AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Neil Barclay talks about the evolving landscape for BIPOC organizations
Neil Barclay, President & CEO of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, talks the evolving landscape for BIPOC organizations and avenues for sustainability.
- From Cold Turkey Press‘Two Images. One Message. All at Once.’
<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2025/07/from-cold-turkey-presstwo-images-one-message-all-at-once.html" title="From Cold Turkey Press
‘Two Images. One Message. All - Combating American Isolationism with Cultural Diplomacy
- Room For The Straight White Male Writer?
“Unwilling to portray themselves as victims (cringe, politically wrong), or as aggressors (toxic masculinity), unable to assume the authentic voices of others (appropriation), younger white men are no longer capable of describing the world around them,” Savage, who is 41, wrote. – The New York Times
- Eight Paris Concert Halls Most Classical Fans Never Think Of
You’ve heard of several of them — the Musée d’Orsay, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Les Invalides — but probably had no idea that they host high-level classical concerts. Others probably aren’t on your radar yet, like Bal Blomet and La Scala Paris. – Bachtrack
ISSUES
- Gallery Powerhouse Blum Will Lay Off Staff And Close, Citing Market Downturn
Founded as Blum and Poe in 1994 in Santa Monica, Calif., by Tim Blum and Jeff Poe, the gallery represents some of the most high profile, and expensive, artists working today, including Yoshitomo Nara and Mark Grotjahn, whose artworks have traded for more than $10 million. – Artnet
- The Benin Bronzes: Who Created Them, Who Has Had Them When, Who’s Returning Them To Whom Now And Why
The Netherlands turned over 119 objects to the Nigerian government, while the MFA Boston gave their two directly to the Oba of Benin. “As these two repatriations underscore, questions linger about who should rightfully receive them — the state or the Oba — as well as what restitution looks like in practice.” – Artnet
- Peter Phillips, 86, Britain’s Pioneer Of Pop Art
“He became one of the originators of the British Pop art movement in the 1950s and ’60s. … Phillips layered mundane images of consumer culture and mass entertainment into his vibrantly colored paintings, often with a playful twist.” – ARTnews
- Paris’s Asian Art Museum Sued For “Tibet Erasure”
“Four pro-Tibetan groups in France have filed a legal complaint against Paris’s state-run Musée Guimet, accusing it of attempting to erase Tibet’s cultural identity by renaming its Nepal-Tibet gallery to ‘Himalayan world’ and removing references to ‘Tibetan art.’” – Artnet
- The Last Of The Vatican’s Raphael Rooms Has Now Been Restored
“A decadelong project to clean and restore the largest of the four … spectacularly frescoed reception rooms of the Apostolic Palace … uncovered a novel mural painting technique that the superstar Renaissance painter and architect began but never completed.” – AP
MEDIA
- Will America’s Polarized Politics Derail Next Year’s 250th Anniversary Celebrations?
Will the occasion underline the country’s divisions, as with Trump’s military parade and the No Kings protests? Or can Americans come together over the principles in the Declaration of Independence? The Bicentennial in 1976, also a time of division after the Vietnam War and Watergate, could offer some clues. – The New York Times
- Canada Debates What Qualifies As Canadian Culture
The outcome will shape who gets to tell Canadian stories and what those stories are, and also which ones count as Canadian under the law. This, in turn, will determine who in the film and television industries can access funding, tax credits and visibility on streaming services. – The Conversation
- New Project Reveals 700 Years Of Irish History
The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, a global academic collaboration led by Trinity College Dublin, deployed historians, computer scientists and other specialists to digitally recreate parts of a vast archive destroyed in Ireland’s civil war. – The Guardian
- Hollywood Takes On AI Copyright Rules In Washington
America’s creators are mounting a campaign to push back on any use of their work without permission or compensation, seeking to head off potential abuses of their intellectual property. – The Wall Street Journal
- Ford Foundation Names Dean Of Yale Law School Its Next President
“Heather Gerken has been the dean of the Yale Law School since 2017, and is currently serving her second term, which was scheduled to conclude in 2027. … Succeeding Darren Walker, Gerken will be the 11th president of the foundation and … will officially start on November 1.” – ARTnews
MUSIC
- Room For The Straight White Male Writer?
“Unwilling to portray themselves as victims (cringe, politically wrong), or as aggressors (toxic masculinity), unable to assume the authentic voices of others (appropriation), younger white men are no longer capable of describing the world around them,” Savage, who is 41, wrote. – The New York Times
- There’s Another Great American Novel Whose Centennial Is This Year
“F. Scott Fitzgerald was fulsome in his praise and Sinclair Lewis declared it the ‘first book to catch Manhattan”. … As Gatsby continues to be lionised, analysed and republished — and adapted for film and the musical stage — John Dos Passos’s novel Manhattan Transfer remains a niche concern.” – Prospect (UK)
- Did A Federal Court Just Open Our Libraries Up For AI Plundering?
