Maurizio Cattelan's conceptual piece, titled Comedian, first sold for $120,000 at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019; last night, cryptocurrency mogul Justin Sun agreed to pay more than 50 times that amount. He gets a roll of duct tape, a banana, official instructions for installation and a certificate of authenticity. - CNN
Everett's revisionist riff on Huckleberry Finn continued its prizewinning streak in the fiction category; in nonfiction, de León's Soldiers and Kings pipped Knife, Rushdie's memoir of his stabbing and recovery. Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's Something About Living took poetry honors; Shifa Saltagi Safadi’s Kareem Between won for young people's literature. - AP
He painted them, back in 1889, in a deep, vibrant purple. Here's how two conservators at the Getty figured that out — and why the irises have turned blue over the intervening 135 years. - Hyperallergic
Judy Morr "decided to do something nobody else was doing in Southern California, which was to bring major international dance companies to Orange County. That’s how it all started. Dance became the way to establish the Center’s reputation nationally and internationally.” - CultureOC
Meryl Tankard was one of the dancers in the 1978 premiere of Bausch's Kontakthof, and she has now restaged the piece with herself and eight other performers from the first run dancing alongside film footage of the original production. - The New York Times
A.I. chatbots can imitate famous poets like William Shakespeare well enough to fool many human readers, according to a new paper published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. In addition, many study participants actually preferred the chatbot’s poetry over the works of renowned writers. - Smithsonian
The Museum of West African Art (Mowaa), a constellation of buildings and outdoor performance spaces spread out across a 6-hectare (15-acre) campus, will hold its inaugural exhibition in May 2025. - The Guardian
Nuanxed's approach, known as post-editing (PE), combines the use of AI translation tools with human editing and proofing. According to cofounder and CEO Robert Casten Carlberg, the company completes roughly 50 translations per month, and in total has worked with 150 authors to complete around 800 translations. - Publishers Weekly
A budget series called "World's Greatest Music," produced by RCA Victor and marketed and distributed by the New York Post, included 38 discs (78 rpm) released from 1938 to 1940; ultimately more than 1 million records were sold. But the performers were unnamed — until now. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
Nono saw the potential to communicate with contemporary audiences, neither bound by nor rejecting the past, building solidarity against any resurgence of the fascism he had resisted under Mussolini. - The New York Times
In our fragmented media landscape, it can be difficult to grasp just how large Carson loomed over the culture. At the center of late-night for 30 years — he presided from 1962 to 1992 — he is the most influential talk-show host of all time, and possibly the most popular figure in the history of television. - The New...
Last week, the state House of Representatives voted to terminate the incentive effective June 30, 2025, as part of a sweeping tax reform package. In response, hundreds of people jammed the hallways of the state Capitol in Baton Rouge on Sunday to protest the move, which would threaten thousands of film jobs. - Variety
Les Misérables was originally written in French by two Frenchmen, based on a classic French historical novel — and the musical has been wildly popular just about everywhere except France. Yet an updated version of the show at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris might just catch on. - The New York Times
“Without the profound impact of National Lottery funding for the arts, heritage, charity and tourism sectors, introduced by the Conservative government in 1994, survival of even the fittest would have been nigh on impossible." - The Art Newspaper
