Contributed revenue fell by 30%, with every source declining from 2023 to 2024. Foundation revenue dropped 25% after modest growth in 2023, and earned revenue declined 18%. The decrease in contributed revenue reflects the continued waning of unprecedented pandemic relief funding that began in 2021. - SMU Cultural Data
“What are the 100 things that unequivocally define Swedish culture? Flat-packed furniture from IKEA? Of course. Pippi Longstocking? Indeed. The touchstone films of Ingmar Bergman? Absolutely. Abba and meatballs? Apparently not.” - The New York Times
The Nation’s Newspaper checks out the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, the National Museum of American History, National Museum of Natural History, National Museum of the American Indian, and National Portrait Gallery — and asks about four dozen museumgoers for their own opinions. - USA Today
People carving their initials into the Coliseum, trashing Bernini’s fountain in Rome, driving a car down the Spanish Steps, mounting and humping a nude statue of Bacchus, causing all kinds of damage taking selfies. National ministries pass the buck to each other, leaving local governments to clean up the messes. - Artnet
Hm: “The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), sent a scathing letter to a number of tech giants, including Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple. The letter's subject: the European Digital Services Act cannot be applied if it jeopardizes freedom of expression and, above all, the safety of US citizens.” - Wired
Not ideal: “This isn’t some relatively harmless inconvenience that just targets celebrities, either. These bots often insist they’re real people and will even offer physical locations for a user to meet up with them.” - The Verge
One actor, in three movies at the festival, said that “on stage and screen, actors are counted on to speak emphatically. ‘I’m happy to make louder the simple sentence of “Stop killing.”’” - The New York Times
“The desert festival … began Sunday, following a weekend of brutal storms that battered camps, tore down art installations and caused dozens of injuries.” (Worse, they destroyed the Orgy Dome.) “By midweek, vehicles were again entering the site, though muddy conditions forced … delays of up to eight hours each day.” - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
There is a seismic shift happening in the media landscape, fueled by the rise of digital platforms, declining print readership and mass layoffs in cultural journalism. It also points to a larger epidemic in the consumption of this kind of writing, and how people engage with this industry wide. - The Observer
A White House official described the exchange as productive and cordial and confirmed that White House senior associate Lindsey Halligan — who was tasked with enacting Trump’s March executive order on the Smithsonian — attended. - Washington Post (Yahoo)
As organizations respond to declining revenue and higher prices, expense budgets tightened by an average of 23%. This decrease includes significant dips in both personnel and non-personnel expenses for the first time since 2021. - SMUDataArts
Over the past several decades, philanthropy has become much more bureaucratic: if you want a grant from one of these well-endowed foundations, you have to be willing to navigate a large bureaucracy while specifying all of the legible ways in which your activity will have provable impact. - Palladium
Ben Davis: “In the non-metaphorical world, slurry means an unresolved mix of liquid and solid. …. The word comes to mind with this very pervasive kind of content that’s gunking up my feed, where different content types are running together into one half-resolved substance. Where everything assumes the qualities of everything else.” - Artnet
Arizona State University reported a fall semester decline for the first time since 2020. Declines have been announced at universities in Texas, Missouri and Illinois. The state of Massachusetts is expecting about 10,000 fewer new international students this year. - NPR
Those supporting Trump’s actions say they will restore national pride, but critics in the arts and parks, as well as a number of Democrats, argue they whitewash history and do not tell people the full story. - The Hill
