"Chain box stores were big businesses, sure, but they were also a crucial third space for casual hangouts and serendipitous run-ins that metro suburbs, smaller cities and rural places often lack." - Bloomberg CityLab
With so many venues losing earned income by closing their doors as COVID spread, individual donors and foundations increased their giving, but government emergency funding made the biggest difference. - SMU Data Arts
"In a deal valued at $16 billion, Nielsen has agreed to sell itself to a consortium of private equity firms led by Evergreen Coast Capital Corp. and Brookfield Business Partners. The $28-per share offer includes the assumption of the measurement giant's debt." - Inside Radio
Topping the list as usual is the Louvre, followed by the State Russian Museum (Mikhailovsky Palace) in St. Petersburg. (Where's the National Museum of China, generally no. 2 if not no. 1? The PRC hasn't yet provided figures for 2021.) - The Art Newspaper
Over a 17-year tenure, she stabilized the orchestra's finances; led it through the Great Recession, a bitter 2011 strike, and COVID; saw the appointment of two music directors; and launched an impressive set of new programs, from neighborhood concerts to live-streaming performances. - Detroit Free Press
“We believe the time has come to move beyond the tired old ‘teaching versus research’ debate and give the familiar and honorable term ‘scholarship’ a broader more capacious meaning, one that brings legitimacy to the full range of academic work.” - 3 Quarks Daily
There is no one past. There are countless pasts. Mine. Yours. The billions, or at least millions, of people who were alive at any given moment. The great, great majority of them never meeting or even knowing of each other, having no discernible influence on each other. - 3 Quarks Daily
Change is an act of creation, and that’s what artists do: Through a process of imagining, trying and building, artists create experiences that connect us to our own agency and power. We are in a moment when we urgently need these artists, culture bearers and creative workers. - Bloomberg
The dance school offers an array of classes that are now both virtual and, finally, in-person. The theater offers some 150 performances a year of dance, music and performance art. The ODC umbrella embraces the Healthy Dancers’ Clinic, which offers free diagnostic services and seminars. - San Francisco Chronicle
Even after that change, and after another year of invitees in 2021 that continued the trend, the Academy still stands at 81 percent white and 67 percent male. And, as a THR analysis of the 17 voting branches shows, the gains have been uneven, among the crafts in particular. - The Hollywood Reporter
As Abu Dhabi continues work on its starchitect-studded Saadiyat Island cultural district, Qatar is following suit with Lusail (designed by Herzog and de Meuron), the Qatar Auto Museum (OMA), and the Art Mill (Elemental) joining the National Museum (Jean Nouvel) and the Museum of Islamic Art (I.M. Pei). - ARTnews
Bihar’s Ministry of Education has pledged to provide 20,000 rupee ($260) to every primary school in the state for museum visits, with the money going towards transport, entry tickets and lunches. While the sum might not seem great, multiplied by the state’s 67,000 eligible schools, it amounts to more than $17.4m. - The Art Newspaper
Before he took the helm, it was a group of largely amateur singers doing "the chestnuts of the golden age of choral music." Now its 100 members are AGMA-card-carrying pros with whom Gershon has given 45 world premieres, and the group's budget has doubled. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
The crisis really heats up when the algorithm’s structuring power bends back upon us and constrains us into thinking of ourselves as if we were algorithmic systems. - Los Angeles Review of Books
