"Police in Kashmir have raided dozens of bookstores and seized more than 650 books as part of crackdowns on dissent in the Indian-administered region. Most of the titles were written by Abul A’la Maududi, a prominent 20th-century Islamic scholar who founded Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamic organisation banned in Kashmir." - The Guardian
This report represents the first time the Australian book industry has been granted a detailed level of insight into recreational readers and also offers ideas on how to motivate more Australians to read. - ArtsHub
Exhibition giant Cinemark reported record fourth-quarter revenue of $814 million, up 27 percent year-over-year and 3 percent above the pre-COVID pandemic fourth quarter of 2019. - The Hollywood Reporter
With each day bringing new troubles and concerns, how should we proceed? Ideally, with boldness, though that quality seems to be in short supply, especially in the arts world. What a far cry from 2016 when, within hours of the shock Election Day result, Toni Morrison’s quote that “this is precisely the time when artists go to work. -...
Over a 50-year career, the Malian writer-director did much to establish sub-Saharan African film as an internationally recognized industry in terms of art as well as commerce. He was the first Black African filmmaker to win a feature film award at Cannes: a Special Jury Prize in 1987 for Yeelen. - AP
The Culture Secretary is expected to use a speech in Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of William Shakespeare, to announce a new £270 million Arts Everywhere Fund to help organisations in urgent need of financial support. - The Independent
It plays like a David Mamet drama, complete with an inciting incident, characters bringing years of baggage to every scene and a surprising climax. Its cast includes a president carrying a grudge, a board of megawealthy executives unaccustomed to being fired, A-list celebrities and drag queens dragged into the fray. - The Wall Street Journal (MSN)
The evolution of cooperation has been of interest to biologists, philosophers and anthropologists for centuries. If natural selection favours self-interest, why would we cooperate at an apparent cost to ourselves? - Aeon
"They constitute an unusual cohort, bucking the bad news of the American theater by having made it past emerging to emerged. Granted, pretty much all of them did so with the help of other industries. … These nontheater jobs are how playwrights make real money and get health insurance." - The New York Times
Police seized 71 paintings, including fake Rembrandts, Picassos, Warhols, and Banksys, some completed and others half-finished, along with a plethora of painting materials, forged certificates of authenticity, and bogus catalogues. Authorities say evidence suggests that an art restorer is at the center of the racket. - The Guardian
"(A Federal judge) ordered Watson and his company to pay over $36 million in restitution and nearly $60 million in forfeiture … for his involvement in a fraud scheme in which he conspired to impersonate a YouTube executive and repeatedly lied to investors about the now-defunct media company’s finances." - Courthouse News Service
The Center gets only 16% of its budget from Federal money, and that's for maintenance, repairs and operation of the building, which the government owns. The now-fired CEO and board chairman were very successful fundraisers, and the chairman a major donor. Will anyone be making up for that? - The New York Times
The state’s Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund, which helps organizations meet new pay and benefit requirements, launches this year with a $12.5 million budget. The California Arts Council has suffered only half the originally proposed cut, and San Francisco city arts spending has held steady. - San Francisco Classical Voice
Next season the company will experiment with scheduling consecutive performances of the same opera with different casts, this to save money by not moving sets in and out of the theater. There will be more performances of the most popular repertory staples and fewer performances of contemporary works on weekends. - AP
