a nonprofit and was started by cryptocurrency mogul and Binance founder Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao in 2024. It also claims to have one million users in 182 countries.” Hundreds of poems, evidently copied from the Poetry Foundation’s website, are on Giggle Academy’s website without permission. – Publishers Weekly
PEOPLE
- Company Turns AI On Art Fraud
In practical terms, that means a knowledge graph representing thousands of artworks, with billions of nodes detailing the complex relationships its algorithms have identified between them. – Didginomica
- How A Grassroots Seattle Theatre Built Itself From The Ground Up
As Taproot’s current and founding artistic team members chat in the theater’s comfortable lobby, with its welcoming windows looking out onto North 85th Street in Greenwood, it’s hard to believe that the company’s permanent space was once an X-rated movie theater with a dirt floor basement. – Seattle Times
- Do The People Of This Slovakian Village Really Want To Lose UNESCO World Heritage Status?
That’s what all the headlines said, but the people of the well-preserved medieval village of Vlkolínec say it’s not that simple. They want to protect their small, still-living community from the pressures of overtourism, which could easily overwhelm it. – Deutsche Welle
- Two Pittsburgh Theatres Merge
Pittsburgh’s theater community is betting that a business deal of its own — the merger of the Pittsburgh CLO and the Pittsburgh Public Theater — will pay off. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
- When Superfans Go Too Far
In recent years, celebrities have attempted to set boundaries for their adoring, sometimes obsessive fans. – The New York Times
PEOPLE
- Company Turns AI On Art Fraud
In practical terms, that means a knowledge graph representing thousands of artworks, with billions of nodes detailing the complex relationships its algorithms have identified between them. – Didginomica
- How A Grassroots Seattle Theatre Built Itself From The Ground Up
As Taproot’s current and founding artistic team members chat in the theater’s comfortable lobby, with its welcoming windows looking out onto North 85th Street in Greenwood, it’s hard to believe that the company’s permanent space was once an X-rated movie theater with a dirt floor basement. – Seattle Times
- Do The People Of This Slovakian Village Really Want To Lose UNESCO World Heritage Status?
That’s what all the headlines said, but the people of the well-preserved medieval village of Vlkolínec say it’s not that simple. They want to protect their small, still-living community from the pressures of overtourism, which could easily overwhelm it. – Deutsche Welle
- Two Pittsburgh Theatres Merge
Pittsburgh’s theater community is betting that a business deal of its own — the merger of the Pittsburgh CLO and the Pittsburgh Public Theater — will pay off. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
- When Superfans Go Too Far
In recent years, celebrities have attempted to set boundaries for their adoring, sometimes obsessive fans. – The New York Times
THEATRE
VISUAL
- The Edinburgh Fringe Is Huge. But Is Success Just Getting Bigger?
Edinburgh has wrestled with for years: what is tourism actually for? If the answer is simply “more visitors, more spending”, the city will keep winning by numbers while residents feel they are losing by experience. – The Conversation
- The Difficulties Of An AI For Africa
- Our Complicated Relationship With Boredom
Boredom isn’t merely the result of a boring external environment, as a schoolchild might think, or inadequate mental resources, as my mother suggested. It is either a mysterious nexus of dysfunction or a healthy adaptive function (it’s complicated) that afflicts both individuals and societies at large. – Portico Quarterly
- Guardrails For AI Didn’t Work. So Bring In The Philosophers
“Efforts [to stop the generation of harmful content] were initially focused around putting in simple black-and-white guardrails, such as forbidding a model from talking about bombs entirely. But these proved clumsy and easy to circumvent. Now, companies are pursuing methods that lean heavily on a philosophical understanding of right and wrong.” – The AI Humanist
- America Is Losing Its Public Gathering Spaces
According to its Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages—which counts business establishments by industry down to the county level going back to 1990—the U.S. has lost a fifth of its movie theaters and nearly a third of its bowling alleys since 2001. – Fortune