Arts news

• “Revivification”: A Reconstituted “Mini-Brain” Of The Late Alvin Lucier Is Creating Music

  09-04-2025 18:02 via theguardian.com
  
  A team of artists and neuroscientists took white blood cells donated by the composer (who cooperated with the project), reprogrammed them to be stem cells, grew cerebral organoids (clusters of neurons that mimic the human brain) and used customized technology to render the organoids’ neural signals into music. – The Guardian
  
  Read more

• ‘To be really successful, you have to be sexy in a straight way’: Ben Whishaw on libidinous New York and playing Peter Hujar

  16-12-2025 16:33
  Peter Hujar captured a queer Manhattan demi-monde that is now lost to Aids. Whishaw reveals what he learned playing the photographer in a minimalist film being hailed by some as a masterpieceOn 19 December 1974, the writer Linda Rosenkrantz went round to her friend Peter Hujar’s apartment in New York, and asked the photographer to describe exactly what he had done the day before. He talked in great detail about taking Allen Ginsberg’s portrait for the New York Times (it didn’t
  
  Read more

• A viral hit and loved by Tracey Emin: the woman who took up art at 88 – and became an Instagram sensation

  16-12-2025 15:47
  Christine Hazell has progressive memory loss yet now has four shows in the works, thanks to these raw, untutored drawings of her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren – and Kizzy the dogIn his four decades as a curator, publisher and gallerist, Matthew Higgs has supported many artists’ careers, including those of his contemporaries Jeremy Deller, Martin Creed and Peter Doig when they emerged in the early 1990s.Higgs also champions artists from alternative backgrounds – t
  
  Read more

• Angelinos Are Flocking To LA Bars… To Listen To Academic Lectures

  15-12-2025 20:31 via latimes.com
  Attendees hear thought-provoking talks from experts on wide-ranging topics such as Taylor Swift’s use of storytelling in her music, how AI technology is being used to detect cardiovascular diseases — all in a fun, low-stakes environment. And rest assured: No grades are given. It’s a formula that’s been working. – Los Angeles Times
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Cut, Paste, Print: a Graphic History of Political Montage

  15-12-2025 20:27 via artsjournal.com
  <a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2025/12/cut-paste-print-a-graphic-history-of-political-montage.html" title="Cut, Paste, Print: a Graphic History of Political Montage” rel=”nofollow”>
  Cut, paste print: a graphic history of political photomontage (1917-1991) opened recently at La Contemporaine, a public institution associated with Paris Nanterre University. As the title declares,“the exhibition presents an international panorama of the history of photomont
  
  Read more

• Building Boom: A New Generation Of Opera Houses

  15-12-2025 20:02 via ynetnews.com
  The world is now witnessing a renewed investment in large-scale cultural venues that aim to restore music’s physical and communal dimensions. These projects attempt to reframe the basic act of listening, not through screens, but in a space shared by hundreds or thousands of people. – YNet News
  
  Read more

• How Teachers Are Trying To Get Around AI Chatbots

  15-12-2025 19:40 via washingtonpost.com
  Across the country, a small but growing number of educators are experimenting with oral exams to circumvent the temptations presented by powerful artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT. – Washington Post
  
  Read more

• How The Tate Museum Lost Its Way

  15-12-2025 19:21 via theguardian.com
   It’s become genuinely hard to understand what Tate’s priorities are when it chooses artists for the annual Turbine Hall commission. And the Turner prize is even more mystifying. Once the stage of shocking, provocative art that engaged – whether they were for or against – a massive public, it has retreated into wilful obscurity. – The Guardian
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• The Best Visual Art Of 2025

  15-12-2025 19:01 via nytimes.com
  In large and small shows under-the-radar artists surfaced and were hot. At the same time, the arrival of a new political order firing off anti-diversity mandates cast a pall over both the year and the cultural future. – The New York Times
  
  Read more

• Librarians Are Struggling To Keep Up With Bad AI Queries

  15-12-2025 18:40 via round%2015%20percent%20of%20all%20the%20reference%20questions%20received%20by%20her%20staff%20are%20written%20by%20generative%20ai,%20some%20of%20which%20include%20imaginary%20citations%20and%20sources.%20this%20increased%20burden%20placed%20on%20l
  Around 15 percent of all the reference questions received by her staff are written by generative AI, some of which include imaginary citations and sources. This increased burden placed on librarians and institutions is so bad that even organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross are putting people on notice about the problem.
  
