Arts news

• Our Complicated Relationship With Boredom

  04-08-2026 17:15 via porticoquarterly.com
  
  Boredom isn’t merely the result of a boring external environment, as a schoolchild might think, or inadequate mental resources, as my mother suggested. It is either a mysterious nexus of dysfunction or a healthy adaptive function (it’s complicated) that afflicts both individuals and societies at large. – Portico Quarterly
  
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• Broadway’s Next Stage Comes With Lifeboat Drills

  05-08-2026 00:54 via artsjournal.com
  Good Morning,Cruise lines have quietly become one of the largest employers of musical theatre performers, and they’ve stopped commissioning schlocky revues in favor of real productions (The Guardian).
  The container keeps moving faster than the field’s map of it. Microdramas — vertical, two-minute, phone-native — are already spawning microsports (The Hollywood Reporter). And a Bay Area critic argues classical music is now underground music (San Francisco Classical Voice) &
  
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• Some Cruise Lines Are Shifting Onboard Entertainment From Schlocky Revues To Legit Theatre

  04-08-2026 21:03 via theguardian.com
  Okay, they’re not doing Long Day’s Journey Into Night or Titus Andronicus; after all, the audience is on vacation. But cruises from the UK have started presenting professional productions like Come From Away and the RSC staging of The Constant Wife. Ambassador Cruise Line even has a playwriting competition. – The Guardian
  
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• Are These The 25 Most Significant Sculptures Of The Modern Age?

  04-08-2026 20:31 via nytimes.com
  To choose the 25 most important works of sculpture made since 1945, we asked a panel of experts to gather at the New York Times building in March. – The New York Times
  
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• Torn To Shreds: The Writers Workshop

  04-08-2026 20:15 via theguardian.com
  Joyce Carol Oates is known for her strict style. One of her students once described her crossing through the first several pages of a story and asking: “What’s the point?” I commiserated with him, but he looked at me and said: “No, that’s what I want. To be ripped to shreds.” – The Guardian
  
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• You Know About Microdramas. Get Ready For Microsports.

  04-08-2026 20:01 via hollywoodreporter.com
  
  “Brett Morris, the CEO of World 1, wants you to watch his ‘Microsports,’ which he describes as ‘entirely original sports where world titles are won or lost in 30 seconds.’” – The Hollywood Reporter
  
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• Reading Isaac Butler’s The Perfect Moment

  04-08-2026 19:53 via artsjournal.com
  Isaac Butler has written a history of the controversies – dubbed the “culture wars” – that arose in the United States around the arts and arts-adjacent fields from the mid-1980s to around 2000. These were fights over state censorship of art, and the separate issue of restrictions on the content of art that could be available for government funding, even if quite indirectly.
  Butler tells a vivid story with good portraits of the artists whose work was at issue. He is
  
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• San Francisco Opera Signs Matthew Shilvock For Another Five Years

  04-08-2026 19:15 via operawire.com
  
  Shilvock became San Francisco Opera’s seventh general director in August 2016, following in the footsteps of his mentor David Gockley. He has led the company for ten seasons and has introduced several premieres. – Operawire
  
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• Other Minds, Bay Area New-Music Nexus, Sees Its First-Ever Change In Leadership

  04-08-2026 19:04 via msn.com
  Composer Charles Amirkhanian, who co-founded the festival/audio producer/archive in 1992, is retiring as executive and artistic director as of January. Joseph Bohigian, currently Other Minds’ associate director, will become artistic director, and the search process for a new executive director is currently underway. – San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
  
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• Is Classical Music Now A Form Of Underground Music?

