Arts news

• Programme Evaluators: Heritage Fund Business Support Programme / Cause4 / London

  31-07-2020 18:28
  Cause4 is the lead delivery organisation for the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Business Support programme, along with consortium partners Creative United and the Arts Marketing Association....
  
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• Elaine Short obituary

  01-01-2026 18:13
  My friend Elaine Short, who has died aged 89, was an artist, potter, teacher and Francophile. She was also a skilled and talented weaver. When I met her in the 1990s she showed me some of her beautiful tapestries, many of them inspired by the Sussex countryside. Her work was exhibited in galleries including Hastings Art Forum, where she was an active member, and her tapestry techniques were much admired.Born in Nice, France, to Alice (nee Bousseaux) and John Braithwaite, a British army officer,
  
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• Hull’s maritime history thrusts city into world’s top places to visit in 2026

  01-01-2026 17:00
  Historic trawler and floating lighthouse among East Yorkshire city’s attractions as it gears up for tourism boostA combination of a world record-breaking trawler, a floating lighthouse and a dizzying array of maritime objects that include a stuffed polar bear called Erik are all helping to make Hull one of the top 25 places in the world to visit in 2026.The East Yorkshire city is on the verge of completing an ambitious £70m transformation, which, supporters believe, will propel it in
  
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• Last letters from Denmark: Danes write to Devonian artist as postal service ends

  01-01-2026 14:51
  Closure of country’s 400-year-old service made headlines and prompted Gillian Taylor to appeal for final missivesSome describe the joy of receiving dispatches from far afield, others speak of the discipline of sitting down to carefully order their thoughts in a letter.One writer tells of finding a poignant cache of letters after a parent’s death, while another has shared a map of where the post boxes used to be in her town. Continue reading...
  
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• Last letters from Denmark: Danes write to Devon artist as postal service ends

  01-01-2026 14:51
  Closure of country’s 400-year-old service made headlines and prompted Gillian Taylor to appeal for final missivesSome describe the joy of receiving dispatches from far afield, others speak of the discipline of sitting down to carefully order their thoughts in a letter.One writer tells of finding a poignant cache of letters after a parent’s death, while another has shared a map of where the postboxes used to be in her town. Continue reading...
  
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• Tacita Dean on witnessing Ceal Floyer’s final work of art: ‘She gave death the middle finger’

  01-01-2026 14:12
  The Royal Academician celebrates an extraordinary moment as her friend, the artist Ceal Floyer, approached the end of her life last month• Read more: Ceal Floyer obituaryIt is very hard to describe a work by the British conceptual artist Ceal Floyer because description overburdens it. Her practice was so finely wrought that it existed only in the experience between a work’s idea and its absorption. Ceal handled this equation deftly and with perfect poise, but it was a perilous and nak
  
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• Cecilia Giménez’s botched Monkey Christ became a global meme. The real marvel was the humble, graceful woman behind it | Sam Jones

  01-01-2026 06:00
  The restorer, who died on Monday, brought unwanted attention to herself – and her small Spanish town. Then, slowly, a small miracle took placeVery few of us find fame quite as late, or quite as brutally, as Cecilia Giménez did in the summer of 2012. The Spanish amateur artist was already 81 when her efforts to restore a decent, if unremarkable, fresco of the scourged Christ brought her a renown that almost destroyed her.Almost overnight, Giménez, who died on Monday at the age
  
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• Happy New Year

  01-01-2026 02:54 via artsjournal.com
  Today’s AJ highlights the year we just left.We begin with my own attempt to make sense of it all: From 30,000 Feet: Five Year-end Observations about Arts and Culture in 2025 looks at the more than 6,000 stories we posted this year to find the patterns beneath the noise. The individual incidents—closures in San Francisco, lawsuits in D.C., op-eds on the “death of cinema”—stop looking like isolated events and reveal a broader structural shift (Diacritical Blog).The Wa
  
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• From 30,000 Feet: Five Year-end Observations about Arts and Culture in 2025

  01-01-2026 01:01 via artsjournal.com
  We posted more than 6,000 stories across all forms of culture in 2025. When you pull back and look at them in aggregate, the individual crises—the closures in San Francisco, the lawsuits in D.C., the endless op-eds about the “death of cinema”—stop looking like isolated incidents. They resolve into a structural shift.
  
