Arts news

• Louvre Discovers $12 Million Ticketing Scam

  16-02-2026 20:02 via nytimes.com
  When officials at the Louvre in Paris suspected a couple of tour guides of reusing tickets in late 2024, they did not expect to learn that a broad scamming network had cost the museum nearly $12 million over a decade. – The New York Times
  
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• Tate Modern Serves Frida With a Side of Capitalism

  16-02-2026 19:40 via theconversation.com
  When museums pivot from contemplation to consumption, even revolutionary icons get commodified. Tate’s Kahlo experience trades artistic liberation for lifestyle branding—because apparently unibrows sell better with appetizers. – The Conversation
  
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• University Gets Cold Feet Over Hot ICE Criticism

  16-02-2026 19:21 via hyperallergic.com
  When your art hits too close to home, apparently even universities develop sudden institutional amnesia about academic freedom. Victor Quiñonez’s immigrant-focused work got the silent treatment—no notice, no discussion, just gone. — Hyperallergic
  
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• The Machines Are Coming for Your Plot Twists

  16-02-2026 19:02 via 3quarksdaily.com
  What seemed preposterous in a 1962 novel—story-writing machines—is now Silicon Valley gospel. As AI churns out narratives, we’re left wondering: who’s really telling the story, and does anyone care about the difference? — 3 Quarks Daily
  
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• African Art Market Caught Between Home and Away

  16-02-2026 18:40 via news.artnet.com
  As Middle Eastern buyers flex their newfound muscle, African dealers face the classic dilemma: chase the international money or build local infrastructure first? Turns out you can’t auction your way out of everything. — Artnet
  
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• IMLS Makes America’s Grants Great Again

  16-02-2026 18:20 via news.artnet.com
  Federal cultural funding now comes with ideological strings attached, as museums and libraries discover their grant applications must suddenly harmonize with presidential vision statements. Creative freedom, meet creative financing. — Artnet
  
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• When Words Have No Liability

  16-02-2026 18:01 via theatlantic.com
  We now live alongside AI systems that converse knowledgeably and persuasively—deploying claims about the world, explanations, advice, encouragement, apologies, and promises—while bearing no vulnerability for what they say. – The Atlantic
  
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• The Man Who Thinks The Enlightenment Was A Mistake

  16-02-2026 17:31 via theatlantic.com
  Rod Dreher emerged from the conservative blogosphere in the 2000s and won fans with his daily stream of testy opinions and unguarded anecdotal writing. He seems almost allergic to ideological consistency, has long had readers on the left as well as the right, and sometimes changes his mind over the course of a single paragraph. – The Atlantic
  
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• How Cornwall Shaped British Writers, And British Imagination

  16-02-2026 17:00 via bbc.com
  Winston Graham of Poldark, Virginia Woolf, Daphne du Maurier, and many other writers drew – and continue to draw – inspiration from the moors, cliffs, rugged coastline, and mines of the rural county. – BBC
  
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• The British Museum Has Removed The Word Palestine And Palestinians From Its Middle East Displays

  16-02-2026 16:30 via theguardian.com
  “Concerns were recently raised by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLIF), a voluntary group of solicitors, about references to ‘Palestine’ in displays covering the ancient Levant and Egypt, which risked ‘obscuring the history of Israel and the Jewish people.’” – The Guardian (UK)
  
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• Yin Xiuzhen and Chiharu Shiota review – so on-the-nose it gives you a nosebleed

  16-02-2026 16:06
  Hayward Gallery, London
  One artist critiques capitalism via sculptures made of tatty T-shirts. The other weaves threads like a hyperactive spider. Neither say much – but they’ll look great on InstagramGrief takes many forms. Chinese artist Yin Xiuzhen mourns by preserving, stitching, sewing. Working in 1990s Beijing, she saw a city transforming so fast, and casting off its history with so little ceremony, that she had to save it somehow. Her show at the Hayward is full of scraps of t
  
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• How Pokémon Became A Source Of Massive Soft Cultural Power

  16-02-2026 16:00 via cbc.ca
  It’s a card game! It’s an app! It’s a movie! It’s a meme! It’s a stuffie (or a lot of stuffies)! But truly, what is Pokémon? – CBC
  
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• Berlinale Defends Jury President Wim Wenders Post-Soundbite About Gaza That Led Arundhati Roy To Withdraw

  16-02-2026 15:45 via theguardian.com
  The festival head said, “Artists should not be expected to comment on all broader debates about a festival’s previous or current practices over which they have no control. Nor should they be expected to speak on every political issue raised to them unless they want to.” – The Guardian (UK)
  
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• Bring Back Ski Ballet!