  Read more

• Artists Protest San Francisco Airport Museum’s Use Of AI Art

  15-12-2025 18:21 via kron4.com
  Nettrice Gaskins’ artwork sparked a passionate discussion about AI Thursday when a video of the exhibit posted to the Bay Area subreddit drew hundreds of comments and thousands of interactions from people questioning the airport’s decision to feature AI-generated art. – KRON4
  
  Read more

• AI Can Now Analyze Language Better Than Humans

  15-12-2025 18:00 via wired.com
  “It’s only a matter of time before we are able to build models that generalize better from less data in a way that is more creative.” – Wired
  
  Read more

• We Don’t Need To Make The Humanities “Relevant”

  15-12-2025 17:40 via theatlantic.com
  The humanities, which value rigorous inquiry for its own sake, will always be at odds with a world that thinks this way; that’s why relevance is a futile goal. For humanities departments to continue to matter, they must challenge the modern world rather than accommodate it. – The Atlantic
  
  Read more

• Christmas Music Has Become A License To Print Money

  15-12-2025 17:20 via wsj.com
  Spotify observes “the first big jump” in holiday-song streaming on Sept. 1, she noted. Activity ticks up again the next month; holiday playlist creation in the U.S. rose 60% from October 2024 to October 2025. Come November, for many listeners, it’s “all Christmas music all the time.” – The Wall Street Journal
  
  Read more

• How Some Regional Theatres Are Surviving

  15-12-2025 17:00 via nytimes.com
  One way is by, let’s say, not being intense with their audiences. “My first covenant is with the audience, and I care about what they think. … People don’t want to spend money on a show they don’t think they’re going to like.” – The New York Times
  
  Read more

• Tom Hanks Literally Wrote His Own Script This Time

  15-12-2025 16:30 via nytimes.com
  “I embarked on this endeavor, partly fueled by a desire to bring to life onstage a sense of lives caught between the certainties of the past and the unknowable future. I wanted theatergoers to ponder the possibilities of each present moment.” – The New York Times
  
  Read more

• The Fight For Warner Bros Is Messing Up Some Longtime Hollywood Allies

  15-12-2025 16:00 via bbc.com
  “Disaster, catastrophe and nightmare. That’s how Hollywood’s creative workers describe the fall of the once mighty Warner Bros, as Netflix and Paramount battle to buy the historic studio and tinsel town braces for more upheaval and job losses.” – BBC
  
  Read more

• A Cyberattack Forces An Oregon Library System Offline For Days

  15-12-2025 15:45 via orartswatch.org
  No book drops, no events, no audio books, no catalog, no buildings open: That’s what a cyberattack did to the Deschutes County Library system over the weekend. – Oregon ArtsWatch
  
  Read more

• Co-Starring With A Dog Is One Thing, But A Bird Of Prey?

  15-12-2025 15:30 via yahoo.com
  “Everything on set revolved around the hawks’ well-being. Filming took place between October and January, to avoid molting season. Everyone in the crew wore drab, dark colors, because that’s what the birds were used to. Microphones were hidden because the birds didn’t like booms.”– Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
  
  Read more

• Sinners Is About Black Creativity Changing Everything

  15-12-2025 15:15 via prospect.org
  “Ryan Coogler’s supersized supernatural blockbuster fused critical and commercial enthusiasm into a kind of mass obsessive fervor. It became, for a few weeks, the film everyone was talking (and raving) about,” but some in Hollywood – and the US in general – couldn’t deal. – American Prospect
  
  Read more

• The Year-End Book List You’ve Been Waiting For

  15-12-2025 15:00 via lithub.com
  The 173 best book covers out there. Yes, 173. – LitHub
  
  Read more

• Is Filmmaking Actually Meeting The Political Moment?

