Arts news

• Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.10.17

  11-01-2017 11:11 via feedproxy.google.com
  What’s fear got to do with it?
  In 2014 the Wyncote Foundation commissioned Lutman & Associates to research digital adoption by legacy cultural institutions. ... When I spoke about the report at conferences and meetings, arts leaders’ responses were frequently that they knew they “should be” engaging digitally, but they feel overwhelmed about beginning. Surprisingly, the most frequent response from arts leaders was not excitement, but instead fear. ... r
  
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• Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra seeks Vice President, Marketing and PR

  21-01-2026 22:26 via artsjournal.com
  Aspen Leadership Group is proud to partner with Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in the search for a Vice President, Marketing and PR.Reporting to the President & CEO, the Vice President, Marketing and PR will lead the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s storytelling and audience-development strategy, with responsibility for marketing and selling approximately $3 million in annual ticket revenue across a broad and dynamic portfolio of programs. This includes the Symphonic and Pops subscripti
  
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• Painter Amy Sherald Signs with Talent Agency CAA

  21-01-2026 22:15 via artnews.com
  Amy Sherald, a painter renowned for her tender portraits of Black American life, has signed with talent agency Creative Artists Agency (CCA), marking the latest high-profile crossover between the art world and Hollywood. Sherald rose to national fame in 2018 after being commissioned by former First Lady Michelle Obama to paint her official portrait for the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in Washington, D.C. The work depicts Obama in grayscale, posed against a pale blue background with her c
  
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• Bonhams Posts $970 M. in 2025 Sales as It Tries to Turn the Page

  21-01-2026 22:07 via artnews.com
  Bonhams ended 2025 with $970 million in global sales, a headline number that, in another year, might have been received as unambiguously good news. Instead, it arrives trailing a thicket of context: a widely circulated Financial Times report on a £213 million pre-tax loss, a change in ownership, and renewed scrutiny of how auction houses account for downturns during a softening market.Still, the topline result marks one of the strongest sales performances in Bonhams’s
  
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• Frank Lloyd Wright House in Chicago for Sale for $350,000—Or Is It?

  21-01-2026 21:29 via artnews.com
  A Frank Lloyd Wright house in dire need of restoration has been reported to be up for sale with an asking price of $350,000, after the property was supposedly put on the market by the Federal National Mortgage Associate—best known as Fannie Mae—as part of a court ordered-sale following foreclosure in December.As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, “The development potentially represents the best shot in more than a generation to revive the landmark two-story stucco home at 42 N.
  
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• Sally Tallant Departs Queens Museum to Lead London’s Hayward Gallery

  21-01-2026 21:26 via artnews.com
  The Southbank Centre has named Sally Tallant the new director of the Hayward Gallery, a role she will begin in July. She is replacing the Hayward’s longtime director Ralph Rugoff, who recently announced his resignation after 20 years at the helm.As part of her new position, Tallant will also oversee visual art installations at other institutions that make up the Southbank Centre, a cultural hub along the Thames River in London. In additional to the Hayward Gallery, which focuses on contemp
  
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• A Labor Economist Looks At Opera And Says It Isn’t Dying (But Its Business Model Might Be)

  21-01-2026 21:02 via theconversation.com
  Christos Makridis of Arizona State University: “I found the public’s demand for meaningful, live cultural experiences — including opera — remains strong. … (But) few opera companies have embraced strategies the rest of the entertainment industry regularly uses: audience data analysis, experimentation with digital content and streaming, engagement through online platforms rather than brochures.” – The Conversation
  
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• San Francisco Ballet And “Anticipatory Obedience”

  21-01-2026 20:31 via sfchronicle.com
  Trot out the national anthem, the flag or a John Philip Sousa march, they believe, and it’s like a free exclamation mark to whatever point they’re trying to make: “Ha! See? The stars and stripes are on my side!” – San Francisco Chronicle
  
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• There’s More Footage Of The Jewelry Robbery At The Louvre — And It Looks Pretty Bad

  21-01-2026 20:05 via news.artnet.com
  “The two perpetrators can be seen wearing balaclavas and using disc cutters to slice open display cases. The theft takes place under the watch of staff members who were not able to intervene.” – Artnet
  
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• Author and Alter Ego Cruise a River Called America