  16-02-2026 15:30 via nytimes.com
  Nothing is “nutty” in the Olympics now. Ski ballet was a demonstration sport in 1988 and 1992, but “unlike the other two freestyle disciplines, aerials and moguls, ski ballet didn’t graduate to full Olympic medal status.” – The New York Times
  
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• How Many Times Can One Man Win Cowboy Poet Of The Year, A Real Award That We Did Not Make Up?

  16-02-2026 15:15 via orartswatch.org
  At least three. “The Western Music Association describes the award as recognizing a person who writes ‘with imaginative power and beauty of thought, with the ability to enable audiences to develop a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the Western lifestyle through performance.’” – Oregon ArtsWatch
  
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• The Women Of Bauhaus

  16-02-2026 15:00 via openculture.com
  “The German art school turned political and cultural engine [was] founded in 1919,” and its “principles included absolute equality between male and female participants — or they did at first, at any rate.” – Open Culture
  
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• How Toni Morrison’s Courage And Daring Shaped The Way We Think

  16-02-2026 14:45 via theguardian.com
  “She became the only black woman ever to win the Nobel prize in literature. But the facts remain: she is difficult to read. She is difficult to teach. Notwithstanding the voluminous train of profiles, reviews and scholarly analysis … she is difficult to write about.” – The Guardian (UK)
  
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• Behind The Scenes Of The Lion Dance

  16-02-2026 14:30 via nytimes.com
  “Because information about lion dancing in English is scarce, Chan led a group of Kei Lun Martial Arts members on a research trip to China in 2000. They studied with skilled craftspeople in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong.” – The New York Times
  
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• As Minneapolis Starts Construction On A Memorial To George Floyd, It’s Dealing With Two More Intense Memorial Spaces

  16-02-2026 14:15 via mprnews.org
  The mayor’s office says Minneapolis is “actively working on next steps, including continued community engagement regarding both memorials.” – Minnesota Public Radio
  
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• Delaine Le Bas review – former Turner nominee delivers witches, warm welcomes – and wallpaper

  16-02-2026 14:06
  The Whitworth, ManchesterThe Romany artist takes a mural she made for Glastonbury as a starting point, then builds a dizzying series of rooms exploring connection and exclusion
  “No” shouts the red paint scrawled across the floor at the entrance. No entry? I wonder as I step tentatively into the gallery. The word appears again and again – always painted in red – across the large sheet of fabric that divides the first gallery space. Later, it decorates Delaine Le Bas’
  
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• We Need To Talk About Heathcliff, Emily Bronte, And Race

  16-02-2026 14:00 via nytimes.com
  “The ‘dynamics of this novel are about otherness in various ways, and that otherness is in Heathcliff.’ Onscreen, however, Heathcliff has largely been played by white actors.” – The New York Times
  
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• Generative AI Is Pretty Bad At Video Game Worlds

  16-02-2026 13:45 via archive.ph
  It might never improve enough. “Even in the most ambitious view where AI technology is feasibly able to generate worlds that are as responsive and interesting to explore as a video game that runs locally … there’s a lot more that goes into making a video game.”- The Verge (Archive Today)
  
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• Is Warner Bros Back To (Sky)Dancing With Paramount?

  16-02-2026 13:30 via variety.com
  “Paramount Skydance’s latest offer — No. 9 since last year — includes a premium ‘ticking fee’ for WBD shareholders of about $650 million for every quarter that the Paramount-WBD nuptials are not completed by Dec. 31, 2026.” – Variety
  
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• Translating Holocaust Literature At This Particular Moment In History Is Fraught – And Vital

  16-02-2026 13:15 via lithub.com
  “As many as one-third of all Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide perished on Soviet territory. Yet … narratives of this experience remain largely unavailable to Western readers.” – LitHub
  
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• What Happens To A City’s Public Space When A Huge Event – Say, A Sports Event – Takes Over?

  16-02-2026 13:00 via torched.la
  Ask Los Angeles. “My favorite part was how the plaza was filled with people marveling at very talented graffiti artists making Foot Locker-branded murals in the shadow of the Graffiti Ghost Towers that our leaders say we have to clean up because they’re too offensive to tourists.” – Torched LA
  
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• ‘Bring it back’: Sicilians say Antonello da Messina’s Ecce Homo belongs with them

  16-02-2026 09:00
  Much of Messina’s cultural memory was destroyed in a 1908 earthquake, but the Italian government has secured a masterpiece by the port city’s greatest sonOn 28 December 1908, the city of Messina was struck by what is still considered the deadliest natural catastrophe in modern European history. In just 37 seconds, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake killed half its population and levelled much of the city.Along with homes, churches and monuments, invaluable historical sources and documents we
  
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• The Middleware Manifesto: A Proposal for Rebuilding American Culture

  16-02-2026 07:03 via artsjournal.com
  That shift from content value to traffic value is what has destroyed the business model for nearly everything we’re talking about. I’m calling it a manifesto because that’s what it needs to be. Not a lament. Not a white paper, but a declaration of what is needed.
  
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