  15-12-2025 14:45 via nytimes.com
  Maybe? “This isn’t a bad batting average, with movies about everything from the melding of Silicon Valley and politics to authoritarianism, nationalism and racism. And remarkably, most of these opinionated releases were also big hits.” – The New York Times
  
  Read more

• What Was Dance Magazine Focusing On During The Sixties?

  15-12-2025 14:30 via dancemagazine.com
  The magazine, called something else earlier, has been around since before the Great Depression. In the 1960s, though, “dance emerged as a potent form of political expression.” – Dance Magazine
  
  Read more

• It’s A Wonderful Life Has A Lot Of Life Lessons

  15-12-2025 14:15 via fastcompany.com
  And hey, why not learn three keys to financial literacy from one of the most highly played Christmas movies in the world? (Actually! This is a great article. Read it.) – Fast Company
  
  Read more

• Physical Media Is Becoming Cool Again

  15-12-2025 14:00 via yahoo.com
  Whether it’s thanks to Gen-Z or thanks to a (terrifying) nonstop surveillance state intertwined with our televisions and speakers, CDs and DVDs are making a comeback. – Washington Post (Yahoo)
  
  Read more

• Rob Reiner, Director Of When Harry Met Sally, Princess Bride, This Is Spinal Tap And So Many More, Dead At 78

  15-12-2025 13:45 via msn.com
  Reiner was “a writer, director, producer, actor and political activist whose career in Hollywood spanned more than six decades and included some of the most iconic titles in movie history,” and a political activist who “emerged as a force in California politics.” – Los Angeles Times (MSN)
  
  Read more

• Hong Kong Mixtape review – dissident artists keep hope alive in the face of China’s crackdown

  15-12-2025 12:00
  San San F Young’s passionate documentary records a vibrant creative scene that continues to resist Beijing’s repression Dotted with towering corporate skyscrapers, the skyline of Hong Kong attests to its global reputation as a financial hub; this image is profoundly challenged by San San F Young’s passionate documentary. Turning her camera to the streets and taking us into artists’ studios, the film-maker captures the vibrant creative scene of the city. The turmoil of the
  
  Read more

• Nnena Kalu’s triumph for neurodivergent art has rattled a few cages. So let me put those carping critics right | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

  14-12-2025 11:00
  The artist’s winning Turner prize entry has been hailed for its life and energy, but to some dissenting voices its challenge to the status quo is hard to stomachNnena Kalu is an artist. She is also, as of this week, a winner of the Turner prize. Her work – twisting ribbon forms made from old VHS tape, plastic and strips of fabric – has been praised for its “finesse of scale, composition and colour” (the judges), its “emphasis … on the visual, tactile an
  
  Read more

• ‘Like a mini Louvre’: two generations of Rothschilds fight over treasure trove of artworks

  14-12-2025 07:00
  Baronesses Nadine and Ariane de Rothschild at odds over future of Swiss chateau’s priceless contentsAfter three generations of genteel discretion bordering on secrecy, the international banking family the Rothschilds has been riven by rival claims to a vast collection of masterpieces that are part of the family’s multibillion-euro fortune.The battle now playing out in the courts and media has pitched the 93-year-old senior baroness, Nadine de Rothschild – widow of Edmond de Rot
  
  Read more

• ‘My photos are warm and full of imagination – that’s something AI could never achieve’: Yuan Li’s best phone picture

  13-12-2025 12:00
  This spectacular image taken in Sakrisøy, Norway, triggered accusations that it was simply too good to be trueYuan Li splits his time between two careers: in the winter, he works as a ski instructor; in summer, a photographer. When he took this image, Beijing-based Li was visiting Norway and Iceland with friends, on a trip focused on sightseeing and photographing the aurora borealis. He captured this picture while exploring Sakrisøy, a small island in Lofoten, Norway. In
  
  Read more

Follow @ArtsUK1 on Twitter!