Arts news

• Louis Benassi obituary

  16-03-2021 19:05
  
  Louis Benassi, who has died aged 59 from cancer, was a distinctive artist/film-maker and countercultural event producer. In his work, and life, he drew on experimental and radical movements such as Dadaism, Fluxus, Lettrism, Situationism and Expanded Cinema. His films – single and multiscreen collages combining Free Cinema-style heightened realism with radical graphics, found footage and sonic interventions – were screened across Europe.They often formed part of the mixed-media event
  
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• “& Juliet” — How A Jukebox Shakespeare Musical That Flopped In Britain Became An Unlikely Broadway Hit

  06-02-2026 20:01 via variety.com
  “Today, (after almost four years in New York,) the musical is still packing in crowds, a feat for a show that isn’t a revival or a movie adaptation and lacks big stars or Tony wins. It’s … one of only four new musicals since the pandemic to recoup their investments.” – Variety
  
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• San Francisco’s Top Arts Official Retires As Mayor Rethinks Arts Policy

  06-02-2026 19:44 via yahoo.com
  The exit, announced Monday, Feb. 2, comes just days after Mayor Daniel Lurie posted a job description for an executive director of arts and culture to oversee all three of the city’s arts agencies, which includes Grants for the Arts and the Film Commission, in addition to SFAC. – San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo)
  
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• What Trump’s Kennedy Center Fiasco Shows Us Abut MAGA’s Culture Wars

  06-02-2026 19:31 via salon.com
  What’s even fascinating is what this whole debacle tells us about the MAGA movement as a whole, and how Trump is the perfect symbol for their failed culture war aspirations. – Salon
  
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• Whitewashing History In Philadelphia

  06-02-2026 19:15 via nytimes.com
  To many Philadelphians who having been coming daily ever since to leave protest messages, it felt like an attack on a hard-won monument, and even on the city itself. Within hours of the removal, the city filed a lawsuit in federal court contesting it. – The New York Times
  
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• Pianist And Conductor Tamás Vásáry Has Died At 92

  06-02-2026 19:02 via yahoo.com
  “The Hungarian pianist … was one of the finest interpreters of Liszt and Chopin in the second half of the 20th century. He also achieved renown as a sensitive and insightful conductor, eventually combining both roles to direct many of the world’s leading orchestras … from the keyboard.” – The Telegraph (UK) (Yahoo!)
  
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• We Think Cooperation Is The Ideal. In Fact A little Deceit Might Be Good

  06-02-2026 18:44 via aeon.co
  We evolved not to cooperate or compete, but with the capacity for both – and with the intelligence to hide competition when it suits us, or to cheat when we’re likely to get away with it. Cooperation is consequently something we need to promote, not presume. – Aeon
  
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• Reimagining Shakespeare In Shanghai

  06-02-2026 18:31 via nytimes.com
  Instead of Venice and Cyprus, Shakespeare’s setting for “Othello,” the Shanghai version takes place on an island at the mouth of the Yangtze River, where an American has been hired to help fight the Taiping rebellion, a bloody revolt in the 19th century. – The New York Times
  
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• The Muppets Were On Top. Then Decades Of Bad Business Decisions Toppled Their Popularity. Can They Rise Again?

  06-02-2026 18:15 via yahoo.com
  The characters have survived a cruel decade defined largely by false starts, aborted projects and creative in-fighting. – The Wrap (MSN)
  
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• Enormous Challenges For Disney’s New CEO

  06-02-2026 17:44 via msn.com
  The entertainment industry is in flux, and Disney will need someone with a deft hand if it is to survive and thrive. The business is consolidating around just a few superpowers, many of whom have the luxury of giant tech businesses to fall back on (see: Google and Amazon). – The Wrap (MSN)
  
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• Something Is Not Working In Sacramento’s Arts

  06-02-2026 17:31 via capradio.org
  This struggle, we have found, applies across the board and includes live music venues, theater groups, performance arts, galleries, and does not discriminate between small and new or legacy organizations. But sometimes we don’t miss something until it’s gone. – CapRadio
  
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• An Ambitious Project To Document Dance

