What happens when cinema gets more emotionally intelligent?

Tobey Duncan, chief strategy officer at Uncommon, explores how the studio’s new short film, Losing It, joins a wave of cinema redefining masculinity, turning silence into dialogue and taboo into cultural conversation. Film is finally cracking open one of the...

A Landmark Raphael Retrospective Is Coming to The Met

Raphael, “The Virgin and Child with Infant Saint John the Baptist in a Landscape (The Alba Madonna)” (1509–11) (image courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington) “How generous and kind Heaven sometimes proves to be,” mused Italian Renaissance artist and...

Amy Sherald Speaks Out on Cancelling Her Smithsonian Show

Amy Sherald, the painter most widely known for her portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama, detailed her decision to withdraw her exhibition from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG) amid concerns over censorship at the institution in a new...

The Artist Freeing Museums’ Captive Instruments

Satch Hoyt (undated) (photo by and courtesy Gabriel Schimmeroth) HAMBURG, Germany — “Ok, stop the cameras,” the head conservator commanded from the belly of the storage department. “I want to hear what these instruments sound like without Satch wearing the...

An Ancient Roman Guide to Trump’s Authoritarian Playbook 

Authoritarianism is on the rise across the globe, including in the United States. In April 2025, NPR reported that in a survey of over 500 political scientists, the majority believed that the United States was moving from a liberal democracy toward authoritarianism....

Skawennati’s Cyberpunk Future Is Now

OTTAWA — I first encountered multidisciplinary artist Skawennati in person at her December 2019 talk at the former McLuhan Centre for Communication and Technology in Toronto. I recall that the artist wore Barbie-doll pink; I later learned that she is a Barbie...