Inside A London Toe Shoe Factory
Freed of London, based in Hackney, has been making pointe shoes for almost a century. But while being one of the only producers of...
Converting Odessa’s Catacombs Into Bomb Shelters
The Ukrainian port city of Odesa sits atop a labyrinth of catacombs—technically, limestone quarries—which constitute perhaps the world’s largest network of urban tunnels, extending...
What’s Up With Pop Music’s Addiction To Nostalgia?
What explains our love of throwback sounds right now? Are we comfort-listening through hard times? Or is the industry just finally able to see...
How Book Customers Browse For Books
To create a space that is intentional in its gathering of materials meant to provide intellectual and literary stimulation, a space wholly devoted to...
Finland Says Seized Russian Art Should Be Returned
The paintings and sculptures, valued at 42 million euros ($46 million), had been on loan from Russian museums to institutions in Italy and Japan....
International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) Picks A New Leader
George E. Lewis, a professor of music at Columbia University known for his groundbreaking work in electronics, will take the helm as artistic director later this...
An AI Breakthrough In Creating Images
"One way you can think about this neural network is transcendent beauty as a service,” says Ilya Sutskever, cofounder and chief scientist at OpenAI....
The Heart Of Video Game Culture
“Film has Cannes. Video games have G.D.C.,” Marie Foulston, a London-based curator and producer of video-game and digital-art exhibitions, told me. “It has become...
What, Exactly, Is The Point Of The Venice Biennale?
Looking at the superyachts in the Grand Canal, that the Biennale is a prism of wealth inequality that we’re effectively sanctioning. We go anyway,...
The New New Thing: Video Game Book Clubs
Unlike many "real" book clubs and video game podcasts, they're less interested in new releases—focusing instead on detailed analysis of popular retro titles. -...
Why We Find The Internet So Exhausting
It's not just that you’re the product. You’re also the laborer, the factory, and the logistician. You’re also the resource. And your boss is...
The Art Of Buying Books You Haven’t Read To Decorate Your Room
It turns out the bookshelf bulk-buy is standard practice among the rich and famous – and increasingly so, since books have become established as...
Could Will Smith Lose His Oscar?
Hollywood-watchers say the academy is walking a tightrope: how can it take a stand now after failing to act against other members' misconduct for decades?...
Ed Sheeran Wins Song Plagiarism Fight
In a video on social media, he said there was now a culture "where a claim is made with the idea that a settlement...
UN Climate Report Slams Contemporary Architecture
Policies that favor wasteful new construction, and do little to encourage environmentally minded retrofits, have hindered the building industry’s ability to curb its footprint. -...
LA’s Comedy Store Turns 50
The late co-founder and longtime owner Mitzi Shore always envisioned the historic institution on L.A.’s Sunset Boulevard as an “artists colony,” a protected enclave...
Entertainment Glut: Streaming Platforms Offer 100s Of Thousands Of Shows
As of February 2022, there were more than 817,000 unique program titles across traditional TV and streaming services in the U.S., with many of...
English National Opera’s New Director Meets A Challenging Job With A Challenging Opera
On top of COVID troubles, whoever runs ENO faces the perennial problems of precarious state funding and being the underdog company in London. Annilese...
Is There A Relationship Between Sadness And Making Art?
The data (as well as Aristotle’s intuition, per his question about the prominence of melancholics in the arts) suggest that the answer is yes. -...
The Armenian Christian Who Paints Exquisite Mosque Domes
"When people ask Harout Bastajian how a Christian is creating the decorative program of a mosque, he likes to answer, 'God works in mysterious...
War, Images, And Ukraine
The fact that Ukraine feels more culturally familiar to many people watching these events closely has had a profound impact not just on the...
Swahili — How A Little Coastal Dialect Became Africa’s Most Widely Spoken Language
Native to the East African coast, Swahili developed as a lingua franca for various nationalities doing business in busy ports like Zanzibar. Now Swahili...
Marin Alsop On Reimagining Beethoven’s Ninth
"The thing that always struck me about the symphony is that you have the sense that the listeners are enduring the first three movements...
An Andy Warhol Bioplay Becomes A Pilgrim’s Progress Through Manhattan’s East Village
"Blurring the lines between a walking tour and the theater, Chasing Andy Warhol sets off from New York's Astor Place Cube, with actors lying...
The Collapse Of Russian Theatre
Artur Solomonov describes the mood in the Russian theaters in the wake of the invasion as “complete shock . . . the realization that...
