Arts news

• How Melancholy Became Hungary’s Literary Brand

  20-08-2026 18:43 via theguardian.com
   Melancholy, an affinity with oblivion without a concrete cause, suffuses the Hungarian fiction translated for foreign audiences over the past 30 years, from the tortured tales of Sándor Márai to the taut novels of Magda Szabó. – The Guardian
  
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• After a Much-Maligned MoMA Retrospective, Björk’s Hometown Museum Gives Her a Second Chance

  21-08-2026 13:00 via artnews.com
  
  “When you listen to a song for the first time, it is like swallowing a whale.” So reads the wall text in an exhibition by Björk, a pop star whose relationship to music has long been unique, to say the least. She adds, in the same handwritten scrawl, “I don’t think of myself as a visual artist … Everything I do comes from a sonic point of view. This is something I have called ‘sonic symbolism,’ sound made visual, a reverse synesthesia.”All of
  
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• Who Vouches For The Work Now?

  21-08-2026 00:03 via artsjournal.com
  Good Morning,Google has built a tool that tells fact-checkers whether an image was machine-made, whether it’s been altered, and where else it has surfaced (Nieman Lab). Provenance as a service — infrastructure for a question that didn’t really need infrastructure five years ago.Which makes the day’s other verification story more difficult. Harvard is closing its writing center, and faculty read the timing as of a piece with the university’s enthusiasm for AI on camp
  
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• Could Disney Actually Win Its Lawsuit Against FCC Over Threats To ABC’s License?

  20-08-2026 21:02 via yahoo.com
  “Disney has a far stronger case against (Trump-appointed FCC chairman Brendan) Carr than Carr has against Disney,” a former FCC chief of staff said. “I doubt any court would uphold Carr’s failure to renew Disney’s license.” Alas, it’s not quite that simple. – TheWrap (Yahoo!)
  
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• After Leadership Shakeup, Telfair Museums Names Caitlín Doherty as Next Director

  20-08-2026 20:33 via artnews.com
  
  The Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia, has announced that Caitlín Doherty as its new executive director. She will assume the post in October.Doherty is the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville in Florida. She joined the institution joined the instiuttion in 2017, following a tenure as chief curator at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum in Michigan. At the time of her appointment to MOCA Jacksonville, its board said she possessed an “X factor, that rare quality
  
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• In Russia: The Publishers’ Plot

  20-08-2026 20:31 via lrb.co.uk
  
  In May 2025, ten people affiliated with Eksmo, Russia’s publishing behemoth, were detained in Moscow. Three of them, Pavel Ivanov, Dmitry Protopopov and Artyom Vakhlyaev, were charged with ‘organising activities of an extremist organisation’. Their crime was distributing LGBT-themed books. –London Review of Books
  
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• Why Ever More Of Hollywood’s Production Is Happening Anywhere But Hollywood

  20-08-2026 20:04 via msn.com
  “Los Angeles and California continue to struggle to keep movies, television series and even game shows from fleeing elsewhere. … The story of how L.A. steadily lost much of its homegrown industry to other locales is a tale of hubris, escalating costs, political inaction and fierce competition (from other locales).” – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
  
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• The Fan Psychology

  20-08-2026 19:44 via nplusonemag.com
  
   The fan at heart is a manager of excess: too much feeling, too much weight on too little incident. This is a kind of madness after all, the madness of meaning-making under a few too many constraints. – N plus 1
  
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• Why The Closing Of Harvard’s Writing Center Matters

  20-08-2026 19:32 via theatlantic.com
  
  A Harvard faculty member who requested anonymity so that he could speak openly told me he worried that the elimination of the center could be seen as part of a broader trend of “real boosterism” of AI on campus—one that students feel acutely. – The Atlantic
  
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• Research: Majority Of Americans Are Anxious About AI

  20-08-2026 19:15 via pewresearch.org
  
  Today, 52% of Americans say they are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life – up from 37% in 2021. Another 9% are more excited than concerned and 37% say they’re equally excited and concerned, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 22-28, 2026. – Pew Research
  
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• A Dance Critic Considers High-Level Surfing As Ballet

