AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Actors Unions Frustrated In AI Negotiations With Video Game Industry
According to SAG-AFTRA, a recent proposal submitted by the major video game makers was filled with “alarming loopholes that will leave our members vulnerable to A.I. abuse.” – The Wrap
- No American Play Is More Affected By The Shadows Of Its Previous Actors Than “Streetcar”
And that doesn’t mean only Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, though their shadows are the longest. Ben Brantley revisits some of the other prominent interpreters of the lead roles in A Streetcar Named Desire, from Faye Dunaway and Jon Voight to Gillian Anderson and Ben Foster. – The New York Times
- Consolidating Culture To Death
he past several decades have seen rampant consolidation via mergers and acquisitions across creative fields, all of it backed by rivers of Wall Street equity. In visual media, for example, there are just five major players (Comcast, Disney, Sony, Paramount, and Warner Bros). The music industry, meanwhile, has the big three labels. – Public Books
- How Conquering Other Nations Came To Be Seen As A No-No
It is rare to find anyone who will openly support the idea that annexing territory from another state, after forcibly conquering it, could be legitimate. Conquest exists, of course, but it is almost always disguised as something else. – Aeon
- Imposter Syndrome Is Systemic
Competency checking—whether intentional or unconscious—undermines those who challenge traditional norms of leadership and success. Imposter syndrome, however, masquerades as an internal failing, leading women to pathologize themselves rather than confront the systems perpetuating their struggles. – Time
ISSUES
- How To Spot A Fake Masterpiece? Little Things Count
The divergence of opinion between the museum’s experts and those who doubt the work’s authenticity opens a curious space in which to reflect on intriguing questions of artistic value and merit. Is there ever legitimacy in forgery? Can fakes be masterpieces? – BBC
- They Thought It Was A Canaletto. Turns Out It Was Painted By His Teenaged Nephew
The Grand Canal with San Simeone Piccolo (1737), housed at the Wallace Collection in London, has been reattributed to Bernardo Bellotto, who studied in his uncle’s workshop in the 1730s and early 1740s. – Artnet
- 16th-Century Painting Stolen From Italy Is Discovered In England. Its Current Owner Intends To Keep It
“Madonna and Child by Antonio Solario was taken in 1973 from the civic museum in Belluno in northern Italy. Sometime later it was bought by Baron de Dozsa and taken to his Tudor manor house in eastern England. … It is now in the possession of Barbara de Dozsa, the late baron’s ex-wife.” – AP
- Trump To Slash Agency That Cares For 26,000 Artworks In The Federal Government
Workers expressed fear that the cuts will threaten a collection of precious art housed in federal buildings across the country, including Alexander Calder’s 1974 “Flamingo” at the John C. Kluczynski Federal Building in Chicago and Michael Lantz’s 1942 “Man Controlling Trade” outside the Federal Trade Commission building in D.C. – Washington Post
- Greek Politician Detained After Allegedly Vandalizing Paintings In Museum
Four works at The National Gallery – Alexandros Soutsos Museum in Athens were vandalised earlier this week, allegedly by a Greek member of parliament who described the contemporary pieces as “blasphemous” to Christianity. – The Art Newspaper
MEDIA
- Trump Forces Out Chair Of NEH
“Shelly C. Lowe, the first Native American to lead the National Endowment for the Humanities, has left her role at the direction of President Donald Trump. … The Senate confirmed her appointment in February 2022. The chair (normally) serves a four-year term, according to the agency.” – The Washington Post (MSN)
- NYC Fund To Distribute $60M To More Than A “Thousand” Arts Institutions
Unveiled in February, this year’s CFD will distribute a new record of $59.3 million—north of $1 million more than the previous record—in grants to over a thousand non-profits across the boroughs. Recipients span a wide breadth of cultural, arts, and historical organizations, from marquee NPOs to smaller, more specialized outfits. – BKMag
- Philanthropist Invests $5 Million Each In Milwaukee’s Major Arts Organizations
- How To Protect Artists In The AI World?
The need for responsible AI approaches is becoming increasingly urgent as artists deal with serious concerns regarding copyright infringement and job security. In the UK, the creative industries are worth £126 billion, employing 2.4 million people in 2022. – The Conversation
- Considering The Trump Administration’s War On Drag: Philip Kennicott
“The essence of drag is its exaggeration of gender stereotypes in a theatrical style that gives the performer permission to say outrageous, often offensive things. … That is also the definition of Trump’s style: … performing with hypermasculine bravado in a space where one can’t quite take him seriously.” – The Washington Post (MSN)
MUSIC
- Authors Mock Meta For “Bob Dylan Defense” In Copyright Case
The authors mocked Meta for raising what they call “the Bob Dylan defense” of its torrenting, citing song lyrics from “Sweetheart Like You” that say, “Steal a little and they throw you in jail / Steal a lot and they make you king.” – Ars Technica
- French Authors And Publishers Sue Meta Over Its Use Of Their Material In Training AI
“Three trade groups said they were launching legal action against Meta in a Paris court over what they said was the company’s ‘massive use of copyrighted works without authorization’ to train its generative AI model. (One group) noted that ‘numerous works’ from its members are turning up in Meta’s data pool.” – AP
- People Wrote A Lot Of Poetry During The COVID Pandemic. What Does It Mean?
