This Week’s Highlights:
The most valuable cultural property of the week was the one nobody owns. Homer’s Odyssey — free, public domain, 2,800 years old — became the highest-grossing R-rated film in history (Washington Post), drew Emily Wilson back for a from-scratch retranslation of a version most people already considered definitive (AP), and turned up on a Kyiv stage performed by professional actors alongside active-duty soldiers, working out what homecoming means while the war is still on (AP).
Britain barred a £71 million Rembrandt from leaving the country (The Art Newspaper). The State Department pulled a Kehinde Wiley portrait off its wall as ideologically unacceptable (The New York Times). Thieves carried 66 pieces of Bronze Age gold out of a Spanish museum in four minutes (The Guardian).
Underneath it, audiences keep turning up — three-quarters of Australians went to a live event last year (ArtsHub) — while the fight inside institutions is over who decides. Boston Symphony musicians called off the first strike threat in the orchestra’s 145 years in exchange for an enhanced hand in picking the next music director (WBUR); V&A staff voted 95% to walk out (BBC).
All this week’s stories below, organized by topic.