  20-08-2026 19:01 via nytimes.com
  Gia Kourlas on champion Caitlin Simmers: “Her undulating torso, her sensitivity to the fluctuations of an unsteady surface and her speed are all part of her power. … Her clarity comes from her deep center of gravity, which allows her to slice up and down waves like a silken ribbon.” – The New York Times
  
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• Visitors to the Walker Art Center Encounter Olalekan Jeyifous’s Digital Artwork and Wrongly Brand It ‘AI Slop’ 

  20-08-2026 18:51 via artnews.com
  
  Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center and the artist Olalekan Jeyifous are refuting accusations by some museum visitors that his work was made using generative AI, reports MPR News. Jeyifous, born in Nigeria and living in New York, is also an architect and designer, and uses some of the digital tools that are often employed in those fields. His first museum solo, “Hydricosmic Litanies,” is organized by the Walker’s associate curator for visual arts, Taylor Jasper.The show, whic
  
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• ‘Amateur Artist’ Charged in $80K Theft From Minneapolis Painter’s Studio

  20-08-2026 18:38 via artnews.com
  
  Minneapolis police have identified one of two people they believe stole roughly $80,000 worth of artwork from the studio of 80-year-old artist Leon Hushcha, in a burglary that involved a UPS vest, a handcart, and, apparently, another artist.Ricardo Andres Bassat, 56, has been charged with felony burglary and is due in Hennepin County District Court on Monday, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. Police are still looking for his alleged accomplice. Court records, the Star Tribune&nb
  
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• Did Smartphones Really Kill Reading?

  20-08-2026 18:31 via lithub.com
  
  It is tempting to blame smartphones for this condition and conclude that some kind of ban would solve the problem. But a historical perspective shows that this is not enough: reading was in decline before the smartphone appeared. – LitHub
  
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• Gagosian to Show New Jordan Wolfson Works at His First Show With the Gallery in New York

  20-08-2026 18:17 via artnews.com
  
  Gagosian sent out a decidedly sparse press release about Jordan Wolfson’s first show with the gallery in New York, set to open September 18 at its 555 West 24th Street space in Chelsea.The description of the new work to be shown, in its entirety, reads: “A selection of new uniformly scaled sculptures incorporates emblematic color and black-and-white photographs, sourced online and from personal and academic archives, that resonate with art history, popular culture, and Wolfson’
  
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• New Website Tracks Author Events

  20-08-2026 18:15 via publishersweekly.com
  LitCircle’s database will track author readings and signings, as well as book clubs and literary festivals across the country, and alert readers to upcoming literary programming in their vicinity. George partnered with Patrick DiMichele, a technology consultant and a longtime Volumes customer, to build the platform. – Publishers Weekly
  
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• To Promote Themselves, Some Standup Comics Are Switching From Posting Videos To This

  20-08-2026 18:05 via nytimes.com
  “They use (comic strip-style) still frames with embedded captions of jokes, sometimes across multiple images that include longer setups and punchlines — in social media parlance, a carousel.” – The New York Times
  
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• Colombian Cultural Heritage Sites Damaged In The Earthquake

  20-08-2026 17:44 via theartnewspaper.com
  
  The report, published on 14 August, identifies 40 nationally protected cultural properties in the seven departments hardest hit by the disaster that suffered some degree of damage, 22 of which were severely impacted. Of the remaining properties, 13 suffered moderate damage and five were only lightly affected. – The Art Newspaper
  
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• Refurbishment Plans For The Kennedy Center Detailed

  20-08-2026 17:31 via washingtonpost.com
  More than 160 pages of plans, assembled by the real estate company JLL and presented to the board of trustees, outline extensive changes throughout the building. – Washington Post
  
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• “Ragtime” Sets Lincoln Center Theatre Box Office Record

  20-08-2026 17:15 via deadline.com
  
  Broadway‘s Ragtime went out on a huge note Sunday, breaking its own box office record to become the highest grossing Broadway show in the history of Lincoln Center Theater. – Deadline
  
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• Google Now Has An AI Tool To Catch Fake AI Images

  20-08-2026 17:03 via niemanlab.org
  “After (a fact-checker) upload(s) an image and enter(s) a basic question, Backstory can automatically run checks to determine whether the image is AI-generated, whether it shows signs of manipulation, and where else the image has appeared throughout its lifetime on the internet.” – Nieman Lab
  