  06-02-2026 17:15 via fjordreview.com
  The ambitious project was five years in the making and culled street dance resources from a wide-ranging array of sources spanning mediums. – Fjord Review
  
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• Gone Fishing

  06-02-2026 17:12 via artsjournal.com
  <a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/02/gone-fishing.html" title="Gone Fishing” rel=”nofollow”><img width="150" height="150" src="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/JH-offprintparis-beaux-arts-2-1200-150×150.jpg" class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image" alt="Jan Herman at Offprint Paris, 2013 [Photo: Ben Schot]" link_thumbnail="1" decoding="async" srcset="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/1
  
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• Farewell To The Mass-Market Paperback Book

  06-02-2026 17:03 via nytimes.com
  First introduced in the 1930s, mass-market books (once called “pulps”) sold in huge quantities for decades. Yet sales have been slowly-but-steadily sinking since the 1990s, displaced by ebooks and (more expensive) trade paperbacks, and the wire racks filled with the inexpensive titles in supermarkets, drugstores, and the like have almost disappeared. – The New York Times
  
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• Los Angeles To Host Major New Jazz Festival

  06-02-2026 16:35 via yahoo.com
  Concert promoter and former city councilman Martin Ludlow always wondered why a city full of excellent musicians had no equivalent of the big jazzfests in New Orleans, Montreux, and Montreal. So, starting this August, he’s putting on the LA Jazz Festival, hoping to draw 250,000 fans over 25 days. – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
  
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• Minnesota Orchestra Reports Record Earned Revenue — And $4.2 Million Deficit

  06-02-2026 16:01 via twincities.com
  In fiscal year 2025, earned revenue (ticket sales, hall rentals, concessions) reached a record high of $12.1 million. Orchestra Hall reached 82% paid capacity, up almost nine points. Nevertheless, the season ended with a $4.2 million operating loss, compared with a $3.8 million deficit the previous fiscal year. – Twin Cities Pioneer Press
  
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• “Great American State Fair” To Replace Smithsonian Folklife Festival On National Mall This Summer

  06-02-2026 15:36 via nytimes.com
  The Folklife Festival normally brings artisans and performers from various spots to the Mall for several weeks. This year, the Smithsonian says it will present mini-versions of the Festival around the country, while the Mall will host a state-fair-style gathering with pavilions from each state and territory. – The New York Times
  
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• Buffalo AKG Art Museum Gave Its Director A Low-Interest $335K Loan For A House. It Hasn’t Been Repaid.

  06-02-2026 15:02 via artnews.com
  “Janne Sirén, director … since 2013, used a museum loan to help finance a $710,000 home — more than half of which remains unpaid, including accrued interest, according to a state review.” – ARTnews
  
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• Newspaper Bloodbath Continues As Atlanta Journal-Constitution Lays Of 15% Of Its Staff

  06-02-2026 14:34 via saportareport.com
  “About 50 AJC employees (will) be losing their jobs, with about half of the cuts coming from the newsroom.” – SaportaReport (Atlanta)
  
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• Washington Post Lays Off Art Critic Sebastian Smee And Entire Photography Staff

  06-02-2026 14:00 via hyperallergic.com
  All eight of the paper’s in-house photographers have lost their jobs, as has the Pulitzer Prize winner Smee, who has been with the Post for eight years. His colleague Philip Kennicott (another Pulitzer laureate) will remain on staff. – Hyperallergic
  
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• Boosterism? Why, It Made America What It Is Today!

