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When The Ukraine War Broke Out, International Artists Abandoned Working In Russia. Now One Country’s Arts Workers Have Gone Back

As the war nears its third year, a cohort of Italian curators, artists, and art historians, including Luca Tomìo and Alessandro Romanini, have bucked the trend of that isolation to participate or curate exhibitions there. - ARTnews

How To Get Hooked On Opera

Operas deal with all of life’s big issues, from unrequited love to the death of a loved one. They address social issues too: political rivalries, malign power, toxic male violence. Listening to opera can be highly cathartic, a way of making sense of your own emotions and the world’s problems. - Psyche

The African-American Woman Who Turned J.P. Morgan’s Collection Into The Morgan Library

"In 1905, Morgan’s bibliophilic nephew recommended a co-worker in the library at Princeton: Belle da Costa Greene. … She would remain at the helm of Morgan's library for nearly the rest of her life, and after Morgan’s death in 1913, she led the effort to make his vast private collection accessible to all." - Smithsonian Magazine

How Cheerleading Took Over Girls’ Sports

 It is a huge part of the country’s arts scene, quietly flourishing and influencing new generations of dancers and choreographers. - The New York Times

A Simple Old Computer Program And Its Invitation To Be Creative

Art made on Paint is often amateurish, but amateurish in a way that celebrates human flaw. Struggling to make something out of nothing — to pull an image from the mind, to represent it externally in a way that is even halfway decent — is as quintessentially human as speaking a language. - The New York Times

ByteDance Introduced A Sister App For TikTok. Will It Catch On?

"Since last summer, Lemon8 has more than tripled its user base, hitting 12 million downloads in the US (less than a tenth of TikTok's reach). But several users (are) skeptical that the pictures-and-video social app — which focuses on lifestyle content like beauty, food and travel — will have much staying power." - TheWrap (MSN)

South Korea Has Become A Hotbed Of Contemporary Dance

"Its popularity and reach are evident throughout the country, especially among the dozens of companies, in Seoul and other cities, that share dancers, choreographers and designers. And several of those companies are making a name for themselves internationally." - The New York Times

Smithsonian Receives $40 Million From Lilly Endowment For US Semiquincentennial In 2026

"(Celebrations) will include exhibitions and events throughout the Smithsonian's museums (and zoo), an expansion of the institution’s annual Folklife Festival, temporary public reopenings of the Arts and Industries Building (which has mostly been closed since 2004) and Smithsonian Castle, as well as digital and satellite programming." - The Art Newspaper

Former Chicago Tribune Architecture Critic Pays For His Successor Out Of His Own Pocket

Why is Blair Kamin doing this? "I’m a realist, and I realize that, given who the Tribune is owned by now and given the realities of the business model of journalism having collapsed, either somebody was going to do something, or nothing would get done." - Medill Local News Initiative

The 20 Best Art Museums In The U.S. (Per The Washington Post)

Yes, the Met tops the list (by Post art critics Philip Kennicott and Sebastian Smee), and museum aficionados will have heard of the others, but the order of the rankings may surprise you. - The Washington Post (MSN)

America’s Ten Best Small Art Museums (Per The Washington Post)

Some of these institutions are so famous that a reader may be surprised that they're considered small museums, but they are. And just about all of them are based on the collections of very wealthy individuals with particular ideas about how their art should be displayed. - The Washington Post (MSN)

Top College Art Museums In America (Per The Washington Post)

"With special connections to world-class research programs and academic expertise, college art museums can compete with the best of them. Here are five of The Post's critics’ favorites, based on the quality of their collections and programming." - The Washington Post (MSN)

San Francisco Opera Extends Music Director Eun Sun Kim’s Contract

The South Korean-born conductor, who began her initial five-year term at the company in 2021, is now contracted through the 2030-31 season. - San Francisco Classical Voice

When Edgar Allan Poe Was One Of Vietnam’s Literary Heroes

"(He held a) surprisingly major role in the early twentieth century, right at the dawn of Vietnam’s modern literature. For a period in Vietnamese history, Poe was 'America’s literary giant,' inspiring a generation of authors who would go on to take up arms and raise their voices in support of the struggle against imperialism." - Literary Hub

The Power Of Nobel Laureate Han Kang

This is the power of Han Kang: With little more than paper and ink, she acts as a conduit for the memories of generations that suffered state violence, passing them on to generations that inherited these traumas but not necessarily the long-suppressed facts beneath them.  - Yale Review

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