The program will cover two thousand arts and culture workers for a span of three years. The government has earmarked €25 million ($28.3 million) for the plan, which is expected to go into force later this winter. - ArtForum
After starting as kids’ entertainment, they were used as World War II propaganda and even a vehicle for public education about the atomic bomb. Then some comics, pursuing an adult audience, grew dark, violent and sexual enough to cause an outright moral panic. And then came the '60s. - The Nation
These visionary entrepreneurs, who represent some of the continent’s best talent in professions ranging from architecture to finance, are creating new models of preserving and showcasing art, history and culture. From Lagos to Luanda, they are building local museums, archives, libraries, arts spaces, and cultural centers. - Hyperallergic
The ritual of sema (as it's called) is meant to be a sacred meditative practice, and its practitioners are devout Sufis uncomfortable with commercialization. On the other hand, the Turkish city where they live needs the tourist money. - PRI's The World
Jacqueline René, for instance, can do, and has done, everything from Nala the lioness and Shenzi the zebra to the bird lady, a patch of savanna grass, and the eye of the ghost of Mufasa — all depending on who tested positive for COVID that day. - New York Magazine
He had only the rudiments of Indian classical training and played in an unorthodox manner, using up to seven drums instead of the conventional two. He spent a long career working with musicians from John McLaughlin to Miles Davis to Ornette Coleman to Herbie Mann. - The New York Times
The program, launched by the city government and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts last March, provides $1,000 a month, no strings attached, to 130 participants (chosen from 25,000 applicants). Here's a look at how two of them, a choreographer and a writer/teacher, are doing. - San Francisco Chronicle
"It is a vast online trove of Duchampiana" assembled by the Association Marcel Duchamp, the Pompidou Center, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, "a virtual 'readymade,' now available to scholars, artists, and the general public all over the world." - MSN (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
In execution, it's sort of lame: instead of explosions, a title card is slipped in to say that the authorities foiled Project Mayhem and Tyler Durden was sent to a "lunatic asylum." And, says one source, this was probably done by the distributor, not the government's censors themselves. - Variety
In the city of Satkhira, near the giant Sundarban mangrove swamp on the Indian border, the Friendship Hospital, designed by the Dhaka-based firm Urbana, manages to channel rain, wind, and sunlight to keep people as dry, cool, and well-lit as possible in such a setting. - The Guardian
The Orquesta Sinfónica Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho in Caracas is already the country's least conventional symphonic ensemble: they frequently perform in the barrios and regularly explore fusion with Afro-Caribbean music. Their most recent project, Sinfonía Desordenada (Disorderly Symphony), turned out to be, er, aptly named. - National Geographic
Let’s call them “bizart-house movies,” for lack of a better term — unapologetically odd and original creations, led by a gifted group of rebel auteurs who don’t kowtow to popular expectations. - Variety
A majority (69%) of orchestras are planning a hybrid (digital and in-person) season for 2021-22. Once halls return to full capacity audiences, 45.9% of orchestras plan to continue some of the digital activity they’re doing... La Scena Musicale
A digital drug for anyone with a phone, and especially young people, the TikTok app uses random reinforcement — similar to a slot machine on the Las Vegas strip — to keep users scrolling. It has changed the way Americans tell and view stories. - Salon
In her own telephone conversation with The Daily Beast, Nina Totenberg—a towering presence at NPR who has been there since 1975—responded to NPR's public editor Kelly McBride, the justices, and general criticism of her story. - The Daily Beast
