It is not just a pretty idea. The UPenn Social Impact of the Arts Project studied New York City in 2017. Their data showed that neighborhoods with cultural assets had improved outcomes in education, aging, mental health, public safety and decreased engagement with the criminal justice system. - New York Daily News
The report tracked “astonishing, nearly absurd” cases of political interference at some museums, the commissioners say, and outlines how some museums are poorly run. - The Art Newspaper
Nearly half of all art exhibitions showcased by U.S. museums between 2017 and 2021 were dedicated to less than five percent of a quarter of a million artists, ranging from those born at the start of the 20th century to those working today, according to a new survey. - ARTnews
Another thing that’s changed “is it turns out we like our neighbors. And there are plenty of communities that are under-represented in our spaces, or are economically unable to participate or have a limited participation. - Cedar Rapids Gazette
We discovered that at the center of the arts in the San Francisco Bay Area is the anchor artist: someone central to their community who inevitably pushes the field forward. - Hyperallergic
English-language writers seem to use the word over and over (as praise), though critics in other languages don't use equivalents. (Croustillant or croquant? Non.) Certainly nothing like the word appears in old treatises. Baroque violinist and musicologist Addi Liu considers what crisp does and doesn't really mean. - Early Music America
Recommendation systems pose difficult questions about what it means to speak, and whether speaking is something that only a person does. How do we draw a line between expressions and actions? And who (or what) can be considered a ‘speaker’? - Psyche
It was quite the literary drama: Customs in Bombay had impounded the first shipment of Nabokov's novel, the ministers of justice and finance were involved, and back then (1959) there was no Censor Board. So Jawaharlal Nehru himself read the book and rendered his decision. - Scroll (India)
It might seem the other way around: that our fleeting attention is the result of an internet that’s unrelentingly feeding us the now. But my hunch is that people feel stuck or move on because online, these events feel like things that have happened, rather than something that is happening. - The Atlantic
Declares the playwright, "It makes no sense in the structure of the play. It's a complete interruption of the narrative." But she won't cut it because "I don't think it came from me. ... (Writing it) literally felt like I was taking dictation." Yet actor David Morse made sense of it. - Variety
Stalin was a man of ideas, to the point where he thought that by changing the ideas to which people are exposed he could redesign human nature itself. - New Criterion
The Lady of Heaven, about Fatima and her husband Ali (the first Shia imam), was written by a Shia cleric and seems intended to be reverent. But following angry protests calling the movie blasphemous and sectarian, the Cineworld chain has pulled it from screens. - BBC
There are around 831 eligible voters—and still ballots to be completed and votes totted up. The Daily Beast spoke to three voters anonymously about who and what they were voting for, and what buzz and gossip they had heard from fellow voters. - The Daily Beast
Laura Fernandez, who studied and then danced at the Mariinsky in St. Petersburg before becoming first soloist at Moscow's Stanislavsky Theatre, has family in Mariupol. "I would tell my friends in Moscow and they would say, 'No, it's fine, they're not killing those guys, they're saving them'." - The Guardian
While she has done repeating guest-star roles and specials (and the unforgettable miniseries Fresno), the 89-year-old actress has not had a regular role in a series since her variety show ended in 1978. Burnett will star alongside Kristen Wiig in the Apple comedy series Mrs. American Pie. - The Hollywood Reporter
