Looking at the eight years before and after #OscarsSoWhite, the USC study found that 8% of nominees between 2008 and 2015 were from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups. In the post-#OscarsSoWhite era between 2016 and 2023, that number increased to 17%. - Los Angeles Times
Neglected equipment, screens sagging or dusty with popcorn flecks, images that are too dark and sometimes bleed off the screen. "If a movie theater can't perform its most basic function and deliver a sharp, well-lit image, we might as well knock it down and put up a bank." - New York Magazine
"These changes ... are handed down in communiqués written by obscure 'experts' who purport to speak for vaguely-defined 'communities,' remaining unanswerable to a public that's being morally coerced. ... The liturgy changes without public discussion, and with a suddenness and frequency that keep the novitiate off-balance, forever trying to catch up." - MSN (The Atlantic)
"Vermeer's production was certainly larger, so the hunt continues. ... Art historians have found it particularly difficult to track down Vermeer's work for a number of reasons: ... only half his known works are signed, and, most importantly, he remained relatively unknown outside Holland until the late 19th century." - The Art Newspaper
The Tanesar sculptures were stolen from India circa 1961, ultimately ending up at such prominent locations as LACMA, the British Museum, and the Met. While many of the statues currently sit in legal limbo, Elizabeth Kadetsky went to find the rural temple that had once been their home. - The American Scholar
Journalist Hugh Morris managed to score the ultimate prize of a cheap-tickets-for-young-audiences scheme: £1 admission to the most expensive classical arts venue in London. It turned out to be standing room, midweek, at the back of the very top balcony. Here's his report. - Van
"Without a wider strategy, the worry for many is that the changes in Arts Council England grants won't come in conjunction with other kinds of spending – education, transport links, infrastructure, as just a few examples – that are needed to ensure new cultural investment actually helps an area." - PoliticsHome (UK)
"Leonard Cohen's children and heirs, Lorca and Adam Cohen, have filed a motion accusing the legendary singer-songwriter's former manager, Robert Kory, and his legal representatives of forgery and asking the court to remove him from the role of trustee and to compel him to turn over the estate's assets." - Variety
On top of leading Black viewership among cable networks with 173,000 Black viewers on average in February — ahead of CNN’s 105,000 Black viewers and Fox News Channel’s 24,000 total viewers on average — MSNBC is also the home of the 10 highest-rated cable news programs among Black Americans. - The Wrap
His career reached across more than half a century, largely inextricable from jazz’s complex evolution during that span. His sound was brighter on soprano, an instrument on which he left an incalculable influence; he could be inquisitive, teasing or elusive, but always with a pinpoint intonation and clarity of attack. - The New York Times
Hannah Arendt argues that while objectivity, as the view from nowhere, might be both an impossible and undesirable aim, there has been ever since Homer an achievable norm for the making of claims in public debate over matters of fact that can be established. - Hedgehog Review
For the many independent artists who say that work they have posted online — in hopes of attracting paying gigs, or at least an audience — has been stolen by powerful companies, seeking redress has led to an uphill battle. - The New York Times
On February 24, the first anniversary of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, the Ukrainian postal service released a new stamp featuring a Banksy mural and the shorthand “FCK PTN!” in Cyrillic. - Hyperallergic
"Acting is not so much a job for Dafoe as a way of being, a practice so essential he can't go without it. ... 'He wants very much to be needed,' says (director Elizabeth) LeCompte. 'And if he's needed, he'll give everything. He has to work.'" - T — The New York Times Style Magazine