  21-01-2026 19:56 via artsjournal.com
  <a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/01/author-and-alter-ego-cruise-a-river-called-america.html" title="Author and Alter Ego Cruise a River Called America” rel=”nofollow”>For readers familiar with his work, it will come as no surprise that Swiss novelist Christoph Keller’s prose in English, an adopted language, has the idiomatic flare of a native speaker. Nor is it a surprise that much of his latest novel is again set in downtown Manhattan, where he
  
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• Mexico City’s Zona Maco to Bring Together 241 Exhibitors Next Month

  21-01-2026 19:51 via artnews.com
  Next month, Zona Maco, one of Latin America’s top fairs, will alight in Mexico City, bringing together droves of collectors to Centro Banamex, on the outskirts of the capital city for the fair along will several satellites.The fair will take place during the same time as the inaugural edition of Art Basel Qatar, but the conflict doesn’t seem to have impacted Zona Maco, which said it has 50 museum board groups confirmed to attend during the event running from February 4–8.The up
  
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• Women-Centered Fantasy Is Fueling The Publishing Industry

  21-01-2026 19:44 via theconversation.com
  Women are rewriting the rules of sword-and-sorcery, trading testosterone-fueled quests for romance-driven adventures. Publishers are discovering that dragons plus dating equals dollars—who knew female readers wanted both magic and meaningful relationships? — The Conversation
  
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• SFMOMA Adds 85 Modern and Contemporary Artworks to Its Holdings

  21-01-2026 19:38 via artnews.com
  The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has announced the acquisition of some 85 modern and contemporary artworks, from painting and sculpture to new media and photography. Some of the most notable names include Ruth Asawa (whose retrospective, currently at the Museum of Modern Art, debuted at SFMOMA last spring), Nan Goldin, Kay WalkingStick, Yoshitomo Nara, Dorothea Lange, and Eugène Atget.In a statement, SFMOMA director Christopher Bedford noted that all the additions, “whether ph
  
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• 52 Walker Quietly Becomes a David Zwirner Gallery as Ebony L. Haynes Shifts to a Global Role

  21-01-2026 19:36 via artnews.com
  When 52 Walker opened in Tribeca in 2021, it did so with unusual fanfare. The space, founded by Ebony L. Haynes under the umbrella of David Zwirner, was widely framed as a corrective gesture within the commercial gallery system: a Kunsthalle-style venue with an all-Black staff, full curatorial autonomy, and a mandate untethered from the usual pressures of artist representation. The New York Times hailed it as a rare experiment inside a mega-gallery structure, emphasizing both its symbo
  
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• Philly Art Museum’s Rebrand Needs a Rebrand (And Might Get It)

  21-01-2026 19:31 via hyperallergic.com
  Nothing says “we nailed it” quite like forming a task force to fix your fresh new identity while quietly showing your chief marketing officer the door. Sometimes the most authentic brand move is admitting you got it spectacularly wrong. — Hyperallergic
  
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• Trump Takes Aim at New Deal Murals

  21-01-2026 19:15 via hyperallergic.com
  Because nothing says ‘making America great again’ like erasing the last time we actually invested in artists. Depression-era public art programs apparently too woke for 2025. Grandma Moses weeps. — Hyperallergic
  
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• A Look At Opera’s Sexiest Tune, With Its Reigning Singer

  21-01-2026 19:01 via nytimes.com
  Mezzo Aigul Akhmetshina on the Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen. – The New York Times
  
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• Writers vs. Machines: The John Henry Complex Returns

  21-01-2026 18:44 via lithub.com
  ChatGPT has writers channeling their inner folk hero, hammer in hand. But as Stephen Marche notes, we’ve been dancing with technological muses long before algorithms—typewriters, anyone? — LitHub
  
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• New Philadelphia Art Museum Director Says Board Doesn’t Need ‘Radical Restructuring’

  21-01-2026 18:34 via artnews.com
  In one of his first extensive interviews as the new director of the Philadelphia Art Museum, Daniel H. Weiss told the Philadelphia Inquirer that his institution’s board doesn’t require major changes after the abrupt firing of his predecessor last year.Amid a controversial rebranding, Sasha Suda was terminated in November for what an email described as “cause.” Following her dismissal, media reports revealed that the board had accused her of misappropriating funds by growi
  
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• Why Movies Launch And Music Drops

  21-01-2026 18:31 via newyorker.com
  A key reason why it’s now more complicated to promote an album than, say, a theatrically released film, is the ephemeral, immaterial nature of contemporary music consumption.  By comparison, most films that see a theatrical release maintain a predictable, streamlined promotional schedule. – The New Yorker
  
