Crop art — works using corn kernels, sunflower seeds, or other agricultural products as their media — has long been a feature of the Minnesota State Fair. Next month, nine works, the pick of this year’s (ahem) crop, will be on display at the museum. - The Minnesota Star Tribune
There are 27 rural public radio stations in the state, most of them serving small communities with little other media and hundreds of miles from any city. The stations are the only source for local news and, crucially, emergency weather alerts, and federal funding comprised up to half of their budgets. - Inside Radio
About 71% of theaters there have seen audience numbers improve since the COVID shutdowns, though only 41% are back to pre-2020 levels. The major problem right now is that 30% of theatergoers in the city, and 22% in the region, use mass transit, which is undergoing savage cuts. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
Tshidi Manye has played the mandrill shaman who sings “Circle of Life” in roughly 9,000 performances, a large majority of them on Broadway. - The New York Times
With colleague Joan Woodbury, who died in 2023, she founded the state’s first contemporary troupe, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, in 1964 and developed it into a prominent ensemble. Though she relinquished the helm at the turn of the millennium, she remained a part-time employee for the rest of her life. - The Salt Lake Tribune
Reality, as we now understand, does not tend towards existential flourishing and eternal becoming. Instead, systems collapse, things break down, and time tends irreversibly towards disorder and eventual annihilation. - Aeon
“Hip-hop, (songwriter Dave Hook) argues, has never blandly replicated itself, but always adapted to new circumstances. … By giving hip-hop a Scottish voice and, in this case, bringing it into the world of William Wallace, Hook believes he is staying true to the genre’s political roots.” - The Guardian
To say that “reasonable people can disagree” can encourage suspension of judgment in response to important matters of personal and social concern. - 3 Quarks Daily
Arts criticism has been vanishingly difficult to break into for ages, no one’s idea of a growth industry. But publications have managed to make a dire situation worse; it’s now reached the point where long-tenured veterans are having their jobs erased in a misguided rethinking of what criticism even actually is. - The Guardian
Broadcasting no longer conveys a geographic monopoly on the distribution of content. It’s becoming clear that a business model based largely on the broadcast distribution of national programming leased from PBS and NPR is declining. - BIA
The 54-year-old paper, one of the US’s oldest alt-weeklies, made major layoffs and narrowly avoided shutting down in January. The Reader has now been acquired by Seattle-based Noisy Creek, which owns The Stranger as well as The Portland Mercury. - WTTW (Chicago)
If it works for the few but not more widely – in particular, if it doesn’t work for global-majority artists or those breaking with popular forms – what does that mean about the fringe as a marketplace for the wider industry? - The Stage
Gone for the most part are the -isms that defined artistic movements in the 20th century: Cubism, Surrealism, Fauvism, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism. Manifestos too are increasingly rare. - ARTnews
Instead of toppling our radio towers, the funding cut is just likely to make them lean further left. Was that the White House’s and Congress’s intention? - Washington Post
“For more than five decades at W.W. Norton, (he) waded into the so-called slush pile ... to discover unsung authors and to help fashion sometimes amorphous antecedents into sizzling, culturally significant potboilers” such as Liar’s Poker, The Big Short, Moneyball, The Perfect Storm, and Master and Commander. - The New York Times
