ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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“Identity Is Not Private Property” — Edouard Louis Argues Against The Whole Idea Of Cultural Appropriation

"People who think they are left-wing but put a line between who gets to talk and who should shut up are right-wing. … People who think they are progressive but force us to talk about what we experienced, and only about what we experienced, are violent." - Jacobin

Australian Students Are Flocking To Humanities Studies Despite Attempts To Discourage Them

“A lot of young people are moving away from conventional ideas of education and the workforce to pursuing things we genuinely enjoy in life. “We know what’s best for us – we’re willing to stand up and say ‘this is our future, we’re not going to allow our lives to be dictated’.” - The Guardian

Disney’s Biggest Theme Park Challenge

A common vacation itinerary includes three or four days at Disney World and one or two days at Universal. If Universal can now persuade families to spend one more day at its parks instead of at Disney, it could nab hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue. - The Wall Street Journal

Scottish Artists Fear They’re Falling Into A Cultural Black Hole

That’s because Scottish filmmakers, writers, and artists are feeling vulnerable "following the closure of a film project, a book festival and an art magazine within days of each other." - The Observer (UK)

Disastrous Decisions In The UK As Birmingham Council Slashes All Arts Funding

Birmingham is a bellwether for the UK. Nothing “could be more emblematic of the way that Britain currently devalues life: when we only focus on our most basic needs, dismissing leisure, art, literature and culture as something decadent and middle-class, we do ourselves an injustice.” - The Observer (UK)

Quiet On Set Reveals The Devastation Of American Childhoods

The abuse child actors dealt with destroyed their childhoods and families - and people watching it are grappling with their childhood memories as well. Then there’s the apparent negligence of Nickelodeon. - Slate

The Library Storm In Alabama Is Probably Coming For Your Librarians As Well

"Believe me, when they get the LGBTQ books out of there, then it'll be the books on the Civil War because white people are portrayed in a poor light. And then it'll be books on religions that are different from their own. There's no stopping these people." - NPR

Non-Profit Journalism Is Growing. But Where’s The Audience?

“Journalists are not very good marketers. They do a story they are excited about and think most people in the addressable audience will want to read it — maybe 60%. No, that’s way high. More likely 10%.” - Poynter

All That Money Being Spent On The Downtown L.A. Arts District — What Exactly Is It Paying For?

Buildings and facilities, mostly. There's the Grand, the $1 billion apartment/hotel/retail complex, designed by Frank Gehry, which opened across the street from (Gehry's) Disney Hall in 2022. Then there's the $100 million expansion of the Broad Museum and an addition, also designed by Gehry, to the Colburn School. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)

A Mexican Town Fighting Off Gentrification Of Its Culture

“We didn't notice it at the beginning because we were locked inside. And then when we came out, everything had changed radically,” says Antonio Vásquez, a Oaxacan novelist whose works touch on themes of gentrification. - Bloomberg

Art, Diplomacy, And The Propaganda Of Ideas

Is there a way for the government to support art without corrupting it? And if not, how can we ensure that art still remains vital to our public life? - Fusion

A Transformative Arts Project For Downtown Calgary

“Today, we don’t just reveal a stunning new design—we come together to celebrate the fact that the largest cultural infrastructure project currently underway in Canada is truly and uniquely Calgarian." - The Architect's Newspaper

How Performing Artists Are Depicting Robots In The Age Of AI

"Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, signaling a mighty leap forward in robots’ and artificial intelligence’s ability to imitate human interaction, we’ve craved a new generation of art to help us understand our relationship to machines and what, if anything, distinguishes us from them." - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

Can Italy Demand Licensing Fees For The Use Of Leonardo’s “Vitruvian Man”?

In 2004 Italy adopted a law allowing museums to request payment for commercial reproduction of "cultural properties." So the Italian government and the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice (which holds Leonardo's original) are suing the German manufacturer of a "Vitruvian Man" puzzle. Is the claim valid beyond Italy's borders? - The New York Times

Not For The First Time, People Look To The Arts To Revive Downtown L.A.

The pandemic and the shift toward remote working have hit Los Angeles as hard as they have other cities. That includes performing and visual arts, whose attendance numbers are (mostly) not back to 2019 levels. Yet several downtown cultural institutions are keeping hope alive, investing in major expansions. - The New York Times

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