Arts news

• Guggenheim Museum Lays Off 20 Staff Amid Worsening Financial Condition

  28-02-2025 22:21 via nytimes.com
  
  The cuts are spread over six departments, including advancement, education, publications and archives, but do not affect curators and top executives. – The New York Times
  
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• Against the Death Penalty

  28-02-2025 21:45 via artsjournal.com
  <a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2025/02/against-the-death-penalty.html" title="Against the Death Penalty” rel=”nofollow”><img width="150" height="150" src="https://www.artsjournal.com/belknap/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Steff-Signers-Cabinet-Music-bdr-750-150×150-1.jpg"
  
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• A Classical Music Guide To Dewokifying Your DEI Music

  28-02-2025 21:32 via songofthelarkblog.com
  
  Yes, thanks to recent political and cultural developments, we now have the freedom to appreciate the work of various American heroes in a new, “common sense” way. There are countless composers we can reclaim from the far left. – Song of the Lark
  
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• Change And Continuity At The World’s Oldest Active Theatre Company

  28-02-2025 21:15 via nytimes.com
  
  A new director (formal title: general administrator) will soon be taking up his position (one appointed by no less than the French President) at the Comédie-Française. He’s Clément Hervieu-Léger, 47, and like most of his predecessors, he’s a longtime member of the company who both acts and directs. – The New York Times
  
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• Artistic Director – La Jolla Playhouse

  28-02-2025 20:53 via artsjournal.com
  La Jolla Playhouse (the Playhouse) is excited to welcome a new visionary leader to serve as its next Artistic Director, shaping the Playhouse’s artistic footprint and, in light of the organization’s expansive cultural influence, the future of American theatre. Serving in partnership with La Jolla Playhouse’s Managing Director, the Artistic Director co-leads one of the premiere theatre producing companies in the nation, developing plans for how the theatre’s work can reac
  
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• Can Saudi Arabia Successfully Market Its Pre-Islamic Past After Decades Of Suppressing It?

  28-02-2025 20:50 via historytoday.com
  The kingdom’s status as the birthplace of Islam is the very basis of its identity; as such, its pre-Islamic past was largely taboo. Yet current Saudi leaders see the ancient rock-hewn monuments of the Nabataeans (who also built Petra in Jordan) as the linchpin of a developing tourism industry. – History Today
  
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• The Atlanta Public Art Project That Just Works

  28-02-2025 20:44 via artsatl.org
  With more than 100 sculptures, art installations and murals, the Atlanta Beltline is the largest outdoor public art collection in the Southeast. It’s one of the largest in the country, the closest comparisons being New York City’s Highline and Madison Square Park Conservancy. – ArtsATL
  
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• A Weird Thing About This Year’s Movie Oscar Nominees

  28-02-2025 20:30 via nytimes.com
  
  This year’s 10 feel, largely, like a lawless batch of movies made by filmmakers who, I imagine, might be surprised to find themselves in the thick of what everybody casually calls awards season now, artists who’ve likely had many a studio door closed on their ideas. – The New York Times
  
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• Does A Fast-Growing Fringe Theatre Circuit Obviate Edinburgh Fringe’s Relevance?

  28-02-2025 20:15 via thestage.co.uk
  Many of these shows started at the Edinburgh Fringe. However, hang around the environs of Adelaide Fringe’s artist hubs and you will soon hear two burning questions: “Is Edinburgh dead?” and “In 2025, can you have success without playing it?” – The Stage
  
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• Doubleday Launches New Imprint Of Literary Trade Paperbacks

  28-02-2025 20:02 via publishersweekly.com
  “Outsider Editions plans to reissue underappreciated literary works of all genres — including novels, story collections, memoirs, and essay collections — in an effort to ‘take our understanding of the contemporary canon and make it more expansive, more complicated, and more just.’” – Publishers Weekly
  
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• “The Hunger Games” Is Now A High-Tech Immersive Play