Let’s call this what it is: a case about borrowed books and a legal system struggling to reckon with machines that never ask before they take. – LitHub
- Cultural Vandalism: Alberta’s Book-Banning Project
“This isn’t about banning books,” Premier Danielle Smith posted on X. “It’s about protecting kids from graphic, sexually explicit content that has no place in a classroom.” (None of the books appear to have been part of any classroom curriculum, nor were students compelled to read them.) – The Walrus
- “Performative Reading” And The Cynical Young’uns Making Fun Of It
“It’s called performative reading not just because someone might be pretending to read, but rather that they want everyone to know they read. The presumption is that they’re performing for passersby, signaling they have the taste and attention span to pick up a physical book instead of putting in AirPods.” – The Guardian
PEOPLE
- Neil Barclay talks about the evolving landscape for BIPOC organizations
Neil Barclay, President & CEO of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, talks the evolving landscape for BIPOC organizations and avenues for sustainability.
- From Cold Turkey Press‘Two Images. One Message. All at Once.’<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2025/07/from-cold-turkey-presstwo-images-one-message-all-at-once.html" title="From Cold Turkey Press
‘Two Images. One Message. All - Combating American Isolationism with Cultural Diplomacy
- Room For The Straight White Male Writer?
“Unwilling to portray themselves as victims (cringe, politically wrong), or as aggressors (toxic masculinity), unable to assume the authentic voices of others (appropriation), younger white men are no longer capable of describing the world around them,” Savage, who is 41, wrote. – The New York Times
- Eight Paris Concert Halls Most Classical Fans Never Think Of
You’ve heard of several of them — the Musée d’Orsay, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Les Invalides — but probably had no idea that they host high-level classical concerts. Others probably aren’t on your radar yet, like Bal Blomet and La Scala Paris. – Bachtrack
PEOPLE
- Neil Barclay talks about the evolving landscape for BIPOC organizations
Neil Barclay, President & CEO of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, talks the evolving landscape for BIPOC organizations and avenues for sustainability.
- From Cold Turkey Press‘Two Images. One Message. All at Once.’<a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2025/07/from-cold-turkey-presstwo-images-one-message-all-at-once.html" title="From Cold Turkey Press
‘Two Images. One Message. All - Combating American Isolationism with Cultural Diplomacy
- Room For The Straight White Male Writer?
“Unwilling to portray themselves as victims (cringe, politically wrong), or as aggressors (toxic masculinity), unable to assume the authentic voices of others (appropriation), younger white men are no longer capable of describing the world around them,” Savage, who is 41, wrote. – The New York Times
- Eight Paris Concert Halls Most Classical Fans Never Think Of
You’ve heard of several of them — the Musée d’Orsay, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Les Invalides — but probably had no idea that they host high-level classical concerts. Others probably aren’t on your radar yet, like Bal Blomet and La Scala Paris. – Bachtrack
THEATRE
VISUAL
- I Observe. Must I Translate?
Human beings with a lot to say like to make noise. So do crickets, dogs, mice, other insects, rabbits when frightened or being killed, moose, and many, many others. Some of their noises are effective. Some fail to have an effect. – Harper’s
- The Struggle For A “Self” We Recognize
We imagine our choices are free, our selves sovereign, but much of our behavior arises automatically. We are driven by inner conditions, social cues, learned scripts, and neural flows—just as the machine is driven by token prediction and loss minimization. The difference, of course, is that the human brain is plastic. – Hedgehog Review
- We All Read. But Our Reading Has Changed. This Has Changed Our Culture (And Not For The Better)
On average, we spend more than two hours scrolling through such platforms each day. But not all reading is created equal. The mind can skim over the surface of a sentence and swiftly decode its literal meaning. But deep reading — sustained engagement with a longform text — is a distinct endeavor. – Vox
- The Relevance Of Glee, A Decade After It Ended
“I was mad that the representation, whether of teenagers or queerness, was not completely akin to my own real-life experience — this show was my lifeline; the least it could have done was conform to my limited perception of reality, right?” – HuffPost
- AI Slop Is Increasing To Such An Extent That The Open Web May Die
And be replaced with … people and print? “Indie local news publishers I know, already frustrated by the junkiness of digital distribution, are increasingly turning to in-person events, print editions and zines and printed handout cards with QR codes.” – Matt Pearce
