Arts news

• Warner Bros. Discovery Revives The HBO Max Brand It Killed

  14-05-2025 21:04 via thewrap.com
  
  “First it was HBO Go, then it was HBO Now, followed by HBO Max and ultimately just Max. But now, Warner Bros. Discovery is rebranding its streaming service yet again to: HBO Max (Yes, you read that right).” – TheWrap
  
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• Dancers Sue Shen Yun Over Working Conditions

  14-05-2025 20:31 via npr.org
  
  The complaint itself alleges that children as young as 13 years old worked grueling 15-hour training schedules at least six days a week, in exchange for little pay and inadequate education. – NPR
  
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• A Brief History of The Can-Can

  14-05-2025 20:01 via theguardian.com
  
  “The identikit all-female spectacle we know so well is the opposite of how the cancan first began in the working-class dancehalls of Paris, where it was a social dance full of spontaneous improvisation – and performed primarily by men. It was much later that it became a theatrical spectacle for the well-to-do.“ – The Guardian
  
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• Canada’s Founding Document May Be Sold At Auction

  14-05-2025 19:31 via thewalrus.ca
  
  Experts, historians, and Indigenous groups argue the item isn’t just surplus inventory but part of the country’s origin story. They are calling for its preservation in Canadian archives. – The Walrus
  
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• Artist Suppliers Struggle With Tariffs And Uncertainty

  14-05-2025 19:20 via hyperallergic.com
  Some arts suppliers have been preparing to pass the costs of tariffs on to their consumers. Canal Plastics Center, a plastics fabrication company in SoHo, raised their prices by about 10 to 15% last month, a spokesperson for the store said. – Hyperallergic
  
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• Trump’s Movie Tariffs Are More About Cultural Protectionism Than Money

  14-05-2025 19:15 via theconversation.com
  
  Amid an ongoing tariff war, Trump’s proposal — which may ultimately remain an empty threat — goes beyond economic protectionism. It is cultural protectionism. It also reflects language ideologies that have long constrained the American film industry and American engagement with multilingual cinema. – The Conversation
  
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• “A Hot Mess” At Philadelphia’s Arts Magnet High School

  14-05-2025 19:05 via msn.com
  Students, parents, staff and former staff at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts say that a toxic atmosphere, worsened by allegedly divisive and unprofessional behavior by an administrator, has led to disorganization, violent behavior without consequences, factionalism, staffing shortages, and plummeting enrollment. – The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
  
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• Nigel Farage, TikTok and Lord Haw-Haw | Brief letters

  14-05-2025 18:56
  Antisocial media | Children and art | Handling disappointment | ‘An island of strangers’ | Low-traffic neighbourhoodsAsking whether young people are viewing Nigel Farage’s TikTok videos for the silliness of trivial content or their political message misses the point about the proven links between entertainment value and propaganda (Nigel Farage is a hit on TikTok – but are young voters listening or laughing?, 11 May). As the pollsters Ruth and Henry Durant noted in 1940 a
  
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• Why Culture Has Always Been At The Center Of North American Trade

  14-05-2025 18:44 via theconversation.com
  Free-trade agreements radically reshaped the economies and public understandings of the western hemisphere in the late 20th century. Political scientist Guy Poitras argues that North America as a region was invented at this time. – The Conversation
  
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• As The 300+-Year-Old Hudson Bay Company Dissolves, What Should Be Done With Its Art And Artifacts?

  14-05-2025 18:31 via theconversation.com
  Some HBC records have provided a window into Canada’s climate history and ecology, offering valuable long-term data to environmental researchers. Others show evidence of Indigenous trade, land occupation and cultural presence relevant to genealogical research, band membership documentation and land claims. – The Conversation
  
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• It Is, After All, The Library Of Congress: Lawmakers Push Back Against Trump Takeover

  14-05-2025 18:15 via washingtonpost.com
  On Capitol Hill, Democrats said Tuesday they did not believe that Blanche was the acting librarian — and Republicans, who have repeatedly deferred to Trump even as he has wrested control of federal spending from authorities, indicated that they wanted to maintain their power around the library. – Washington Post
  
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• Yum! Espresso Made From Venice Canal Water Wins Architecture Biennale’s Top Prize

  14-05-2025 18:06 via news.artnet.com
  The project — “Canal Café” by Diller Scofidio + Renfro — filters water from Venice’s notoriously polluted canals and lagoon through a series of filters that mimic the natural cleansing effect of a tidal wetland. Once the water is made drinkable, it’s used to make a classic shot of espresso. – Artnet
  
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• Trump Escalates Punishment Of Harvard

  14-05-2025 17:44 via washingtonpost.com
  Harvard quickly responded Tuesday evening, filing an amended complaint in its lawsuit against the Trump administration, objecting to numerous actions federal officials have taken in recent days and adding multiple agencies that have cut funding to the university. – Washington Post
  
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• This Is What The Power Shift At The Kennedy Center Really Looks Like

  14-05-2025 17:31 via washingtonpost.com
  Probably the most searing impact of the takeover has been the exclusion of small, local groups for whom the Kennedy Center gig was the pinnacle of success, welcome recognition of the good they’ve done for people who live here. – Washington Post
  