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• Afghan Musicians Fled To Pakistan To Escape The Taliban. Now Pakistan Is Chasing Them Out

  21-01-2026 18:15 via nytimes.com
  The rhythms that resonate in wedding halls, concert stages and apartment blocks are falling silent, as the Pakistani government pursues a wave of expulsions that has already forced out a million Afghans since last year. – The New York Times
  
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• Goliath Goes to Court, Abramović Brings Installation to Davos: Morning Links for January 21, 2026

  21-01-2026 18:06 via artnews.com
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.The HeadlinesESCALATION.  Two weeks after news broke that South Africa cancelled a Gabrielle Goliath artwork planned for its Venice Biennale pavilion, the artist has announced her next move: taking her dispute to court. Tomorrow Goliath and curator Ingrid Masondo will file an application with South Africa’s High Court in Pretoria in the hopes
  
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• Maybe Listening To An Audiobook Really Is As Good As Reading A Print Book

  21-01-2026 18:04 via theguardian.com
  “Is listening to a book while doing the dishes, walking the dog or drifting off to sleep really as valuable as sitting down to read it? For authors, the publishing trade and those encouraging reading and literacy, the answer is increasingly yes.” – The Guardian
  
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• The Crisis In Humanities? The Business Model Doesn’t Work

  21-01-2026 17:44 via theguardian.com
  Fundamentally, the state of the humanities and liberal arts reveals a widening conflict over the “value” of higher education – with increasingly corporatized universities favoring market-driven metrics for evaluation, and proponents of humanistic education stressing that its worth to both individuals and society at large cannot be measured that way. – The Guardian
  
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• Financially Strapped Met Opera May Sell its Prized Marc Chagall Paintings (But Keep Them in Place)

  21-01-2026 17:41 via artnews.com
  New York’s Metropolitan Opera is facing a serious financial crunch, and may sell two beloved Marc Chagall murals to help fill the gap—but if it does, it will leave them in place. Sotheby’s valued the artworks at a total of $55 million, reports the New York Times. Unveiled in 1966, The Sources of Music and The Triumphs of Music measure some 30 by 36 feet and hang in the building’s Grand Tier.The Met, which has an annual budget of $330 million, has drawn $120 million from i
  
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• Gabrielle Goliath Seeks Legal Action Against Culture Minister After Canceled Venice Biennale Pavilion

  21-01-2026 17:33 via artnews.com
  Artist Gabrielle Goliath said she and curator Ingrid Masondo are submitting an application for a court case against South African culture minister Gayton McKenzie after he canceled their planned pavilion for the Venice Biennale.Goliath was set to show a performance from her “Elegy” series, part of which would address Israel’s war in Gaza. McKenzie claimed in communications to Goliath that this element made the work “polarizing” and proceeded to cancel it, a move tha
  
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• As The Old Starchitects Die, Maybe We Shouldn’t Replace Them

  21-01-2026 17:31 via dezeen.com
  The “starchitect” was a figment of media attention, drummed up to answer our interest in celebrity, and our exaggerated expectations of what might be achieved without the help of other people. It belongs to a deluded, more decadent age. – Dezeen
  
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• Alabama Library Board Cuts Funding To Library That Wouldn’t Remove “Handmaid’s Tale”

  21-01-2026 17:15 via thedailybeast.com
  The Republican-run Alabama Public Library Service Board voted to withhold roughly $22,000 in state funding from the Fairhope Public Library, citing the library’s failure to comply with the board’s rules requiring books deemed “sexually explicit” be relocated to the adult section. – The Daily Beast
  
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• So This Is Donald Trump’s “Golden Age of Culture” …

  21-01-2026 17:03 via msn.com
  “Trolling and tackiness, often crossbred with left-coded pop songs and hot memes, have served to wish a new zeitgeist into existence. Consume only the output of MAGA’s multi-front media efforts, and you may come to feel that the country is coalescing into pep-rally unity on Trump’s behalf.” – The Atlantic (MSN)
  
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• Sundance Gears Up For Its Last Edition In Park City, Utah

  21-01-2026 16:36 via apnews.com
  “The country’s premier showcase for independent film is also in a time of profound transition after decades of relative stability. The festival is … forging forward without its founder, Robert Redford, who died in September. Next year, it must find its footing in another mountain town, Boulder, Colorado.” – AP
  
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