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Artists May Be Losing Work For Their Posts About Gaza, But That’s Not Censorship

"Every artist must exist in two realms: as the art maker, who thinks and ponders and creates work of radical honesty (an activity that one could argue is inherently political), and as the art mover, who, however reluctantly, must be part showman and part businessperson." - MSN (The Atlantic)

Artistic Censorship? Mostly Not…

"No one is stopping the artist from making art about anything that they want... But artists who make a living from their work are also entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs can face consequences. This is not censorship; it is, like it or not, capitalism." - The Atlantic

Arts Relief Funding Was Massive. Here’s Where It Went. Now What?

Now that the pandemic relief funds have stopped, many arts organizations are scrambling to balance their budgets. The new report says "the duration" of those funds hasn't matched the "slower rebuild" many arts organizations are facing. - NPR

Stephen Sondheim Was One Of America’s Great Classical Composers (Yes, Classical)

Joshua Barone makes the case. - The New York Times

Richard Gaddes, Founder Of Opera Theater Of St. Louis And Former Director Of Santa Fe Opera, Is Dead At 81

"Among the most influential and progressive leaders in American opera, … (he maintained) a commitment to living composers through world and American premieres. He believed opera was a theatrical medium as much as a musical one and had a devotion to advancing the careers of promising young singers." - Santa Fe New Mexican

What’s All This About AM Radio Being Eliminated From Cars And Ted Cruz Trying To Save It?

Automakers have been gradually leaving AM receivers out of their new-model cars, and they really want — for legitimate reasons — to drop AM from their electric vehicles. Yet there are legitimate reasons for regulators and lawmakers to insist that AM radios remain. Ernie Smith explains. - Tedium

The Radical Art Group Who Smuggled Left-Wing Messages Into Network TV

Artist and CalArts professor Mel Chin "had to pull off something like an art heist in reverse. Instead of stealing art from a well-guarded museum, Chin wanted to smuggle art onto the set of one of the most popular television shows in the world." - Slate

Disney’s – And Salvador Allende’s – Fight For Our Cultural Souls

Ariel Dorfman: "The smiling, friendly form of capitalism now presents — the very fact that it doesn’t wish to shock or alienate its customers — may, in the end, prove even more dangerous to our ultimate well-being than was true half a century ago." - Salon

The EU Passes A ‘Sweeping’ New Slate Of Regulations For Artificial Intelligence

"It includes bans on biometric systems that identify people using sensitive characteristics such as sexual orientation and race, and the indiscriminate scraping of faces from the internet," plus some copyright protections as well. - Wired

Architect Yasmeen Lari Found The Ideal Material For Building Flood-Resistant Homes For Dirt-Poor Pakistani Villagers

That would be bamboo. It grows quickly in the hot climate; it sequesters plenty of carbon; it's inexpensive; it withstands floodwaters well. And Lari's innovative-yet-simple design for small houses made of traditional mud and limestone on bamboo frames can be built and repaired quickly by villagers themselves. - MSN (The Washington Post)

Norman Lear, Whose Sitcoms Revolutionized American Television, Is Dead At 101

"In an astonishingly prolific career that spanned more than six decades, Lear created or developed some of the most seminal comedies in television history, including All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons, (and) One Day at a Time, ... tackling hot-button issues long considered taboo." - NBC News

Turner Prize 2023 Goes To Jesse Darling

"Darling is a 41-year-old Oxford-born, Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, video, drawing and performance; he also released a collection of poetry, Virgins, last year. His Turner Prize-winning exhibition is an installation that places viewers in a custom-built environment evoking chaotic city streets and industrial barriers." - CNN

English National Opera Confirms That It’s Moving To Manchester

"The company had a shortlist of five places where it was considering setting up a new headquarters, with Manchester, the biggest city in Europe without a resident opera company, always the favourite. … (The announcement comes) a year after funders said it must move its base out of London." - The Guardian

A Play In France Reflects Life, Which Then Intrudes On The Play

After a play about Black Frenchwomen's experiences premiered in the summer in southern France, a series of racist attacks followed - and one actress dropped out before the play transferred to Paris. - The New York Times

How A Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright Teaches Theatre To Her Students

Lynn Nottage: "American Spectacle has always begun with a field trip to the Coney Island Circus Sideshow. ... We also go to vogue balls, courtroom trials, and megachurches. The event that the students especially love, which I never would have anticipated, is wrestling." - Paris Review

Do Poor And Lower-Middle Class Kids Deserve Access To The Humanities?

West Virginia says no. "For most students, their state’s main public university remains their best hope of breaching the walls of class difference. As the ax falls, that idealistic mission fades, and inequalities widen." - The Atlantic

Who Says We Can’t Write New Music In A Thoroughly Baroque Style?

"Nuova Pratica, a group of up-and-coming performer-composers who aim to re-open the book on Baroque composition, … reject the idea that what they do is mere pastiche. …(Their) music issues an unspoken challenge to the idea that everything in the musical language of the Baroque has already been said." - Early Music America

Chicago’s Arts Institutions Are Still Struggling Post-COVID

"A decline in subscription rates, shockingly higher costs, and donations that haven't kept pace with inflation have thrown some arts organizations off-balance and spiraled others into crisis. Museums, music and dance venues have bounced back faster. Theaters struggled, perhaps due to the expense and complexity of staging." - Crain's Chicago Business

A Man Who Investigated The Crimes Of Ferdinand And Imelda Marcos Goes To The Broadway Musical About Them

"Having seen and enjoyed the show in New York, I now realize that I missed the obvious during my years in Manila. The Marcoses, the now-94-year-old Imelda in particular, had for years captured the affection and votes of ordinary Filipinos by entertaining them." - NPR

Why Is This Artist Teaching A Robot Dog How To Paint?

Artist Agnieska Pilat isn't worried that Basia the robot dog might take her job. She "is a self-described techno-optimist who loves the robots: she even lives with Basia, and takes her for walks around her neighbourhood in New York City." - The Guardian (UK)
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