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• Big Fight Over UK AI Copyright Transparency Bill

  14-05-2025 17:15 via theguardian.com
  An amendment to the data bill requiring AI companies to reveal which copyrighted material is used in their models was backed by peers, despite government opposition. – The Guardian
  
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• Bay Area Is Evidently Losing Yet Another Theater Company

  14-05-2025 17:03 via msn.com
  “Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company plans to ‘suspend’ producing shows (next season), taking a possible step toward closure. The company hopes to continue to exist in some form, Artistic Director Josh Costello (said, noting) a $500,000 operating deficit and a 50% decrease in the company’s subscriber count compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic.” – San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
  
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• A husband and wife kiss in a doorway: Baldwin Lee’s best photograph

  14-05-2025 16:56
  ‘I wanted to create a dialogue between the couple kissing and the plaque showing two people in a similar pose. I didn’t ask about the hats. That wasn’t the kind of questioning I engaged in’When I began my project photographing in the southern states of the US, I’d only recently developed the confidence needed to take effective portraits. Speaking publicly or talking with people used to make me very nervous. But I was mainly photographing architecture – I knew
  
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• Ten Heritage Foundation Arguments Against The NEA, And How To Answer Them

  14-05-2025 16:32 via news.artnet.com
  Ben Davis: “I think it’s important for NEA advocates to actually understand the spectrum of arguments ranged against them, and not rely on dated or off-target counter-arguments. So I thought I would put down, here, replies to each of Heritage’s “Ten Good Reasons to Eliminate Funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.” – Artnet
  
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• Koyo Kouoh obituary

  14-05-2025 16:05
  Cameroon-born art curator appointed last year as the director of the 2026 Venice BiennaleAt a conference held at London’s Somerset House as part of the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in 2015, the name of the organiser came up again and again. “Koyo Kouoh,” hooted an Iranian participant to her eager audience. “We need to have her cloned.”Over the decade that followed, it seemed as though this might actually have happened. Kouoh, who has died aged 57 after being d
  
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• English National Opera Names André De Ridder Music Director

  14-05-2025 16:04 via gramophone.co.uk
  The German conductor, currently Generalmusikdirektor of the Theater Freiburg, succeeds Martyn Brabbins, who resigned in 2023 to protest ENO management’s proposed elimination of 19 orchestral positions. While he starts immediately as Music Director Designate, de Ridder fully assumes the job in September 2027. – Opera Now
  
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• Screenwriter-Director Robert Benton, Winner Of Three Oscars, Is Dead At 92

  14-05-2025 15:31 via deadline.com
  Of the nine films he wrote and directed, the best-known are the two for which he won Academy Awards: Kramer vs. Kramer (for screenplay and direction) and Places in the Heart (screenplay). Among the other films he co-wrote are Bonnie and Clyde, What’s Up, Doc? and the 1978 Superman. – Deadline
  
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• Authors Guild Sues DOGE And NEH For Cancelling Grants

  14-05-2025 15:05 via artnews.com
  “A class action lawsuit was filed Monday by the Authors Guild, along with independent scholars and writers, against the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and officials within the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for terminating millions in committed grants from Congressional funds.” – ARTnews
  
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• I’m Not Angry. I’m Batman.

  14-05-2025 15:00 via artsjournal.com
  I’m just trying to help save the nonprofit arts industry from its own worst impulses. Where’s my utility belt, Alfred?!
  My red phone rang for 30 years. It was time to answer it. (Image by Balsavor from DeviantArt, licensed under CC BY-ND 3.0)
  It always happens.
  Whenever I am asked to speak to a group or I write an article or a book, there are those that get caught in the invectives. They get angry because they feel attacked rather than advised. And inevitably, these are the people in
  
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• Audible To Use AI For Narrating And Translating Audiobooks (But Not All of Them)

  14-05-2025 14:30 via publishersweekly.com
  “Today, Audible announced it would begin offering AI-powered narration to select publishers. AI translation services will launch in beta later this year.” CEO Bob Carrigan pointed out that only between two and five percent of all books are available in audio and that the company’s goal is to expand the audio content available. – Publishers Weekly
  
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• New York State Increases Tax Credit For Broadway Productions

  14-05-2025 14:06 via broadwaynews.com
  “Included in the $254 billion budget is an expansion of the New York City Musical and Theatrical Production Tax Credit, known colloquially as the downstate tax credit. The new budget increases the program’s allotment to $400 million (up from $300 million in the preceding budget) and extends the program into 2027.” – Broadway News
  
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• ‘It was the people’s art’: exhibition explores mysteries of early American photography

  14-05-2025 11:28
  The New Art at the Met, an unusual array of photos taken between 1839 and 1910, reveals an unexpected historyPhotography expert and Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Jeff L Rosenheim believes that cameras are profoundly entwined with the American story. “I’ve always been drawn to photography because it has this baseline democratic principle,” he told me. “It arrived from Europe in 1839, and what were we going to do with it? How did the camera play a role in us becoming t
  
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