  28-02-2025 19:04 via theguardian.com
  
  A new 1,200-seat venue in London’s Canary Wharf is being purpose-built to house the production, with a script adapted by playwright Conor McPherson (The Weir, Girl From the North Country). Previews begin on October 20. – The Guardian
  
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• Was There Ever A Festival Disaster As Epic As The Fyre Festival? Well, Welcome To Fyre 2

  28-02-2025 18:44 via theguardian.com
  
  Whatever you think about the first Fyre – with its limp cheese sandwiches, its disaster-relief-tent accommodation, the absence of advertised headliners, the $26m of unpaid debt, you have to admit it lived up to one promise: it was legendary. – The Guardian
  
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• They Say AI Is Beating Humans At Tasks. But Is The Game Rigged?

  28-02-2025 18:25 via theguardian.com
  It’s true that in several prominent studies, researchers have staged “competitions” in which AI technology appears to outperform humans in these very human areas. But a closer look reveals that these games are rigged against us humans. – The Guardian
  
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• Author Joseph Wambaugh, 88

  28-02-2025 18:15 via nytimes.com
  
  Before Mr. Wambaugh’s era as a writer, which began in 1971, police dramas like the television series “Dragnet” were implausible stories about clean-cut heroes doing good. He shattered the mold with portraits of officers as complex, profane, violent and fallible. – The New York Times
  
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• At San Francisco Ballet, Tamara Rojo Gives “Raymonda” A Feminist Revamp

  28-02-2025 18:03 via sfcv.org
  “It’s easy to see why this classic needs an update. ‘Many of my choreographer colleagues were very hesitant to take on Raymonda,’ said Rojo. ‘It’s a very complex ballet, with a complex narrative, (and) was a little bit of a land mine.’” – San Francisco Classical Voice
  
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• Working-class artists don’t owe you anything | Letters

  28-02-2025 18:02
  
  The curator of the Lives Less Ordinary calls Jonathan Jones’s review into questionJonathan Jones claims that the exhibition Lives Less Ordinary seeks to define the working class as a “single, stable body”, though goes on to acknowledge the ways in which the artists featured question and expand what it might mean to be working class (Lives Less Ordinary review – is this really a fair view of the British working class?, 27 January).This is one of the entrenched myths the ex
  
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• The Crisis At What Was The Kennedy Center

  28-02-2025 17:44 via theguardian.com
  
  “The real crisis we’re facing, in addition to people rescinding their membership, is that we’re normally finalising our season at this time and it’s been completely turned upside down. You see performers pulling out and that has real ramifications for staff and morale. We feel like we’re walking on eggshells. – The Guardian
  
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• The Limits Of Language: Is There Really A Word For That?

  28-02-2025 17:31 via bostonreview.net
  Exploring this material—the work of philosophers, poets, and theoreticians who grappled with what it means to speak and to understand speech—can help us understand more deeply what exactly is at stake. – Boston Review
  
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• How Museums Are Refocusing In A Post-DEI World

  28-02-2025 17:15 via hyperallergic.com
  
  As DEI efforts crumble and institutions scramble to figure out how to do the “right” thing, we appear to be in a new wave of pandemic-level chaos. This time, though, access has less to do with audiences and more to do with keeping doors open to the inclusive workforce. – Hyperallergic
  
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• Inside The Campaign To Make “Parasite” A Very Unlikely Best Picture Winner

  28-02-2025 17:01 via hollywoodreporter.com
  
  Few non-English-Language films had ever been nominated for the top Oscar, and almost nobody had seriously expected one to win.  Here’s an oral history of how the team behind the offbeat South Korean film realized it had a chance, and how they went on to lead it to victory. – The Hollywood Reporter
  
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• Gene Hackman’s Death Deemed “Suspicious”; He And His Wife Had Been Dead For Days When Found

  28-02-2025 16:33 via cnn.com
  
  When responders examined the bodies, they were already decomposing, showing bloating in the face and partial mummification in the hands and feet. Both Hackman and his wife appear to have fallen suddenly. There were no signs of bodily trauma or of a gas or carbon monoxide leak in the house. – CNN
  
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• American Movie Theaters Showed Double Features For Decades. What Happened To Them?

