ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

Stories

The Titles Most Often Stolen From San Francisco Public Libraries, And A Possible Solution

It turns out that the volumes most frequently pilfered from SFPL shelves aren't, say, bestselling thrillers; they're books about addiction and recovery. So city officials want to start giving such books away for free. - AP

The State Of Today’s Culture

The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction. Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity. - Honest Broker

Broadway’s Big Presidents Day Box Office Boost

The Presidents Day Weekend was like a little Christmas gift for Broadway, with grosses for the 23 productions posting a hefty 27% increase over the previous week, topping out at $26,946,864. - Deadline

A Staggering $100M Canadian Art Fraud

A decades-long forgery scheme ensnared Canada’s most famous Indigenous artist, a rock musician turned sleuth and several top museums. - Smithsonian

Bellevue Arts Museum Declares A Crisis, Says It Might Have To Close

“We’re at the place where the straw breaks the camel’s back,” Kate Scher said. She called the crisis a “combined product” of the museum’s lack of long-term funding, the pandemic, and shifts in audience habits and philanthropic priorities. - Seattle Times

How AI Is Changing Music

AI is already changing how musicians compose and play music in ways hard to imagine only a few years ago, opening up new horizons for creative expression and challenging traditional conceptions of musicianship. - San Francisco Chronicle

The Systematic Destruction Of Gaza’s Buildings

Since October 7 2023, the bombardment of Gaza is reported to have damaged more than 100 historic sites and destroyed 69,700 homes. - The Conversation

Pro-Palestine Protestors Take Over MoMA

MoMA had shut down completely. It would not reopen until the following day. Visitors were ferried to the exits. Outside, a soft-spoken museum employee was assisting would-be museumgoers with refunds. “They’re protesting Gaza—our trustees are funding it,” he explained. “We can’t let you see the artwork. There are too many protesters.” - The Nation

At 61, Jodie Foster Is Finally Unclenching And Letting (Some Of) Her Guard Down

"At a certain point, the survival tool, which has kept you safe and kept you warm, which has kept you with your family, it’s allowed you to exist in the world — you gotta cut that fucking thing off," she said. "You gotta cut that thing off, because it’s killing you." - The Atlantic

The Big Hong Kong Arts Complex Designed By Norman Foster’s Firm Is Running Out Of Cash

The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, which operates M+ and the Hong Kong Palace Museum as well as a traditional Chinese opera center and a black-box theater, was created by government statute but receives no government subsidies — and the initial endowment established when WKCDA was created will be gone next year. - ARTnews

Ways Of Looking At Art

In a YouGov survey released in 2023, nearly half of Americans said they didn’t consider themselves artistic. At 58 percent, even more respondents said they weren’t familiar with famous artistic movements or styles. - Vox

Trying To Learn To Cry On Cue, The Way Actors Do

Journalist Rachel Handler talks to a somatic psychotherapist, an acting coach to major stars, that coach's son, and several actors and directors, all in a quest to learn how to summon the tears. - Vulture

Debunking Reasons For Looking At Art

Art, I have preached, is for bildung, self-development, especially within the context of an undergraduate education. Art helps you to become a deeper, freer version of yourself, etc., etc., blah blah blah, you’ve heard the song a thousand times. So what’s the difference between that and “art is good for us”? - Salmagundi

Merging American Sign Language Into Choreography Aimed At General Audiences

"(There's) a wider shift in the performing arts, one that is more artistically fulfilling for Deaf and ASL-fluent artists and that also repositions accessibility: Rather than something tacked on to and separate from the performance, (ASL) is something deeply ingrained and integrated." - Dance Magazine

Alonzo King: Attaching Dance To The World

That prospect of dance having a life and an urgency beyond an arrangement of steps has fueled King’s path as a dancer and a choreographer. - The New York Times

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss

function my_excerpt_length($length){ return 200; } add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length');