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Wexner Center Director Resigns, Effective Immediately

Gaëtane Verna inherited a Wexner facing financial turmoil worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic. The center’s fiscal health and workplace culture appeared to deteriorate further after her arrival. - ARTnews

This San Francisco Museum Decided To Be Nomadic

The museum will henceforth be presenting exhibitions in new spaces each cycle. The intent behind this is both to pair artistic projects with architecturally or historically significant sites and to bring attention to lesser known spaces that can inspire more site-specific art. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

A Play About Thomas Jefferson And Sally Hemings Nearly Broke This Theater Company Apart. Now It’s Trying Again.

Eight years ago at the Marin Theatre near San Francisco, Thomas Bradshaw’s play Thomas and Sally sparked in-person protests, an open letter with 1,800 signatures, and a police confrontation. Now, under new leaders, the company hopes to repair some of the damage with Suzan-Lori Parks’s play Sally & Tom. - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)

Why We’re Having Difficulty Understanding AI

Cognitivism, which has permeated society—as evidenced by the omnipresence of the terms “cognitive” and “cognition”—has perpetuated a traditional view of thought and intelligence as phenomena of inextricable complexity, and therefore phenomena that we can hardly imagine recreating artificially. - AI & Society

A Prominent Arts College Offers An AI Major. There’s Pushback

According to SCAD, the Applied AI program will prepare students for professions including AI product developer, AI design strategist, AI story engineer, autonomous agent designer, and “ethical design strategist.” SCAD is also offering a minor in Applied AI that’s open to students across all majors. - Fast Company

Lebrecht: Two Nominations For 21st Century Great Composer Status

In an increasingly authoritarian age, we are suspicious of new leaders; when posterity squints back at us it will have to fumble in the dark to identify 21st-century composers who might, by some future criteria, qualify for greatness. - The Critic

The Grand Reveal: At Long Last, The Grand Egyptian Museum Has Its Grand Opening

The $1 billion, 5 million square-foot complex. for which planning first began in 1992, includes 12 main galleries holding over 50,000 items, a conference center, a children’s museum, and a large conservation center. Among much else, the GEM will bring the entire contents of King Tutankhamun’s tomb together for the first time. - The Guardian

Museum Employees Are Unhappy. Is It Getting Better?

Fifty-four percent of museum employees have considered quitting their jobs in the last five years, and more than one-quarter of full-time workers earn salaries that fall below a living wage, according to a new survey. - The New York Times

What We’re Losing In A Post-Literate Culture

By now we’ve moved beyond a post-literature culture into what some are calling a post-literate age, taking us back several thousand years to communication by images and symbols. - The Atlantic

A Dramatic Decline In Thinking?

If we consider literacy not as the ability to parse simple sentences but as the capacity to comprehend and enjoy complex texts, and ultimately as a sensibility that approaches the world itself as a text that requires interpretation, it’s obvious we live in an unprecedented decline of what neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf calls “deep literacy.” - The Baffler

Why So Many People, Including New York’s Governor, Mispronounce Zohran Mamdani’s Name

John McWhorter: "Mispronouncing someone’s name certainly can be a form of ridicule or dismissal. … But malice is not the only possible explanation for these flubs. As a matter of pure linguistics, it would be surprising if people didn’t have trouble with the name Mamdani.” - The New York Times

Doctors May Now Prescribe Attendance At A Montreal Symphony Concert

“Physicians will get prescriptions that they will give to patients. ... And we will give each patient that calls us two tickets for free,” said the orchestra’s CEO. Though Montreal’s concert-prescription program is still new, many doctors elsewhere in Canada have already expressed interest, as have orchestras in Toronto and Quebec City.  - CBC

Some Of The Loot From The Paris Treasure Heist — The One Last Year — Has Been Recovered

Last November, thieves used axes to break into the Musée Cognacq-Jay and steal seven antique snuffboxes, all highly bejeweled and all on loan from major institutions: the Louvre, the V&A, and Britain’s Royal Collection. Five of the snuffboxes have been recovered following what appears to have been a ransom payment. - Artnet

Dictionary.com’s 2025 Word of The Year Is — Well, Is It Even A Word?

Boomers, X-ers, and most Millennials will just see it as a pair of numbers. Gen Z-ers may recognize it as what their younger relatives have started yelling constantly. Yet the key thing about “6-7”, especially for lexicographers, is that it's unclear what exactly the word (if that’s the right term) even means. - CBS News

Sotheby’s To Auction Maurizio Cattelan’s Gold Toilet (Wait, Didn’t That Get Stolen?)

Yes, one copy of the 18-karat commode was purloined from an exhibition in England last year. That was the one first displayed at the Guggenheim in 2016. This one, the only other copy, was bought by a collector in 2017 — and now, with the price of gold soaring, it’s again for sale. - AP

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