Stories

60 Years After Hollywood Abandoned It, VistaVision Is Back

While the format was quite popular in the 1950s (Vertigo and The Ten Commandments were filmed in it), the industry moved on in the 1960s and few VistaVision cameras have survived. Yet the films made in it in just the past few years include The Brutalist, Bugonia, Wuthering Heights, and One Battle After Another. - AP

Dalí Museum In Florida Announces $65 Million Expansion

The 35,000-square-foot addition to the St. Petersburg institution, expected to begin construction this year and open in 2028, will increase exhibition space, add a dedicated learning center, and provide flexible environments for “experiential exhibitions that blend art and technology.” - Tampa Bay Times

Is This Bust Of Jesus A Michelangelo? Independent Researcher Says Yes, Scholars Are Skeptical

Valentina Salerno, an actress and novelist with no formal training in art history, says she has reviewed numerous documents indicating that the sculpture, located in a Roman church, is the work of Michelangelo. She published her findings at a non-peer-reviewed website, though she says she’s willing to let scholars examine her research. - AP

Trump’s “Freedom Truck” Mobile Exhibitions Are Now On The Road

“As the U.S. gears up for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, President Donald Trump has dispatched six roving Freedom Truck exhibitions to crisscross the country. The first of 20 planned stops — mainly in the South, with forays to the Midwest, Arizona, and Utah — was last month in Nashville.” - Artnet

Belarus Free Theatre To Appear At Venice Biennale

“The Belarus Free Theatre, an underground theater group in exile since 2020, announced Wednesday that it will stage the exhibition ‘Official. Unofficial. Belarus.’ as an official collateral event of the 61st Venice Biennale.” - ARTnews

Where Stradivarius Found Just The Right Wood

“A study of the tree rings in Stradivarius violins, published in January in the journal Dendrochronologia, has revealed the most likely origin of some of the craftsman’s violins: wood from trees growing at high elevation in northern Italy in the same valley that hosted part of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.” - The New York Times

Meet The Last Of The Signpainters For The Markets Of Naples

“Announcing the clementines, artichokes and other goods on offer are cheerful, hand-painted signs in sun-bright lettering. Quotidian but also quintessential, the signs have become emblems of Naples’s vibrancy. … Pasquale De Stefano is, by consensus, the last living numeraio — or number painter — in Naples.” - The New York Times

Universities As Practical Job Creators? We Ought To Do Better Than That!

An education spent in pursuit of material comfort and convenience is a recipe for unhappiness, an existence in thrall to the raw, hungry American mantra of success, “More! More!” - LA Review of Books

Ballerinas Learn To Partner Each Other For Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s New Piece

Gentleman Jack, premiering this weekend at England’s Northern Ballet in Leeds, is Lopez Ochoa’s adaptation of a 2019 television series about Anne Lister, a 19th-century landowner considered to be one of the first modern lesbians known to us. - The New York Times

When Pop Culture Has a Half-Life of Six Months

Kids giggling at "six-seven" reveals the brutal math of digital culture: references expire faster than milk. What happens when shared cultural touchstones become as fleeting as TikTok trends? Generational gaps now measure in weeks, not decades. — Common Reader

Ctrl+Alt+Delete the Gallery: Gamers Turn Shutter-Happy

Virtual landscapes are the new studio space as artists trade actual cameras for digital controllers. Who needs nature when you've got pixels? The art world's latest existential crisis: if a screenshot falls in cyberspace, does it make a sound? — The Conversation

Who Wrote This? The Age-Old Question Gets Circuitry

Before ChatGPT made everyone panic about robot poets, writers were already grappling with authenticity's slippery slope. Ghostwriters, collaborators, editors—the literary world's dirty secret is that pure authorship was always a romantic fiction. — LitHub

Barbara Hannigan On The New Work She’s Premiering: “It’s Like Turning Your Soul Inside Out”

Composer Laura Bowler wrote the piece, which sets excerpts from Nobel laureate Han Kang’s The White Book, following her mother’s death in an accident after recovering from leukemia. Despite the daunting circumstances and Hannigan’s description, the soprano says, “I don’t think I’ve ever been more calm for a world premiere.” - The Guardian

LA’s Art Gold Rush Ends, Actual Work Begins

The carpetbaggers have packed their Hermès bags and fled back east. What remains? The unglamorous business of building a real art scene—one gallery lease and artist studio at a time. — Artnet

Paramount Debt Rating Lowered To “Junk” After Warner Deal

Fitch Ratings downgraded Paramount Skydance’s long-term issuer default rating from “BBB-” to “BB+,” putting it into speculative-grade investment territory (aka “junk”). - Variety

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