"Culture really does become a matter of life and death, then, when a society is under pressure. This can be for good or for ill: how narrative is shaped can, of course, be damaging – or dishonest." - The Guardian (UK)
"This right wing strategy of attacking visibility isn’t limited to LGBQT+ books. According to Ginny Wehrli-Hemmeter, director of events and marketing at Anderson’s Bookshop, a large independent bookstore in Naperville, Ill., 'Any book with a cover showing a person of color on it gets covered up.'" - LitHub
"Financial losses specifically from NFT crimes just through May this year were already more than 600% higher than for all of 2021, with the space seeing twice as many hacks and bigger and bigger heists. ... For many victims, there’s little hope of getting their lost art back." - Los Angeles Times
"For years, both have been susceptible to a hero complex where the cause of great architecture is so exalted that almost no sacrifice is too much to be made in its name." It's simply got to end. - The Observer (UK)
Like the one that celebrates the U.S. Border Patrol's whipping, from horseback, of Haitian refugees? "Unofficial coins ... are funded independently and reflect a more clandestine tradition among agents to valorize their jobs. CBP agents allegedly promote them in a secret Facebook group." - Hyperallergic
"For those who know Dark Mofo for its gothic bombast, weird surprises and controversial headlines, this year's festival ... may feel a little different. But after a programming controversy last year which led to public outrage, calls to boycott and an eventual apology, perhaps it had to be." - The Guardian
That was the proposition of Kevin Kelly, founding executive editor of Wired: if you can amass 1,000 people who'll each spend $100 annually to support your work, that's a good middle-class living. That didn't work out in the '90s or '00s, but might it be possible now? - The New Yorker
“BAM isn’t just for one audience. We were consistently sold out this season and more often than not had a standby line. That’s because the programming is doing lots of different things. And that diversity of programming allows us to reflect the diversity of this borough.” - Variety
Actress Renata Litvinova: "I suddenly realized that maybe I'm never going back." Director Kirill Serebrennikov: "I continue to allow myself the illusion that my departure was not a permanent escape." Scientist Ilya Kolmanovsky: "With time, people will come to understand that Putin's invasion was also an attack on Russia." - GQ
In order to live together, and to acknowledge each other and engage each other in a democratic society, conflict is necessary. Otherwise, we risk "not just forms of suppression but also extermination, expelling and annihilating those who are viewed as the source of conflict." - Aeon
With Rick Caruso, developer of upscale "lifestyle centers" (that is, malls without roofs), being one of the finalists for mayor of Los Angeles, Carolina A. Miranda considers the history of shopping malls, their purposes, and how the could recover from their widely-noted decline. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
With a years-long civil war in Mali cutting off access, you simply cannot get to the historic city from abroad. But you can still send postcards to loved ones from there. - Atlas Obscura
Joan Acocella reminds us how utterly different the character and narrative in the original novel by Carlo Collodi are from Walt Disney's 1940 movie. The story has been remade and adapted dozens of times since; Hollywood has two more on the way and a third in the works. - The New Yorker
Ukraine's Ministry of Culture and Information Policy says that as of June 9, "389 cultural heritage sites have been destroyed or damaged since the invasion began." Is this accident or deliberate targeting? An international effort is underway to find out. - The Art Newspaper
