"Preliminary work has begun on a $335-million expansion of the Colburn School of performing arts designed by Gehry that includes a mid-size concert hall he expects to be in near-constant use for events put on by students, professional artists and academics." - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
"Cairo's citadel, one of the Egyptian capital's most prominent landmarks, opened another wing housing two semi-circular towers to the public on Sunday. … (The 12th-century fortress) was the base of Egypt's government for over 700 years." - Reuters
It turns out that the volumes most frequently pilfered from SFPL shelves aren't, say, bestselling thrillers; they're books about addiction and recovery. So city officials want to start giving such books away for free. - AP
The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction. Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity. - Honest Broker
The Presidents Day Weekend was like a little Christmas gift for Broadway, with grosses for the 23 productions posting a hefty 27% increase over the previous week, topping out at $26,946,864. - Deadline
“We’re at the place where the straw breaks the camel’s back,” Kate Scher said. She called the crisis a “combined product” of the museum’s lack of long-term funding, the pandemic, and shifts in audience habits and philanthropic priorities. - Seattle Times
AI is already changing how musicians compose and play music in ways hard to imagine only a few years ago, opening up new horizons for creative expression and challenging traditional conceptions of musicianship. - San Francisco Chronicle
MoMA had shut down completely. It would not reopen until the following day. Visitors were ferried to the exits. Outside, a soft-spoken museum employee was assisting would-be museumgoers with refunds. “They’re protesting Gaza—our trustees are funding it,” he explained. “We can’t let you see the artwork. There are too many protesters.” - The Nation
"At a certain point, the survival tool, which has kept you safe and kept you warm, which has kept you with your family, it’s allowed you to exist in the world — you gotta cut that fucking thing off," she said. "You gotta cut that thing off, because it’s killing you." - The Atlantic
The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, which operates M+ and the Hong Kong Palace Museum as well as a traditional Chinese opera center and a black-box theater, was created by government statute but receives no government subsidies — and the initial endowment established when WKCDA was created will be gone next year. - ARTnews
In a YouGov survey released in 2023, nearly half of Americans said they didn’t consider themselves artistic. At 58 percent, even more respondents said they weren’t familiar with famous artistic movements or styles. - Vox
Journalist Rachel Handler talks to a somatic psychotherapist, an acting coach to major stars, that coach's son, and several actors and directors, all in a quest to learn how to summon the tears. - Vulture
Art, I have preached, is for bildung, self-development, especially within the context of an undergraduate education. Art helps you to become a deeper, freer version of yourself, etc., etc., blah blah blah, you’ve heard the song a thousand times. So what’s the difference between that and “art is good for us”? - Salmagundi