For most poets, pandemics could provide a context for poems, but rarely became a focus. A tome of significant poems about pandemics would only be achievable with considerable barrel-scraping – perhaps excluding poetry about AIDS, which of course devastated some communities significantly more than others. – The Conversation
- OpenAI Says It Now Has An AI That Is “Really Good” At Creative Writing
That it’s experimenting with writing could suggest OpenAI feels its latest generation of models vastly improve on the wordsmithing front. Historically, AI hasn’t proven to be an especially talented essayist. – TechCrunch
- We’ve Been Missing The Point Of “The Great Gatsby” For A Century
“Gatsby is a more complicated book than its pop-culture footprint suggests. It’s big enough to survive all those turgid high school essays about color symbolism and the American dream, … all those mediocre movies and bad plays. Here’s the story of how The Great Gatsby has endured — and why we keep misreading it.” – Vox
PEOPLE
- Actors Unions Frustrated In AI Negotiations With Video Game Industry
According to SAG-AFTRA, a recent proposal submitted by the major video game makers was filled with “alarming loopholes that will leave our members vulnerable to A.I. abuse.” – The Wrap
- No American Play Is More Affected By The Shadows Of Its Previous Actors Than “Streetcar”
And that doesn’t mean only Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, though their shadows are the longest. Ben Brantley revisits some of the other prominent interpreters of the lead roles in A Streetcar Named Desire, from Faye Dunaway and Jon Voight to Gillian Anderson and Ben Foster. – The New York Times
- Consolidating Culture To Death
he past several decades have seen rampant consolidation via mergers and acquisitions across creative fields, all of it backed by rivers of Wall Street equity. In visual media, for example, there are just five major players (Comcast, Disney, Sony, Paramount, and Warner Bros). The music industry, meanwhile, has the big three labels. – Public Books
- How Conquering Other Nations Came To Be Seen As A No-No
It is rare to find anyone who will openly support the idea that annexing territory from another state, after forcibly conquering it, could be legitimate. Conquest exists, of course, but it is almost always disguised as something else. – Aeon
- Imposter Syndrome Is Systemic
Competency checking—whether intentional or unconscious—undermines those who challenge traditional norms of leadership and success. Imposter syndrome, however, masquerades as an internal failing, leading women to pathologize themselves rather than confront the systems perpetuating their struggles. – Time
PEOPLE
- Actors Unions Frustrated In AI Negotiations With Video Game Industry
According to SAG-AFTRA, a recent proposal submitted by the major video game makers was filled with “alarming loopholes that will leave our members vulnerable to A.I. abuse.” – The Wrap
- No American Play Is More Affected By The Shadows Of Its Previous Actors Than “Streetcar”
And that doesn’t mean only Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, though their shadows are the longest. Ben Brantley revisits some of the other prominent interpreters of the lead roles in A Streetcar Named Desire, from Faye Dunaway and Jon Voight to Gillian Anderson and Ben Foster. – The New York Times
- Consolidating Culture To Death
he past several decades have seen rampant consolidation via mergers and acquisitions across creative fields, all of it backed by rivers of Wall Street equity. In visual media, for example, there are just five major players (Comcast, Disney, Sony, Paramount, and Warner Bros). The music industry, meanwhile, has the big three labels. – Public Books
- How Conquering Other Nations Came To Be Seen As A No-No
It is rare to find anyone who will openly support the idea that annexing territory from another state, after forcibly conquering it, could be legitimate. Conquest exists, of course, but it is almost always disguised as something else. – Aeon
- Imposter Syndrome Is Systemic
Competency checking—whether intentional or unconscious—undermines those who challenge traditional norms of leadership and success. Imposter syndrome, however, masquerades as an internal failing, leading women to pathologize themselves rather than confront the systems perpetuating their struggles. – Time
THEATRE
VISUAL
- Consolidating Culture To Death
he past several decades have seen rampant consolidation via mergers and acquisitions across creative fields, all of it backed by rivers of Wall Street equity. In visual media, for example, there are just five major players (Comcast, Disney, Sony, Paramount, and Warner Bros). The music industry, meanwhile, has the big three labels. – Public Books
- How Conquering Other Nations Came To Be Seen As A No-No
It is rare to find anyone who will openly support the idea that annexing territory from another state, after forcibly conquering it, could be legitimate. Conquest exists, of course, but it is almost always disguised as something else. – Aeon
- Imposter Syndrome Is Systemic
Competency checking—whether intentional or unconscious—undermines those who challenge traditional norms of leadership and success. Imposter syndrome, however, masquerades as an internal failing, leading women to pathologize themselves rather than confront the systems perpetuating their struggles. – Time
- What If We Just Got Rid Of Art?
If the world was wretched, shouldn’t we be transforming it, not distracting ourselves from it?… What would happen if we didn’t soothe ourselves with imagined utopias, but instead did as John Lydon once suggested, and used anger as an energy? – The Guardian
- The Power Of Nothing (It’s A Mental Construct)
Our mental worlds are lively with such experiences of absence, yet it’s a mystery how the mind performs the trick of seeing nothing. How can the brain perceive something when there is no something to perceive? – Aeon