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• Taiwan Calls Renaming of National Pavilion at Gwangju Biennale ‘Political Censorship’

  20-08-2026 17:02 via artnews.com
  
  The controversy surrounding the renaming of the “Taiwan Pavilion” at the upcoming edition of the Gwangju Biennale, opening next month, has escalated to an international diplomacy dispute. The self-governed island’s culture ministry says it “strongly protests” the Korean biennial scrubbing the agreed-upon name from its presentation, vowing to take “necessary action” if the exhibition’s organizers breach the agreement.“[Taiwan] will firmly part
  
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• How The First-Ever L.A. Jazz Festival Collapsed On Its Opening Day

  20-08-2026 16:32 via msn.com
  Founder Martin Ludlow, a former City Councilman, hoped that his star-studded multi-day event could ultimately become a peer to the great jazz fests in New Orleans and Montreal. Instead it came out looking more like Fyre Festival, and some say Ludlow was very much the wrong person to organize it. – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
  
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• Many Of New York City’s Most Prominent Cultural Institutions Don’t Pay Fines For Fire Code Violations

  20-08-2026 16:04 via gothamist.com
  
  The Met Museum, Carnegie Hall, BAM, Lincoln Center, even the Brooklyn Children’s Museum — in fact, none of the 39 institutions in what’s called the Cultural Institutions Group have to pay Fire Dept. summonses. There is, in fact, a logical reason for this. – Gothamist
  
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• MoMA PS1’s Newest Restaurant Will Be Symone, French African Cafe by DeVonn Francis

  20-08-2026 16:00 via artnews.com
  
  The restaurant space at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens, will soon have a new tenant: Symone, by chef DeVonn Francis, will open in early October. The space’s menu will also be previewed during Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair, running September 24–27.With daytime dining offered during the museum’s operating hours, Symone will be Francis’s first restaurant, serving French African–inspired cuisine that uses seasonal ingredients and draws on Francis’s
  
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• MoMA PS1’s Newest Restaurant Will Be Symone, a French African Cafe by DeVonn Francis

  20-08-2026 16:00 via artnews.com
  
  The restaurant space at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens, will soon have a new tenant: Symone, by chef DeVonn Francis, will open in early October. The space’s menu will also be previewed during Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair, running September 24–27.With daytime dining offered during the museum’s operating hours, Symone will be Francis’s first restaurant, serving French African–inspired cuisine that uses seasonal ingredients and draws on Francis’s
  
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• Soprano Ileana Cotrubaș Is Dead At 87

  20-08-2026 15:31 via moto-perpetuo.com
  
  One of the opera world’s most admired lyric sopranos of the 1970s and ‘80s, she was known for her acting skill as well as her voice, especially in such roles as Violetta in La Traviata, Gilda in Rigoletto, and Tatiana in Eugene Onegin. – Moto Perpetuo
  
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• A Hidden Gallery at London’s Natural History Museum Reopens After 80 Years, Rediscovered Bernini Painting On View in Vienna: Morning Links for August 20, 2026

  20-08-2026 15:30 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.Good Morning!A hidden gallery at London’s Natural History Museum will reopen to the public for the first time since 1943.Trump’s administration is escalating its campaign to reshape how the Smithsonian presents American history.A long-overlooked painting has been identified as a genuine Bernini and is set to go on display at the Kunsthistorisches
  
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• Penguin Random House Suspends New Mamdani Biography Following Plagiarism Accusations Against Author

  20-08-2026 15:05 via artsjournal.com
  The publisher has halted promotion and public sales of The Revolutionary: Zohran Mamdani and the Remaking of American Politics by Ross Barkan in the wake of allegations that the author plagiarized parts of numerous columns he wrote as a freelancer for New York magazine. – The Washington Post (MSN)
  
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• Armory Shows Announces Two Museum Acquisition Prizes, Launching at September Fair

  20-08-2026 15:00 via artnews.com
  
  The Armory Show in New York has announced two museum acquisition prizes that will launch at its upcoming edition, slated to run September 24–27.The first is the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) Acquisition Prize, which will allot $20,000 at each edition of the Armory Show toward acquisitions for the museum’s permanent collection and for the Green Family Foundation Caribbean Cultural Institute. The PAMM Acquisition Prize will select work on view from the Focus section, which this
  
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