When done well, lectures can be utterly illuminating, when you are listening to a brilliant speaker discuss a topic about which they have more knowledge than anyone else in the world. Why wouldn’t a student who has signed up to study with such an expert want to hear them speak. - The Critic
“In 2023, the government began an initiative called the Culture Canon, with two streams: an ‘experts’’ canon and a ‘people’s canon,’ (each with) 100 items that have played a key role in shaping Swedish culture. … Yet even the suggestion of such a definitive list is dividing opinion in Sweden.” - The New York Times
Museums and cultural centers are not just the setting, the battleground, as it were, for these cultural-cum-political fights; they are seen as part of the oppressive apparatus the protesters are attacking. - Sapir
“Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government,” Corp. for Public Broadcasting chief Patricia Harrison told NPR in a statement. - Los Angeles Times
Whether the still relatively young values of liberalism will survive, whether reading and writing will continue to be the underpinnings of culture, whether the constructs and algorithms of AI will replace the freedoms of selfhood, whether we will dominate and destroy nature or salvage and protect it: We now stand before these questions. - Washington Post
“Even if you don’t think of yourself as a prominent entity, you never know what’s going to happen,” points out Hallie Chametzky, director of archiving and preservation at Dance/USA. “What if, one day, someone wants to write a book about you?” - Dance Magazine
You probably expect that this $30 million instrument is either a huge pipe organ or a Stradivarius violin or (perhaps) cello. It is indeed a Strad, but it is a viola — the Tuscan-Medici viola, housed at the Library of Congress. Curtis Institute president Roberto Díaz has played it numerous times. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
“As the center continues under Trump’s leadership, more productions may choose to steer clear, either out of principle or to avoid uproar from artists and fans. … An exodus of producers seeking an alternative could lead the center into financial crisis.” - The Washington Post (MSN)
The museum will be set in the Casa Roja, a private residence purchased by Kahlo’s parents and passed down through the family. While the Caza Azul focuses on Kahlo’s art and her relationship with husband Diego Rivera, the Casa Roja will concentrate on Kahlo’s early life. It will also include a gallery for contemporary art. - ARTnews
“The Sorrow and the Pity (1969), his documentary on the behaviour of the citizens of the French city of Clermont-Ferrand during the Second World War, and the Oscar-winning Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (1988) ... made any reference to his father, filmmaker Max Ophüls, an irrelevance.” - The Guardian
“For decades, Mr. Salgado was on hand for many of the world’s major crises. ... He described his mission as seeking to convey a sense of the ordinary people caught, often helpless, in the tumult.” - The Washington Post (MSN)
Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value won the Grand Prize; The Secret Agent took honors for best director (Kleber Mendonça Filho) and best actor (Wagner Moura); Nadia Melliti won best actress for Hafsia Herzi’s The Little Sister; the Dardenne brothers took best screenplay, their ninth Cannes prize, for Young Mothers. - AP
“Although the tongue called Proto-Indo-European hasn’t been used in 4,000 years, about half Earth’s inhabitants speak its more than 400 descendant languages. … The explosion of Proto-Indo-European from its origins in Eastern Ukraine … is, according to Spinney, ‘easily the most important event of the last five millennia in the Old World.’” - Slate (MSN)
If this legislation has the effect of granting law enforcement a means of bypassing encrypted communications, we may as well bid farewell to the very concept of digital privacy. - Slate
“I’d had a terrible, scarring artistic collaboration a couple of years prior, and it broke me. And on top of that, I was actually broke, financially. So I decided to give up playwriting, move to Los Angeles and make some money writing for film and television.” But he didn't. - The Guardian
