Consider those charitable foundations that have decided to stop funding the arts, or to only fund arts activities that explicitly promote diversity, equality, and justice. This is the reductionist notion that has steered philanthropic giving away from traditional “high culture.” - American Purpose
Instead, the publishing conglomerate’s decision to back away from Mailer points to a different set of financial imperatives, as well as a growing impulse among publishing executives to blame business decisions on junior staff—the industry’s version of inventing someone to be mad at. - The New Republic
Perl’s thesis, most succinctly framed in his concluding chapter, is that the arts, rather than being obliged to convey utilitarian messaging, must instead remain “the products of a process that stands apart from so much of our social, economic and political life.” - The New York Times
The Art Institute union will be the first group of its kind at a major museum in Chicago. It comes amid a larger push by workers in institutions across the U.S. Earlier this week, workers at the Jewish Museum in New York announced a push to unionize. - ARTnews
Charlotte Higgins: "Greek myths don't exist in canonical forms: they are to be retold in the moment, and exist only as contaminated, and endlessly recontaminated, versions of themselves. That makes it a realm, I think, of creative invitation rather than of austere exactitude." - Literary Hub
Judilee Reed is currently the program director of creative communities for the William Penn Foundation, where she leads the organization’s arts and culture and public space grant portfolios in Philadelphia and its surrounding region. - ARTnews
There are now 56 plaintiffs, male and female former students, and 30 defendants, including some female as well as male former faculty and administrators. Most of the alleged abuse dates from the 1970s through 1990s, though one claim dates as late as 2008. - Dance Magazine
American troops brought jazz records with them; Japanese musicians picked up work entertaining the troops. There was a proliferation of jazz kissa (cafes), a distinctly Japanese phenomenon where locals could sit and listen to records for as long as they wanted. - The Guardian
While the orchestra isn't changing performance venues, the 20,000-square-foot Stella Boyle Smith Music Center will include a 300-seat auditorium for rehearsals and student and chamber performances as well as offices, practice and education rooms, and instrument storage. The projected cost: only $9 million. - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Driven by booming appetites for crime novels, sci-fi, fantasy, romance and personal development titles, sales last year showed an increase of 5% on 2020. The sales were worth £1.82bn – a 3% increase on 2020. - The Guardian
The London-based company Corali does, in fact, do programs in those places, but they've also worked with Sadler's Wells theatre and the Tate galleries and created a piece about filmmaker Derek Jarman. Their latest project will see them all impersonating the singular poet Edith Sitwell. - The Guardian
The quarter features an image of Angelou with her arms uplifted, a bird in flight and a rising sun behind her, with a portrait of George Washington on the “heads” side. The US Mint said the image of Angelou was “inspired by her poetry and symbolic of the way she lived”. - The Guardian
As writer Laura Gascoigne puts it here, "Is Gauguin redeemable? By today's standards, no. Would he want to be redeemed? Almost certainly not." - The Spectator (UK)
Composer-performer and "soundscape ecologist" Bernie Krause has used 5,000 hours of field recordings, made over 50 years and featuring 15,000 species, to create The Great Animal Orchestra, commissioned in 2016 by the Fondation Cartier in Paris and opening this year in the US and Australia in 2023. - Artnet
Researchers found two objects, a rune stick with text in both Latin and Norse and a piece of bone with a Norse inscription, in the Norwegian capital's Medieval Park. The pieces are thought to date from between 1100 and 1350. - Smithsonian Magazine
