"The performing artists recognized for their lifetime contributions to American culture include actor and filmmaker George Clooney; contemporary Christian and pop singer Amy Grant; venerable gospel, soul and R&B star Gladys Knight; Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, conductor and educator Tania León; and four Irish musicians you may know as U2." - NPR
"(He) is firmly woven into the fabric of French cultural identity. As such, to condemn Depardieu amounts to a kind of self-harm. ... 'He is like a symbol of France, even the way Depardieu disregards and criticises his own country is so French.'" - The Guardian
Mr. Oldenburg entered the New York art scene in earnest in the late 1950s, embracing the audience-participation “Happenings” then in vogue and expanding the boundaries of art with shows that incorporated things like street signs, wire-and-plaster clothing and even pieces of pie. - The New York Times
Eisenberg was "a leading New York antiquities dealer who in the murky world of tomb raiders and smugglers held himself up as a guardian against the illegal importation and sale of ancient art." - The New York Times
Wu wrote that during the backlash to a tweet, "I started feeling like I didn’t even deserve to live anymore. That I was a disgrace to AsAms, and they’d be better off without me. ... Luckily, a friend found me and rushed me to the ER." - Variety
A trailblazer for years, "Garofalo didn’t just help shift the comedy scene away from clubs. Her style represented a sea change from the polished, tight and desperately relatable bits ready-made to translate into a sitcom or a late-night appearance." - The New York Times
Why is Shah Rukh Khan so celebrated as he marks 30 years in the Hindi film industry? "He shows us a glimpse of a prosperous, plural and humane region - one that can laugh at itself without the inflamed nostrils of pious outrage." And he's the poster child for growth. - BBC
Artistic leader of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, BBC Concert Orchestra, and, as of the coming season, the Sarasota Orchestra, Tovey spent widely admired tenures at the Winnipeg and Vancouver Symphonies and was a regular visitor to the top American orchestras, known especially for his rapport with audiences. - CBC
"(The actor) appeared at the U.K.'s historic Old Bailey criminal court on Thursday morning, where he pleaded not guilty to all five counts of sexual assault. His U.K. trial will begin on June 6, 2023, and is expected to last for three to four weeks." - Variety
"King was an instrumental figure behind a company that The New York Times Magazine once described as 'the Disney of the experience economy.' … During the group's early years, King played an instrumental role in coming up with some of the surreal environments the company would become renowned for." - Artnet
"Her husband Walter Keane fraudulently took artistic credit, while she painted for 16 hours a day to satisfy demand for the work, originally presented publicly as a joint effort, and always signed simply 'Keane.'" - The Guardian (UK)
Not long ago, the 29-year-old French memoirist (The End of Eddy) found an old snapshot of his mother at age 20 with a bright, hopeful smile. He always remembered her as tough and grim, and he decided to find out what happened to that smiling young woman. - The Guardian
The author, who died at 51, only had time to produce three books in her series, but her agent says, "I’ve lost track of ... the number of publishers, scouts and film companies who’ve used her name to describe a genre of writing they want." - The New York Times