  04-08-2026 18:44 via sfclassicalvoice.substack.com
  
  These days, classical music is underground; it is no longer part of mainstream culture. By “underground,” I don’t mean that the San Francisco Symphony is punk, but that classical music has become something you will only hear if you seek it out.  – San Francisco Classical Voice
  
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• Evolve Or Die: How Jeopardy! Is Evolving

  04-08-2026 18:31 via msn.com
  As strong as Jeopardy! remains on broadcast, rapid changes to the television business have demonstrated how quickly viewing habits can shift and why studios and platforms need to constantly rethink how they connect with audiences.  – Vulture (MSN)
  
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• Hollywood Has Its Biggest Box Office Weekend In History

  04-08-2026 18:15 via variety.com
  
  A powerful one-two punch from “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and “The Odyssey” has fueled the biggest collective weekend in box office history, with roughly $430 million across all movies in the marketplace. – Variety
  
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• Jacob’s Pillow Amid The Palms? A New Dance Festival In Florida

  04-08-2026 18:02 via wlrn.org
  
  As co-founder Ericka Squire puts it, “Palm Beach County is ripe for a festival that feels like Jacob’s Pillow” — a pitch that worked on the right funders. The first-ever Banyan Dance Festival is running this week in downtown West Palm Beach. – WLRN (Miami)
  
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• A Small Arts Project Supporting Emerging Artists Hits A Home Run. What Can We Learn?

  04-08-2026 17:44 via artshub.com.au
  This innovative new venture is perhaps best described as a super-smart business strategy that could also be a blueprint for other entrepreneurs to ignite arts spaces in their own communities, boost social connectedness and give young, emerging artists some much-needed financial support. – ArtsHub
  
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• Founding Donor Of Human Rights Museum Suspends Funding Over Palestinian Exhibition

  04-08-2026 17:31 via theartnewspaper.com
  
  She complained of a “lack of context” in the exhibition about the forced displacement of Palestinians during the creation of Israel, such as the omission of information about the Palestinian rejection of a state that was offered in the United Nations’ 1947 partition plan and about Jews displaced in Arab lands. – The Art Newspaper
  
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• Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart’s Best Librettist, Ended Up In The US. His Descendants Are Still Here.

  04-08-2026 17:01 via nytimes.com
  After a life and career around Europe that might euphemistically be described as picaresque, da Ponte fled to Philadelphia and New York, ran a grocery store in rural Pennsylvania, and ended up as Columbia University’s first professor of Italian. For eight generations, his family has held onto his memory. – The New York Times
  
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• Sacramento Philharmonic And Opera Names Ari Pelto Music Director

  04-08-2026 16:33 via moto-perpetuo.com
  
  The Connecticut-born maestro, who is also music director at Opera Colorado, has been Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor at the California company since 2023. As of the coming season, he is Music Director and Chief Conductor, a newly-created title. – Moto Perpetuo
  
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• Looks Like An Educational-AI Company Scraped The Poetry Foundation’s Website For Content

  04-08-2026 16:05 via publishersweekly.com
  “According to its website, Giggle Academy is a nonprofit and was started by cryptocurrency mogul and Binance founder Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao in 2024. It also claims to have one million users in 182 countries.” Hundreds of poems, evidently copied from the Poetry Foundation’s website, are on Giggle Academy’s website without permission. – Publishers Weekly
  
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• Why New York Historical Is Deliberately Displaying Copies In Its Latest Show

  04-08-2026 15:36 via nytimes.com
  “This is because it was only as the exhibition — ‘Democracy Matters’ — was about to open on June 18 that the museum fully reckoned with the fact that windows in the new gallery would shower sunshine on some very light-sensitive artworks.” – The New York Times
  
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• Trump White House’s Proposed Budget Includes Funding Cuts And Staff Layoffs At Smithsonian

  04-08-2026 15:04 via artnews.com
  
  “For fiscal year 2027, the White House has proposed giving the Smithsonian $961.3 million in federal funding, roughly an 11% cut from the $1.08 billion Congress provided to it fiscal year 2026 and the institution’s lowest proposed funding level since at least 2020.” – ARTnews
  
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• London’s Royal Ballet And Opera Says It Needs £60 Million Just To Keep Its Building Open