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• Five Year-end Observations about the state of Arts and Culture in 2025

  01-01-2026 01:01 via artsjournal.com
  We posted more than 6,000 stories across all forms of culture in 2025. When you pull back and look at them in aggregate, the individual crises—the closures in San Francisco, the lawsuits in D.C., the endless op-eds about the “death of cinema”—stop looking like isolated incidents. They resolve into a structural shift.
  
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• Artnet’s “The Worst Art We Saw In 2025”

  31-12-2025 20:50 via news.artnet.com
  By no means is all of this bad art actually from 2025, though a fair bit of it is. In fact, one choice (this writer’s personal favorite) has been on display in Philadelphia for more than a century, and it just keeps on looking god-awful. – Artnet
  
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• The Walrus’ Year In Arts And Culture

  31-12-2025 20:44 via thewalrus.ca
  These were the economic and political forces shaping culture in 2025. From the decline of the middle-class musician and the digitization of art to critical reassessments of literary heavyweights and political cinema… – The Walrus
  
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• Twelve Stories That Defined 2025 For Museums

  31-12-2025 20:31 via news.artnet.com
  In the U.S., a tense political climate and moves by the Trump administration to exert more control over the country’s cultural institutions is creating new challenges for museums, both financially and ideologically. – Artnet
  
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• In A Time Of Flattened Attention, It’s Time To Reconsider The Complications Of Saul Bellow

  31-12-2025 20:15 via metropolitanreview.org
  The persistent cultural resistance to Bellow, who remains popularly read yet broadly under-appreciated by the taste-making classes, comes in several flavors. Over the decades he’s come to be categorized by critics as a hundred different kinds of “too much”… – The Metropolitan Review
  
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• The Return Of Scott Rudin Was One Of Broadway’s Big Surprises Of 2025

  31-12-2025 20:05 via theatermania.com
  Even four years after his decades-long, widely-gossiped-about abuse of his employees was publicly exposed and he was cancelled, few observers were expecting him to start producing shows on Broadway again. Many of those observers are not happy to see him back. – TheaterMania
  
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• In Memoriam: Art World Luminaries We Lost In 2025

  31-12-2025 19:44 via news.artnet.com
  Some were giants in their fields, while others have had quieter, less-heralded careers—and some leave behind questionable legacies. – Artnet
  
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• Here’s What’s Wrong With Letting AI Take Over Lower-Level Creative Work

  31-12-2025 19:31 via theatlantic.com
  What’s the harm, studio executives might wonder, if machines take over work that seems unchallenging and rote to knowledgeable professionals? The problem is that entry-level creative jobs are much more than grunt work. Working within established formulas and routines is how young artists develop their skills. – The Atlantic
  
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• Kennedy Center’s Threats To Sue Artists Who Cancel Are Ultimately Empty

  31-12-2025 19:15 via theatlantic.com
  Richard Grenell’s letter argues not only that Redd has harmed the Center’s finances, but that his withdrawal constitutes an “act of intolerance” driven by “the sad bullying tactics employed by certain elements on the left.” Grenell vows, “We will not let them cancel shows without consequences.” – The Atlantic
  
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• 2025’s Big Art World Controversies

  31-12-2025 19:01 via news.artnet.com
  The (let’s say) unfortunate ways in which the Louvre’s inadequate security and deteriorating physical plant were revealed, a major gallery abruptly shutting down, two different arguments involving Vincent van Gogh, dissension among the heirs of one of Europe’s great art mystics, and, as usual, the Parthenon Marbles. – Artnet
  
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• The Podcast Trap — Why Have I Stopped Listening To Music?

