“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
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
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 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 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
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
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
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
"(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
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
"Showmax — (a South African company) spun out of Africa’s largest entertainment (conglomerate), MultiChoice, in 2015 — had 2.1 million subscribers on the continent at the end of November 2023, as compared to 1.8 million for Netflix. … Showmax’s market share rose to nearly 39%, while Netflix dropped to 33.5%." - Rest of World
The "passeport talent," launched in 2017 for certain highly-skilled individuals, now includes entrepreneurs, investors, and staff employees (as well as freelancers) judged likely to make a significant contribution to France's culture or economy. It allows holders to live and work in the country for up to four years. - Euronews
"After more than a decade of work, scientists from Argentina, Chile and the United States have successfully dated the Huenul 1 cave paintings in Argentina’s Patagonia region. … The oldest paintings in the cave date back 8,200 years, several millennia earlier than previously suggested." - El País (Spain) (in English)
"Governor Ron DeSantis on Thursday came out in support of a proposal to limit book bans in schools. ... In a press conference, DeSantis tried to claim that accusations that he has enabled book bans in the state of Florida are 'a fraud' and 'a big hoax.'" - The New Republic
