Stories

So An AI Has Just Declared A Painting By A Street Artist More Valuable Than A Picasso. Questions Abound

What’s worth more—a Picasso or a painting by a street artist no one has heard of? According to the AI model we built, the answer is the latter. - ARTnews

How Short-Form Video Clips Took Over The Internet

Once you start looking, you realize that short video clips—not tweets, or posts, or static photos—have become the atomic unit of online content. Short-form video, of course, isn’t new, but the prevalence of the clips is. - The Atlantic

Martha Graham’s Revolution Continues

Graham saw herself primarily as a dancer—she made dances, she said, so that she would have something to dance. It could be said that she invented a people and a place. - The New Yorker

The New LACMA: Architectural Drama At The Expense Of Art

Carolina Miranda: "In some ways, this freeway-like building could not be more LA: messy, sprawling, too big to take in from a single vantage point. In others — its embrace of the road and its relentless horizontal-ness — it seems stuck in a vision of the past." - Bloomberg

AI Can Make Anyone An “Influencer”

Across social media, an influx of A.I.-generated avatars is reshaping what it means to be an influencer. A Facebook group called Baddies in AI, geared toward women who are using A.I. to either augment their own social-media presence or create entirely new figures from scratch, has more than three hundred thousand members. - The New Yorker

Who Does Trump Want To Hire To Redo The National Mall Reflecting Pool? His Pool Guy

Trump originally envisioned the pool being topped with turquoise so that it would look like the Bahamas, but was convinced by the contractor to choose “American flag blue” instead. - Artnet

Former LiveNation Exec Says He Was Fired After Raising Concerns Over Business Practices

In his new position, Rumanes said, he raised “serious and legitimate alarm” over the company’s business practices. As a result, he says, he was “unlawfully terminated,” according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. - Los Angeles Times

What Did It Take To Put Together The Met’s Epic Raphael Show?

The largest survey dedicated to the Renaissance master in the U.S. includes 33 of his paintings and 142 works on paper. About 60 public institutions from 11 countries sent their treasures by the man born Raphael Sanzio da Urbino (1483–1520). Private loans include his two most expensive works at auction. - Artnet

The Vegas Sphere Could Have Been An Epic Disaster. Instead It Sells More Tickets Than Anywhere Else In The World

The venue that created a new type of live entertainment has become the highest-grossing arena in the world, with $379 million on 1.7 million tickets sold last year, according to Pollstar. When it opened three years ago, it had all the signs of an impending disaster. - The Wall Street Journal

The Secret Sauce Of Schmigadoon

It’s the sound. - American Theatre

Did Shakespeare Bring Down McCarthy?

Or was it Kit Marlowe, getting some long-delayed revenge on conservatives in government? - The Atlantic

Everybody Loves A Sea Lion

But not everybody is a Broadway star, wandering down San Francisco’s Pier 39 and singing to the assembled sea lions. - San Francisco Chronicle

The Art Of Writing An Opera Libretto

"As a librettist, I’m always aware that I’m serving the music. It’s a humbling experience. Coming from the world of theater is a good thing, because theater is all about collaboration and interpretation—you place the work in the hands of others, and it begins to transform.” - Paris Review

Instagram Commenters Went Wild When Boston’s Museum Of Fine Arts Posted Nudes Online

But the museum was expecting - even welcoming - the commentary. - Boston Globe

The Rocky Statue Has Entered The Building

That is to say, the Rocky Balboa statue is no longer on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art - it’s actually inside. Wild, because “when the bronze statue was left on the steps after filming the Rocky movies, the museum fought to have it removed.” - CBS News

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