ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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Classical Radio In The US Has Done Astoundingly Well Through The Pandemic

"Stations rose to the occasion to provide refuge from a world that felt scary and uncertain. That has translated into ratings records" — WDAV in Charlotte actually reached no. 1 in its market — "strong fundraising and a reminder of the value of classical stations to local arts organizations." - Current

Russian Artists Abroad On Putin’s War And Oppression And The Prospects Of Returning Home

Sarah Kaufman talks to performers who've been expatriates for decades but sometimes work in Russia (such as conductor Vladimir Jurowski) and one (theater director Dmitry Krymov) who happened to be traveling to a gig in Philadelphia when the war started and won't be going back. - The Washington Post

The Academic Press With Crossover Appeal

Duke has become known as a press that blends scholarly rigor with conceptual risk-taking, where high and low art boldly intermingle on principle. - The New Yorker

How A Couple Of Philadelphia Stations Invented The Local TV Newscast (And Messed Up American Race Relations)

In 1965, KYW-TV debuted Eyewitness News, followed in 1970 by WPVI's Action News, creating many of the local newscast conventions still in place today. Soon those formats were copied all over the country. Yet the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality made some longstanding American problems worse. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Restoring Notre-Dame With Tools Its 12th-Century Builders Would Have Used

Experimental archaeologists Rick and Laura Brown have reconstructed the human-powered cranes that lifted huge objects during the Middle Ages and replicated the timber-framed roof of a destroyed 14th-century synagogue. Now they're leading a team using medieval tools and techniques to help repair the fire-ravaged Paris cathedral. - Smithsonian Magazine

Why This Moment Of Crises Is An Opportunity For Artists

Change is an act of creation, and that’s what artists do: Through a process of imagining, trying and building, artists create experiences that connect us to our own agency and power. We are in a moment when we urgently need these artists, culture bearers and creative workers. - Bloomberg

The Internet As An Idea (That We’re Trapped In)

The crisis really heats up when the algorithm’s structuring power bends back upon us and constrains us into thinking of ourselves as if we were algorithmic systems. - Los Angeles Review of Books

Post-Sacklers, Museums Are Adding “Morals Clauses” To Donor Agreements

"When a wealthy donor agrees to support an institution in return for naming rights, the lawyers increasingly draw up contracts with carefully worded 'morals clauses'. Such clauses 'allow an institution to protect themselves in the event of a donor falling from grace.'" - The Art Newspaper

What Happens When Students Learn History Through Video Games

Academic historians must now grapple with a new breed of students “for whom Paradox is the historical mother tongue and actual history is only a second language.” - The Atlantic

Oscars Live Updates, The Vanity Fair Edition

This one will be heavy on the red carpet and after-party updates; we'll add other live update news sites here (here's NPR; here's Washington Post; here's the Los Angeles Times) as the show gets closer. - Vanity Fair

What Artists Say Versus What They Do (Climate Change, For Example…)

Renee Fleming’s comment that, as a singer, she doesn’t travel as much as instrumental soloists came just a few minutes after mentioning that she had seen Yannick Nézet-Séguin open the Metropolitan Opera’s 2021-22 season and Carnegie Hall’s season—commuting to Paris for concerts in between. - Van

EU Passes Sweeping New Rules For Big Tech

With these actions, Europe is cementing its leadership as the most assertive regulator of tech companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft. - The New York Times

This Couple Helps COVID-Clobbered Arts Workers Transition Into Tech

"About a week after Broadway shut down, Scott and Catherine Ricafort McCreary launched a support group for artists interested in making a career switch. 'We thought: If your job is gone, there's never a better time to learn what we did." The group? Artists Who Code. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)

COVID Has Cost Us A Generation Of Theatermakers

"The collective pause spurred an unprecedented reflection on what they weren't getting from their prepandemic jobs and what precarious elements they had tolerated. ... Some are leaving the door open to return to theater someday. Others say they'll never go back. Here are 10 of their stories." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)

What Spotify Paid Musicians Last Year

The streaming giant said 52,600 artists earned more than $10,000 (£7,500) from Spotify in 2021. Of those, 130 were paid more than $5m (£3.8m) over the last 12 months. - BBC

The Internet’s Powerful Currency: Shame

What’s curious about the brutality that fuels Internet shaming frenzies is that in real life—that is, IRL, in the usual online parlance—most of us would hesitate to consign a normal nobody to nationwide notoriety and several years of unemployment. - The New Yorker

Forlorn MLA Conference Demonstrates The Decline Of The Humanities In America

In theory, the conference was still happening, but it wasn’t clear whether anyone would be in attendance, or what they’d be doing while there. Who, I wondered, risks death for the conference of a dying profession? - Washington Post

An Innovative And Important New Model For Touring Theatre?

It binds far-flung companies looking for new models for joint offerings. And it brings to theatergoers across the country a play with an inclusive theme and a plan for accessibility for Indigenous people and other diverse audiences. - Washington Post

For The Arts In Other Post-Soviet Republics, It Is Not Business As Usual

"Putin's distortion of history and second-guessing sovereign states is a direct threat to our country also," said one Latvian arts executive. "Aside from experiencing palpable fear of being the next target ..., the cultural scene is pretty much paralyzed at the moment. This all hits too close to home." - Artnet

Is “Moral Clarity” — Even About Ukraine — Anti-Democratic?

My Russian training prompted a question: How could a situation where everyone was morally bound to agree help overcome a collectivist mindset? Freedom and democracy, after all, depend on legitimate differences of opinion.  - First Things
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