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Is The Summer Group Show Disappearing From Art Galleries? No, But …

“Some have wondered if the group show is fated to die out altogether. But in talking to dealers and advisers, it seems less like the once-ubiquitous summer group show is not quite disappearing. Instead, galleries have simply become more clear-eyed about the true purpose of these shows.” - ARTnews

How Leisure Became Digital

For many Canadians, play has migrated from board games or the rec leagues to smartphone screens. It’s no longer confined to the weekend or even to a full hour of downtime. Instead, it creeps into moments between work calls, while waiting in line, or during that ambiguous half-hour between Netflix and sleep. - The Walrus

How The Grateful Dead Made Live Music Sound Great At Concerts

Phil Spector had famously created a figurative wall of sound by layering instruments and orchestral sweeps. But the Dead’s wall was essentially a behemoth sound system, a hulking electrical mess of amps, speakers, wires—like the menacing heavy-metal rig in Mad Max: Fury Road, but far larger, louder, and, perhaps, more ludicrous. - The Atlantic

Australia’s New Funding Body For Literature And Writers: What Will It Actually Be Doing?

“On the surface, this is welcome news for Australian writers with its funding package of $26 million ($8.6 million per year) over the next three years. But what exactly does this new support look like in the wider context of Australian literary sector funding over time?” - ArtsHub (Australia)

HBO Returns, Conceding Its Brand Change Was A Colossal Blunder

The gambit to chase Netflix with a service called Max didn’t work. Warner Bros. Discovery’s leaders eventually recognized the tremendous value in the HBO name, and sheepishly brought it back for an encore. - Los Angeles Times

YouTube Is Being Overwhelmed By AI Slop. So Some New Creator Rules…

Alphabet has to acknowledge not only the downsides of AI, but its potential to overwhelm platforms that rely on user-generated content—in other words, rein in instances of repetitive, inauthentic slop created with the very technologies that it’s investing so heavily in. - Fast Company

Roadshow: America’s Midwest Art Museums

Arriving at art museums after four or five hours on these roads, day after day, is reliably uplifting. Everything is reversed. You’re in a huge building, with high ceilings and no predetermined path. You meander through different centuries and cultures, encountering different ideas of beauty, different understandings of power and mortality, different ways of living. - Washington Post

Japan Has A Big Ballet-Fan Community. Now It’s Working On Homegrown Ballet.

“Until recently, that audience lavished attention mostly on prestigious foreign companies that tour Japan regularly, such as the Paris Opera Ballet and the Royal Ballet. The country has struggled to build world-class companies and hold on to the top talent it trains. The National Ballet of Japan wants to change that.” - Financial Times

Actors Unions Approve New Video Game Contract, Ending Strike

As with the dual strikes in 2023, artificial intelligence was a big sticking point in negotiations. As such, the new contract establishes performer safety guardrails and gains around AI, including consent and disclosure requirements for artificially generated digital replica use. - Deadline

Training A New Generation Of Dancers For A Different Kind Of Career

"Today’s young adults have also been through the Covid shutdown, and they’re starting their careers at a time of huge financial uncertainty." - ArtsATL

My Nightmare Job Taking Care Of Patricia Highsmith

“Pat was seventy-four and knew she was about to die. ... I was trapped in her world with her, trembling. She had weeks left to live and had spent so much time writing about how to get away with murder. I fantasized that she might try to kill me.” - The Yale Review

The Bayeux Tapestry To Return To UK – First Time In 1000 Years

Art historian Linda Neagley has argued that pre-Renaissance people interacted with art visually, kinaesthetically (sensory perception through bodily movement) and physically. The Bayeux tapestry would have been hung at eye level to enable this. - The Conversation

Bay Area Theatres Are Folding. The Theatre Landscape Is Collapsing

"We, in the nonprofit theater world, rely on a model that is really not working for anybody. It wasn’t working before the pandemic. The warning signs were there. Nonprofit theater relies on subscribers and grants to invest in a season before it opens." - KQED

Trump-Announced TikTok Sale Raises Questions

M2 appears to be an end-run around this issue, allowing ByteDance to pour in those ingredients but then step away to let Americans run the kitchen. Will we still be as hungry? Less clear. - The Hollywood Reporter

The Company Making Big Operas Work In A Small Theater

Des Moines Metro Opera performs in a house with only 476 seats, yet it has a track record of successfully staging such large-scale works as Wagner’s Flying Dutchman, Strauss’s Elektra and Britten’s Peter Grimes. Audiences are thrilled with the results. - The New York Times

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