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Hans Haacke, The First Artist To Confront American Museums With Politics

Before Haacke, museums were considered … 'genteel and politically marginal.' Robber barons might have donated to them to enhance their social clout, but such cultural largess was seldom questioned. Today, though, …, Haacke’s work is more than just relevant — it’s prophetic." - T — The New York Times Style Magazine

The Digital Age And The Collapse Of Self-Worth

What we hardly talk about is how we’ve reorganized not just industrial activity but any activity to be capturable by computer, a radical expansion of what can be mined. Friendship is ground zero for the metrics of the inner world, the first unquantifiable shorn into data points. - The Walrus

New Jersey Performing Arts Center Is Building A Major Housing And Retail Complex

The $336 million project, called ArtSide, is one of the largest real estate projects in Newark in decades. It will include roughly 350 apartments, 15 townhouses and ground-floor retail in a seven-story midrise building and a 25-story tower. Profits from the development will go to support NJPAC programming. - The New York Times

Culture Of De-Culturation: Is Our Culture Dying?

Olivier Roy believes that a range of abstract and apparently unstoppable forces—globalization, neoliberalism, postmodernism, individualism, secularism, the Internet, and so on—are undermining culture by rendering it “transparent,” turning our cultural practices into “a collection of tokens” to be traded and displayed. - The New Yorker

University Of The Arts In Philadelphia Files For Liquidation, Will Sell Its Buildings

"Philadelphia’s nearly 150-year-old University of the Arts has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after (suddenly) closing this summer. The process will allow the school to sell its real estate holdings in the Center City neighborhood, estimated in value at $87 million, in an effort to meet $46 million in bond debt." - Artnet

San Francisco Symphony Chorus Authorizes Strike Ahead Of Thursday’s Season Opener

"According to AGMA, 100% of the paid choristers voted in favor of the authorization, with 98% of eligible members participating. Additionally, 81% of the unpaid singers scheduled to perform pledged to honor a picket line." The announced work on the program: Verdi's Requiem - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

San Antonio Philharmonic Plagued By Board And Staff Turnover

"The resignation, on the day before the opening concert of the season, of CFO Sylvia Romo, hired by Executive Director Roberto Treviño in January, follows a string of staff resignations, terminations and nonrenewed contracts throughout Treviño’s 14-month tenure. - San Antonio Report

The Historian Who Understood Immediately That Putin’s Invasion Was A Threat To Ukraine’s Cultural Heritage

“Marushchak has achieved something quite extraordinary. He has organised the evacuation of dozens of museums across Ukraine’s frontline – packing, recording, logging and counting each item and sending them to secret, secure locations away from the combat zone." - The Guardian (UK)

The Memes That Could Start – Or Perhaps End – Wars

“Digital disinformation is a growing shadow industry. It thrives because of the weak enforcement of content-moderation policies, the increasing influence of social-media figures as political intermediaries, and a regulatory environment that fails to hold tech companies accountable.” And it’s getting worse. - The Atlantic

Two Iranian Directors Are Still Under House Arrest For A Gentle Comedy About An Old Married Couple

“The couple never meant to make political movies, Sanaeeha . ‘But in Iran, everything is political.’” (The issue here? A 70-year-old woman character doesn’t wear hijab … inside her own home.) - The Guardian (UK)

The Breakdancer Who Got Zero Points At The Olympics Is Now Ranked No. 1 In The World

Yes, Raygun (civilian name: Dr. Rachael Gunn), the Australian academic whose singularly odd performances and (ahem) perfect score made her one of the viral sensations of the Paris Games, is — due to quirks in the rules of competitive breaking's governing body — temporarily leading the sport's rankings. - The Wall Street Journal (MSN)

The Billionaire Composer And His Ability To Buy High-Profile Performers

The composer had seemingly appeared from nowhere. Now he was engaging the world’s best soloists to perform his music—compositions that some musicians and critics found amateurish at best and soulless at worst. - Van

The Internet Archive Court Loss Traps Libraries In Untenable Position

This decision harms libraries. It locks them into an e-book ecosystem designed to extract as much money as possible while harvesting (and reselling) reader data en masse. It leaves local communities’ reading habits at the mercy of curatorial decisions made by four dominant publishing companies thousands of miles away. - MIT Technology Review

NaNoWriMo Suggested Using AI To Write Novels, And Actual Novelists Are Furious

The organization argued that AI helps disabled or marginalized writers who don't have industry connections. As one of many now-former members put it, "It’s pretty insulting to imply that the only way members of marginalized communities can get their foot in the door is through the use of a plagiarism machine." - Slate (MSN)

In A Painful Profile, Kathy Bates Says That Her Current Role Will Be Her Last

Bates — who said she'll retire after finishing the title role in the reboot of the TV series Matlock — was having a very rough day (and didn't cancel) when she met reporter Alexis Soloski, who wrote frankly about what she saw and the pain the beloved actress was in. - The New York Times

John Eliot Gardiner, Fired By The Ensembles He Founded, Creates New Ones

In July, the board of the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras broke ties with the conductor, 11 months after he punched a singer in the face. Now Gardiner is launching the Constellation Choir and Orchestra, which in December will tour with the same program his former groups are performing without him. - The Guardian

“Gentle Giant Of Chamber Music In America,” Anthony Checchia, Has Died At 94

He was the longtime general manager of the Marlboro Music Festival, Vermont's great summer school for music students, and founding artistic director of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, which he developed into one of the busiest and most prestigious chamber music series in the country. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

What The Internet Archive Decision Means To All Of Us

The Internet Archive “is the only keeper of the internet’s first days, via the Wayback Machine. ... The archive is a huge source for Wikipedia citations, and makes a stand against publisher monopolies. Most of all? If it’s destroyed, millions and millions of cultural items could be lost to history.” - LitHub

Little Free Library Plans To Get Banned Books Into The Hands Of The People

Check the map. “Florida and Texas have the most bans in place, with 2647 and 1469 in place respectively. Thankfully the number of Little Free Libraries is higher in both states: Florida has 2886, and Texas has 2373.” - LitHub

Mexican Singer Jaramar Sotos Has A Passion For Revitalizing The Voices Of Women In Baroque Music

The Grammy winner stumbled across 17th-century music by accident. “Much of this Baroque music was written by women who sang about the pain of lost loves who went off to sea. They sang of nostalgia, melancholy and passion. Many of them are also … long forgotten.” - El Pais
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