  31-12-2025 18:44 via theatlantic.com
  My change in listening habits comes from a compulsion that many people in my life share: to make every minute of the day as “productive” as possible. By that blinkered calculus, an informative podcast will always trump music. – The Atlantic
  
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• All About Ratings? This Year’s Kennedy Center Honors Ratings Tank

  31-12-2025 18:31 via washingtonpost.com
  The show averaged 3.01 million viewers, according to Nielsen’s report, CBS publicist Julie Holland shared in an email Tuesday — down about 25 percent from the previous year. The Kennedy Center did not respond to a request for comment on the ratings. – Washington Post
  
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• An AI Country Song Hit No. 1 On The Charts. So What Do Nashville Musicians Think About This?

  31-12-2025 18:15 via washingtonpost.com
  When “Walk My Walk” went No. 1, several observers disputed the narrative that country music was being overrun by AI. They noted that relatively few country listeners purchase digital songs in today’s streaming world, so topping that particular chart isn’t that significant. – Washington Post
  
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• Six Ways To Dance Like A Shaker In “The Testament Of Ann Lee”

  31-12-2025 18:06 via msn.com
  Choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall lays out the half-dozen movements which were most important to the film’s dance sequences — and recounts how those movements changed on the fly during shooting. – Vulture (MSN)
  
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• Dancers Who Are Focusing On Climate Change

  31-12-2025 17:47 via dance-enthusiast.com
  “It’s literally being a body in space, drawing attention in a way that is effective. Often the effectiveness is in making the information very local. The hard part is, how do we make it global?” – Dance Enthusiast
  
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• The American Publishing Industry’s Tumultuous 2025

  31-12-2025 17:03 via publishersweekly.com
  Much of the tumult came from the Trump White House, some more of it came from local and state officeholders banning particular books from school and public libraries, but perhaps the most worrying difficulties happened in a frequently overlooked but crucial corner of the industry. – Publishers Weekly
  
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• LitHub’s 50 Biggest Literary Stories Of 2025

  31-12-2025 16:34 via lithub.com
  A book prize was “paused” when half the nominees dropped out because they objected to another nominee, Reading Rainbow came back, Salman Rushdie’s attacker was convicted of attempted murder, AI ruined the em-dash, and plenty more. – Literary Hub
  
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• The Entertainment Industry’s Biggest Innovations Of 2025

  31-12-2025 16:02 via yahoo.com
  “The year saw the industry take some big swings, like the Las Vegas Sphere getting into the theatrical business with an enhanced version of The Wizard of Oz, or the revival of a long-dead format for cinephiles. Then there’s AI, a technology that Hollywood is still coming to grips with.” – TheWrap (MSN)
  
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• Kennedy Center Board Rigged Bylaws So That Only Trump’s Appointees Could Vote

  31-12-2025 15:35 via msn.com
  “The current bylaws, obtained by The Washington Post, were revised in May to specify that board members designated by Congress — known as ex officio members — could not vote or count toward a quorum. Legal experts say the move may conflict with the institution’s charter.” – The Washington Post (MSN)
  
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• Beleaguered San Antonio Philharmonic Cancels Yet Another Concert

  31-12-2025 15:01 via tpr.org
  “The organization has canceled its Classics 5 concert, which was scheduled for January 16. … The Philharmonic is made up largely of musicians who previously performed with the San Antonio Symphony, which dissolved in 2022. Many of the financial challenges that plagued the Symphony have also affected the Philharmonic.” – Texas Public Radio
  
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• ‘Even in the most unlikely places there is beauty’: stories of hope from newsrooms around the world

  31-12-2025 15:00
  From the construction worker who won a place at medical school to an art exhibition in a country with no galleries, we asked journalists for their most optimistic tales of the yearFounder of the Migration Story, India Continue reading...
  
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