The platinum necklace with 673 diamonds, originally made for Egypt’s royal family and reportedly worth more than $4 million, was taken in a smash-and-grab at Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts. But at least the thieves paid for their tickets. - AFP (Yahoo!)
“In what came as a bolt from the blue to many, Powerhouse Parramatta staff were told on Thursday afternoon that chief executive Lisa Havilah would stand aside while an investigation (by the New South Wales state government) into governance and procurement practices at the museum is completed.” - Limelight (Australia)
“We are writing to let you know,” said AFM Local 6 in a statement, “that the musicians of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra will not be able to perform on Opening Night, September 12, unless management has reached a fair contract with us before then.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)
“Portrait of Catrina Hooghsaet (1657) is ‘one of the artist’s most exceptional later works’ says the government. The painting, which (is valued at £71 million and) has been in the UK since the mid-18th century, was sold at Christie’s in a private sale last year.” - The Art Newspaper
“A judge on Thursday expressed skepticism about the Kennedy Center’s intention to return President Donald Trump’s name to the historic performing arts venue by early next month, challenging the board’s insistence on moving forward even in the face of a court ruling that blocked and reversed a previous effort.” - AP
“It was an innovation with a carrot and a stick for the artists who benefited from the extra exposure. ... But the offering also came with a carrot for consumers … and the corresponding stick was particularly ugly.” - Tedium
In some cases, you need to make it (ever-so-slightly) harder for people to sign up for the program to help them feel like it’s worth the effort, suggests research forthcoming in Management Science. - Harvard Business Review
AI has both clarified what we should be doing when we teach writing and made it much harder to teach writing than in the days prior to the technology’s existence. - InsideHigherEd
In many ways, YOLA was the glory of the “¡Bienvenido Gustavo!” Bowl program 17 years ago, and it proved even more so for the goodbye Gustavo, or more accurately “hasta pronto,” see you soon. - Los Angeles Times
“The next big gust tore the tarp from our shade structure. I scrambled to secure the flapping tent walls, using water jugs and costume bags as weight. Above the screaming wind, I heard poles clanging as neighboring camps were blown to smithereens. Then, in a lull, I heard a faint voice. ‘Help!’” - The Guardian
Rachael Gunn, the middle-aged Australian breaker who went viral worldwide after coming dead last in the 2024 Olympics: “It’s part of society now, if you end up online, people are going to rubbish you, but maybe we need to reframe it as a badge of honor that you’ve actually done something interesting.” - CNN (MSN)
Cultural significance and institutional stability are not the same. Even the most renowned orchestras depend on funding, infrastructure, audiences and collective bargaining agreements. When they lose elements of this institutional backbone, it can imperil even the strongest orchestra. - Washington Post (MSN)
The figures are growing. Live performance attendance has increased by 1.2 million since 2022, to the highest figures ever. Around three quarters of those surveyed had attended a live performance or festival in 2025. - ArtsHub
By choosing Kehinde Wiley as the opening act in what may be a systematic effort to deaccession art from official government collections, the administration has chosen an artist whose work has become formulaic and clichéd, who has made comments that can easily be parodied as reverse racism. - Washington Post (MSN)