  28-02-2025 16:05 via daily.jstor.org
  
  Here’s an explainer on why cinemas did double features in the first place (bullying by the studios) and why they faded away. – JSTOR Daily
  
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• A Literally Bacchanalian Frieze Is Uncovered In Pompeii

  28-02-2025 15:30 via news.artnet.com
  
  Found on three walls of a large banquet room and known as a “megalography,” the set of life-size frescos depicts bacchantes (female followers of Dionysus/Bacchus) hunting, drumming and dancing, along with satyrs playing flutes and drinking wine. The paintings date to the first century BCE. – Artnet
  
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• For First Time Ever, ASCAP Tops $1 Billion In Revenue

  28-02-2025 15:05 via variety.com
  
  “ASCAP … delivered a record-breaking $1.835 billion in revenue in the 2024 calendar year, an increase of $98 million, or 5.7% over 2023, with $1.696 billion available for royalty distributions — up by $104 million, or 6.5%.” – Variety
  
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• National Ballet Of Canada Appoints New Resident Choreographer

  28-02-2025 14:33 via gramilano.com
  Following the North American premiere of his ballet The Four Seasons, the company has engaged David Dawson as Resident Choreographer. He’s currently an Associate Artist with Dutch National Ballet and has served as resident choreographer with that company, Semperoper Ballett in Dresden and the Royal Ballet of Flanders in Antwerp. – Gramilano
  
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• Cheeky monkeys, gored matadors and trompe l’oeil masks – the week in art

  28-02-2025 13:00
  
  Alison Watt pays homage to John Soane, Ella Kruglyanskaya honours Manet, and chaos comes for civilisation – all in your weekly dispatchAlison WattNew paintings inspired by the sublime, poetic architecture of Georgian visionary Sir John Soane.• Pitzhanger Manor, London, 5 March to 15 June Continue reading...
  
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• ‘A homage to St Davids’: artist aims to paint everyone in Britain’s smallest city

  28-02-2025 08:00
  
  City of Portraits, a decade in the making, celebrates tightknit community in tiny Welsh city. But joyful project had sad beginningsFrom a distance, they look like vivid pieces of abstract art – but move a little closer and dozens of small, characterful portraits shine out of the work.The ambitious idea of the City of Portraits (Dinas Portreadau) project, a decade in the making and nowhere near complete, is to record the faces of all 1,800 people who live in Britain’s smallest city, S
  
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• OpenAI launches Sora video generation tool in UK amid copyright row

  28-02-2025 07:00
  
  ‘Sora would not exist without its training data,’ said peer Beeban Kidron, citing ‘another level of urgency’ to debateThe artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT has launched its video generation tool in the UK amid a deepening row between the tech sector and creative industries over copyright.Beeban Kidron, the film director and cross-bench peer, said the introduction of OpenAI’s Sora in the UK added “another layer of urgency to the copyright debate&rd
  
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• ‘Our people were so innovative’: Māori art celebrated in landmark book

  28-02-2025 06:29
  
  Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous history of Māori art showcases creative work across a diverse range of mediumsA new landmark book celebrating Māori art has clocked up a couple of impressive firsts: not only is it the most comprehensive account of creative work by Indigenous New Zealanders ever published, it is also the first wide-ranging art history written entirely by Māori scholars.Spanning 600 pages and including more than 500 images, Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous history of Māori
  
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• Creative Australia boss forced to refute rumour he had resigned as fallout over Khaled Sabsabi dumping continues

  28-02-2025 02:45
  
  Adrian Collette sends all-staff email denying that he and the chair of Creative Australia’s board had quit amid calls for resignationsFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe beleaguered CEO of Creative Australia, Adrian Collette, has quashed rumours that emerged overnight that he and the chair of the body’s board, Robert Morgan, had resigned.“There is a rumour circulating on social media that Robert Mo
  
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