In music, a ground bass is a repeating line in the lowest register — stable, unhurried, underneath everything — that gives performers freedom to improvise above it. It doesn't dictate what you play, but it anchors it, giving shape to the music and making what's above it possible. Ireland just built one for artists. After a three-year pilot that put €325 a week with no strings attached into … [Read more...]
AJ Chronicles: The Biggest Fights about Culture
Editor’s Note: These weekly essays are meant to connect stories from the week to larger trends and ideas across the arts world. To see all the stories on which these essays are drawn from, subscribe to ArtsJournal’s free daily and weekly newsletters. To support our work, sign up at Patreon or subscribe to our Substack newsletter. This week we collected 118 stories. Here's what I … [Read more...]
Paramount and Live Nation/Ticketmaster Won Big Last Week: Here’s why Orchestras and Theatres (and Consumers) Lost
Two huge culture industry deals in the past week, both in entertainment, and maybe they don't seem connected. Certainly not connected to non-profit arts. But these are exactly the kinds of culture infrastructure deals that should worry anyone in the commercial or non-profit culture business because they impact us all. Here's why. Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery signed a merger agreement … [Read more...]
AJ Chronicles: “Future Vision” and what the Boston Symphony signaled this week
This week we collected 123 stories at ArtsJournal. Here's what I learned: The Boston Symphony's board didn't fire Andris Nelsons as its music director. Not exactly. They declined to renew his contract because he and the BSO weren't "aligned on future vision" — the board's own words, offered without apology. Not artistic differences. Not budget. Not performance. Future vision. That phrase is … [Read more...]
Did the Supreme Court just unleash the Era of Radioactive Artist IP?
This morning the Supreme Court denied cert in the AI copyright case Thaler v. Perlmutter, with no dissent noted. A computer scientist had listed his AI system as the sole author of an artwork and tried to copyright it. Every court said no and that the Copyright Act requires a human author. The Supremes let this judgment stand. The creative world will treat this as a victory. Human authorship … [Read more...]
AJ Chronicles: The Battles for Who gets to say what Culture Is
Two stories this week add up to something important when placed side-by-side. Congressional Republicans introduced a bill to nationalize book banning, which would give federal authorities sweeping powers to purge school and public library collections of content they don't like. In the second, a volunteer group called Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian has spent thousands of hours photographing … [Read more...]
When “Better Than” meets “Good Enough”
Maybe you've seen the video below this week? It features the latest robotics by a Chinese robotics firm harnessed for a demonstration at this year's Spring Festival Gala. Give it a minute. I'll wait. Having seen the videos of dancing robots by Boston Robotics at MIT, I'm blown away by this. Also unsettled. The robots are incredible. And also: are they? What does incredible even mean here? … [Read more...]
AJ Chronicles: Metropolitan Opera as Poster Child
The Metropolitan Opera announced its 2026–27 season this week, and the headline takeaway is this: 17 productions. The fewest in a full season since the company moved into Lincoln Center in 1966. More than a third of all performances will be Aida, La Bohème, or Tosca. Peter Gelb, whose long tenure has been marked by entrepreneurial ambition and significant financial struggle, simultaneously … [Read more...]
The Middleware Manifesto: A Proposal for Rebuilding American Culture
In my last post, Why the Death of American Leadership may run through your Local Orchestra, I argued that the struggles of institutions like orchestras and newspapers aren't a series of isolated but mounting failures but a systemic breakdown in the civic middle, the connective tissue that holds communities together. It's happening not only across the arts but across our political, civic and … [Read more...]
AJ Chronicles: This Week’s Stories — Changing of the Guard
This week there's a question that connects nearly every story. Who gets to decide what's real? A viral AI-generated video of Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt is racking up views. Neither actor consented or was paid. SAG-AFTRA is furious. Lawsuits await. Meanwhile, Tracey Emin is telling young artists to buy cameras, keep diaries, and send letters because everything on your phone already belongs … [Read more...]