  05-02-2026 21:02 via editor.ne16.com
  “Boosters don’t describe real things so much as what they hope will become real things, often presenting growth as inevitable and betting on optimism as a viable economic strategy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, boosterism has played a major role in American history. … The harsh truth is, boosterism sometimes works.” – Quartz
  
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• Crypto Investors Pay $300K To Create Gold Trump Statue

  05-02-2026 20:31 via nytimes.com
  At 15 feet tall, the statue of President Trump, mounted on its 7,000-pound pedestal, is about the height of a two-story building — a giant effigy cast in bronze and finished with a thick layer of gold leaf. – The New York Times
  
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• The Difference Between Human Hierarchies And Other Primate Hierarchies

  05-02-2026 20:05 via theconversation.com
  Evolutionary anthropologist Thomas Morgan: “People can be coercive, but unlike other species, we also create hierarchies of prestige – voluntary arrangements that allocate labor and decision-making power according to expertise.” – The Conversation
  
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• Angel that looked like Giorgia Meloni removed from Rome church fresco

  04-02-2026 18:27
  Vatican appears to have ordered removal of restored work, which artist confessed he had made to resemble PMThe face of a winged angel bearing a striking resemblance to the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has been erased from a fresco in a historic Rome church, putting an end to a debacle that embarrassed the Vatican.The image on the wall painting in a chapel of the Basilica of St Lawrence in Lucina in central Rome was removed overnight, leaving the cherub headless. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘It’s about hurling yourself into the unknown’: Charmaine Watkiss on turning a UK museum upside down

  04-02-2026 15:35
  The artist’s work resurfaces skills and knowledge that colonialism buried. She explains how her drawings and sculpture weave botanical illustration and traditional craft to engage with generational traumaWhen the artist Charmaine Watkiss was a child, she frequently visited G Baldwin’s, a herbalist who sold natural remedies and essential oils in London’s Elephant and Castle, to pick up medicinal herbs and sarsaparilla for her mother. “They’ve had an apothecary for ov
  
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• Make the orchestra great again: how a painting of Trump as conductor misunderstands the symphony | Tom Service

  04-02-2026 15:29
  A new painting by the maestro of Trumpian kitsch offers a fever dream of musical unity – and fundamentally misunderstands orchestras and conductors. And where are the music stands?Events in the United States of Trumpland continue to reveal staggering new dimensions to the possibilities of orchestral music. Trump’s announcement that his “Trump Kennedy Center” is to be shut for a refit is a brilliantly cynical way to stop the noise when artists try to cancel their appearanc
  
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• ‘Our bodies bear traces of all we’ve endured’: exhibition explores bodily photography

  04-02-2026 11:03
  A new exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum looks at how the human body has been captured on film, from athletic portraits to revealing looks at ageingPhotography has a unique capacity to take us right to humanity’s extremes. Whether it’s the outsiders photographed by Diane Arbus, the revelatory motion studies of the human body made by Eadweard Muybridge, views of remote Indigenous communities taken by the Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide, or in-your-face shots of heated competi
  
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• ‘Pain is a violent lover’: Daisy Lafarge on the paintings she made when floored with agony

  03-02-2026 16:54
  Suffering from a connective tissue disorder and enduring endless calls to try and get benefits, the poet and novelist turned to painting – resulting in work that could change perceptions of disabled peopleDaisy Lafarge was lying on the floor in excruciating pain when she started her latest paintings. A severe injury, coupled with a sudden worsening of her health, had left her unable to sit upright, while brain fog and fatigue made reading and writing impossible. So the award-winning noveli
  
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• Artist Sarah Sze: ‘A work of art is finished when everything teeters’

  03-02-2026 11:04
  Renowned mixed media artist discusses her new exhibition and how it speaks to her personal experience and a wider concept of technologyWith just 13 pieces – 11 art objects and two video installations – artist Sarah Sze’s new showcase at Gagosian Beverly Hills packs a punch into a relatively pared-back show. The paintings themselves are substantial – as large as 8ft by 16ft – and their intricacy compels lengthy gazes. Furthermore, the artist has impeccably arranged t
  
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• Monsoons, mould … and a million visitors: welcome to Kerala’s ‘people’s biennale’

  03-02-2026 06:00
  Work by almost 70 artists – including Marina Abramović – has made an art fair in Kochi one of the hottest tickets in south Asia. This sixth instalment uses farmers’ fields and patched-up buildings to take visitors ‘back to nature’Say someone brings you a bouquet of flowers. You get a vase and one by one intuitively place each stem inside, allowing an arrangement to unfold on its own. It was on this level, as lead curator Nikhil Chopra suggests, that the Kochi-M
  
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