Considered by many the greatest British actress of her formidable generation, she won widespread admiration for such stage and screen performances as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Hedda Gabler and became genuinely beloved for her work in the Harry Potter films and Downton Abbey. - The Washington Post (MSN)
Abraham Bredius was director of the Mauritshuis in The Hague 1889-1919, and he bequeathed 25 Rembrandts and other Old Master paintings to the museum on condition that they be displayed. Only five are on public view, so Bredius's heirs say the Mauritshuis is violating the bequest's terms. - The New York Times
The case, Little v. Llano County, involves local citizens who sued a Texas county on First Amendment grounds for ordering certain titles removed from public libraries shelves. County officials argue that decisions about public library books count as speech by government itself, and thus aren't required to be content-neutral. - Publishers Weekly
"At the core of the dispute is what the union identifies as an unacceptable wage gap between NSO musicians and their peers in orchestras of similar size and stature, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic." - The Washington Post (MSN)
“I’m guessing an image generator scraped a photo of my dad from somewhere online (maybe the wedding pictures I posted in 2007?) and then didn’t jumble it up enough to make it into someone new. Instead, it issued forth an eerie facsimile.” - Slate
On Christmas Day, 1985, two veterinary students broke into Mexico City’s National Museum of Anthropology and stole more than 100 “archeological pieces from the rooms dedicated to the Maya, Mixteca and Mexica civilizations.” (The Gael García Bernal movie Museo shows a dramatic recreation of the heist.) - El País
“Deep doubt is skepticism of real media that stems from the existence of generative AI. This manifests as broad public skepticism toward the veracity of media artifacts, which in turn leads to a notable consequence: People can now more credibly claim that real events did not happen.” - Wired
France was late to American-style drag, but as at the Olympics, it’s now prominent. So: “Answering hatred with glitter is a time-honored drag tradition, and Drag Race France Live, which premiered in Paris this week, showed French drag in defiant form.” - The New York Times
The complainers, and the police, said the painting of a naked woman could be pornographic. The artist: "I don’t know what kind of pornography they’ve been looking at, but it’s definitely not my painting.” - The Guardian (UK)
The chorus struck for three days last week, canceling the season opener. “An earlier proposal would cut choristers’ compensation by 65% and reduced their programs to five per year.” Now there’s a compromise proposal, but will that be enough? - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
These corporations have erected a private state over us. They who have disrupted almost every economic and political balance in the Republic. They who have amassed the power to shape and determine how we speak to one another and share news and information. Even how we think, dream, and perceive our place in the world. - Harper's
"More than 150 musicians and patrons joined the Symphony Chorus, which formed a picket … in front of Davies Symphony Hall an hour and a half before the Verdi Requiem concert was scheduled to begin. Among the signs held by strikers, one read, 'No contract = No Chorus.'" - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
Before Haacke, museums were considered … 'genteel and politically marginal.' Robber barons might have donated to them to enhance their social clout, but such cultural largess was seldom questioned. Today, though, …, Haacke’s work is more than just relevant — it’s prophetic." - T — The New York Times Style Magazine
What we hardly talk about is how we’ve reorganized not just industrial activity but any activity to be capturable by computer, a radical expansion of what can be mined. Friendship is ground zero for the metrics of the inner world, the first unquantifiable shorn into data points. - The Walrus
The $336 million project, called ArtSide, is one of the largest real estate projects in Newark in decades. It will include roughly 350 apartments, 15 townhouses and ground-floor retail in a seven-story midrise building and a 25-story tower. Profits from the development will go to support NJPAC programming. - The New York Times
Olivier Roy believes that a range of abstract and apparently unstoppable forces—globalization, neoliberalism, postmodernism, individualism, secularism, the Internet, and so on—are undermining culture by rendering it “transparent,” turning our cultural practices into “a collection of tokens” to be traded and displayed. - The New Yorker
"Philadelphia’s nearly 150-year-old University of the Arts has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after (suddenly) closing this summer. The process will allow the school to sell its real estate holdings in the Center City neighborhood, estimated in value at $87 million, in an effort to meet $46 million in bond debt." - Artnet
"According to AGMA, 100% of the paid choristers voted in favor of the authorization, with 98% of eligible members participating. Additionally, 81% of the unpaid singers scheduled to perform pledged to honor a picket line." The announced work on the program: Verdi's Requiem - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
"The resignation, on the day before the opening concert of the season, of CFO Sylvia Romo, hired by Executive Director Roberto Treviño in January, follows a string of staff resignations, terminations and nonrenewed contracts throughout Treviño’s 14-month tenure. - San Antonio Report
“Marushchak has achieved something quite extraordinary. He has organised the evacuation of dozens of museums across Ukraine’s frontline – packing, recording, logging and counting each item and sending them to secret, secure locations away from the combat zone." - The Guardian (UK)