  04-08-2026 14:32 via thetimes.com
  “The historic Covent Garden venue … has reported a ‘critical’ need to invest in its stage infrastructure and the ‘fabric of our building’. Without doing so, the theatre is at risk of equipment failures and performance cancellations, according to a review of the organisation’s financial health.” – The Times (UK)
  
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• Hirshhorn Museum’s New Sculpture Garden Has Its Opening Date

  04-08-2026 14:00 via msn.com
  “After a long period of being fenced off and closed to the public, a reflecting pool will soon be reopening after a major renovation. No, not that one. This reflecting pool is in the center of the Hirshhorn Museum’s sculpture garden, which will reopen Oct. 31.” – The Washington Post (MSN)
  
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• Nobody Boos At A Screen

  04-08-2026 03:25 via artsjournal.com
  Good Morning,The U.S. has lost a fifth of its movie theaters and nearly a third of its bowling alleys since 2001 (Fortune). That’s not a taste story, it’s an infrastructure one — the places where strangers used to end up sitting next to each other are disappearing.The consequence shows up inside the rooms still standing: moviegoing has stopped being habit meeting spontaneity, and the question of what to see has collapsed into whether to go at all (The Atlantic). Instagram, mean
  
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• Immediate Opening: Vice President of Marketing and Audience Development

  01-08-2026 02:22 via artsjournal.com
  THE POSITION:Reporting to the President & CEO, the Vice President of Marketing & Audience Development is a key member of the senior leadership team responsible for developing and executing statewide strategies that achieve earned revenue, audience growth, patron loyalty and institutional communications objectives. The Vice President provides executive leadership for marketing, sales, audience development, communications, brand strategy, patron experience, and patron loyalty initiatives,
  
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• Galleries, Gatekeepers, And An 82-Year-Old Pole Dancer

  01-08-2026 02:20 via artsjournal.com
  Good Afternoon,Ocula asks the question the art trade would rather not engage on: do artists still need galleries (Ocula)? The answer depends on what the gallery was ever really selling — access, or permission. Philadelphia offers a blunter version: Curtis is putting $25 million into the building it acquired out of University of the Arts’ collapse, rehearsal hall included (MSN).
  Follow the money and the pattern holds. Universal Music posted a 13% revenue jump (The Hollywood Reporter)
  
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• Behold The World’s Oldest Competitive Pole Dancer. She’s 82.

  31-07-2026 20:50 via nypost.com
  
  Idanna Abignente, who lives in a suburb of Turin, started pole dancing at around age 70 to keep fit. She developed a passion for it and eventually joined the competition circuit, where she frequently wins her age division for lack of other competitors. – New York Post
  
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• Do Artists Still Need Galleries?

  31-07-2026 20:22 via ocula.com
   It is often assumed that a gallery is a prerequisite to finding commercial success and a place in the history of art. But a growing number of artists are rejecting that notion and going—to use the kind of commercial lingo that the art market likes to avoid—Direct to Consumer (DTC).  – Ocula
  
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• Gunther Von Hagens, Creator Of Controversial Exhibition “Body Worlds,” Is Dead At 81

  31-07-2026 20:03 via apnews.com
  
  An anatomist by training, he developed a technique called “plastination” which prevents the decay of corpses and leaves them flexible. He used that technique on dozens of bodies, many with skin removed to display musculature, and set them in various poses for his traveling exhibitions — which attracted both excited crowds and horrified criticism. – AP
  
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• Why Hollywood Loves The Cello

  31-07-2026 19:44 via theguardian.com
  Why, out of every option in the orchestra, did the cello become the instrument of introspection? “It’s the cliche, but it’s probably because the cello comes closest to the human vocal range.” – The Guardian
  
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• Streamers Are Pressuring France To Drop Their Requirements To Invest In France

  31-07-2026 19:31 via variety.com
  
  Since January 2022, subscription streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ have been required to invest 20% of their annual French revenue in local film and television production under France’s implementation of the European Audiovisual Media Services Directive. – Variety
  
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