Good Morning,
A quiet holiday Monday, but the stories that drifted in all circle the same uncomfortable question: what is art actually worth, and who gets to decide?
Michael Rushton revisits Bourdieu’s old claim that aesthetic taste is just class signaling dressed up as judgment — and argues that if you really believe it, the whole rationale for funding any art at all quietly collapses (For What It’s Worth). Meanwhile, a new study followed what happens when you hand struggling artists $1,000 a month with no strings attached — and finds the idea gaining traction precisely because no one is sure what AI will leave of creative work (The Conversation).
The market’s own answers look increasingly broken. Pop tours aren’t selling this summer, and one promoter says prices have simply gone “obscene” (LinkedIn). And the Ansel Adams Trust is furious at a gallery hawking an AI “color version” of Moonrise Over Hernandez — a fight that’s really about whether the human behind an image counts for anything once a prompt can reproduce it (ARTnews). In Washington, the Kennedy Center’s opera house orchestra has gone silent — 61 musicians paid by the performance, with no performances to play (The New York Times).
And the Alamo Drafthouse, of all movie theatre chains, is now nudging patrons to order on their phones mid-movie. The patrons are revolting (The New York Times).
All of our stories below.
