Arts and Culture

Prominent New Zealand entertainer Lynda Topp denounces government’s military budget

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 03:46:24 GMT

The speech by one of the country’s foremost entertainers fiercely denounced government cuts to the arts budget amid soaring military spending.

Court rules that Trump’s name must be removed from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 02:04:56 GMT

A Washington DC federal district judge ruled that the president’s stacking of the board with his loyalists and placing the Trump name on the Kennedy Center was a “procedurally defective and substantively unlawful action.”

“Saxophone Colossus” Sonny Rollins dies at 95

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 01:28:23 GMT

His death marks the physical and “biographical” end of an era that began with the founding of bebop in New York during the final years of World War II.

The “Great American State Fair” debacle: Trump’s megalomania and extreme isolation

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 02:00:25 GMT

One of the centerpieces of the anniversary is a mixed martial arts cage match scheduled to take place June 14 on the South Lawn of the White House.

Raphael, the “Prince of Painters,” at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 01:43:00 GMT

A major exhibition of the Renaissance artist’s work sheds light on the social and aesthetic factors that enabled his artistic development and on the character of his achievement.

Why are art schools disappearing in America?

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 01:57:46 GMT

Arts education has suffered an unprecedented reversal in the past few years. Art schools, a number of which have served students and communities for over 100 years, have been abruptly closed.

Miles Davis at 100, a complex figure reflecting a complex time

Sat, 30 May 2026 01:31:38 GMT

The jazz world is celebrating the centenary of jazz trumpet master and bandleader Miles Davis, one of the 20th century’s most impactful musicians.

Enough is Enough: Catastrophe in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Wed, 27 May 2026 04:28:08 GMT

The scramble for these resources has resulted in the decades of civil war, with various groups and armed bands seeking to gain control of territory.

Beef Season 2: “The people in charge have made it impossible for us”

Tue, 26 May 2026 04:02:17 GMT

Series creator, co-director and co-writer Lee Sung Jin makes the pressures of capitalism and class society a persistent theme and source of crises in the series.

A $1 billion evening for the art world

Sat, 23 May 2026 03:33:15 GMT

How is it that one individual can accumulate such an art collection and withhold it from the public?

First They Came for My College: Right-wing “human dust” mount takeover of New College of Florida

Thu, 21 May 2026 03:56:18 GMT

Bresnan’s film sets out the sordid details of this far-right maneuver in all its repulsive transparency.

Whitney Biennial 2026: Taking the pulse and finding it feeble

Wed, 20 May 2026 05:00:48 GMT

Through the biennial, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City maintains it is taking the pulse of the contemporary art scene in the US.

India’s film certification board censors award-winning The Voice of Hind Rajab, citing “harm” to India-Israel relations

Tue, 19 May 2026 01:53:09 GMT

The banning of the docudrama reveals the depth of relationship now established between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-supremacist government and the murderous Zionist Netanyahu regime.

Red Dawn over China: An extended exercise in anti-communist propaganda

Mon, 18 May 2026 05:17:00 GMT

Frank Dikötter’s new book is a fundamentally flawed work that makes little pretence of academic objectivity or intellectual honesty.

“The Forever Prisoner”: Abu Zubaydah’s testimony from Guantánamo Bay

Sun, 17 May 2026 17:07:12 GMT

Zubaydah’s international lawyer, Helen Duffy, explained how he has been held in arbitrary detention for 24 years without charge, trial, or judicial review and subjected to torture.

WSWS interviews Pulitzer Prize winner Brian Goldstone, author of There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America: “In America right now, a low-wage job … is homelessness waiting to happen”

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:13:44 GMT

The WSWS spoke to Brian Goldstone in 2025 about homelessness in America and about his book.

Vote NO on the SAG-AFTRA tentative agreement: Entertainment workers must join the broader struggle of the working class

Fri, 15 May 2026 02:37:32 GMT

The SAG-AFTRA tentative agreement locks performers into four years of managed decline, institutionalizes AI exploitation and must be rejected. Build rank-and-file committees now!

Michael: An exercise in image control

Wed, 13 May 2026 23:24:18 GMT

An estate-approved film about Michael Jackson is an exploitation that leans heavily on his music and provides a superficial, selective view of his life.

90 years of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times

Wed, 13 May 2026 01:39:43 GMT

Released under tumultuous social, political and economic circumstances, Chaplin’s movie retains the artistic, cultural, political and social significance it had in 1936.

61st Venice Biennale: Cultural workers and artists strike and protest against the Israeli genocide in Gaza

Tue, 12 May 2026 02:25:04 GMT

The strikers and demonstrators were responding to a call from the organisation Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA), supported by a number of other activist groups.

A Sad and Beautiful World: “When things get better, we’ll come back to Beirut”

Mon, 11 May 2026 04:25:16 GMT

Beirut has been subjected to repeated, brutal Israeli bombing raids throughout the current conflict.

Nobel Prize winner J. M. Coetzee decries Israel’s “genocidal campaign in Gaza” while declining to attend Jerusalem literature festival

Sat, 09 May 2026 04:51:38 GMT

"For the past two years the state of Israel has been conducting a genocidal campaign in Gaza."

What is it about the Met fashion gala that leads one to think fondly of the guillotine?

Thu, 07 May 2026 04:02:46 GMT

The Met Gala on Monday evening was an expression of the putrefaction of the ruling establishment where fashion, Hollywood, corporate money, celebrity culture and politics comingled in a display of wealth and privilege.

Mehring Yayıncılık holds first cinema screening of Tsar to Lenin in Türkiye

Wed, 06 May 2026 00:21:43 GMT

Mehring Yayıncılık successfully held the first cinema screening in Türkiye of the unique documentary Tsar to Lenin.

The new code of silence: Texas Tech University bans gender and sexuality teaching and research

Mon, 04 May 2026 23:52:39 GMT

The draconian directive is an obvious appeal to social and intellectual backwardness and an attempt to shove ultra-right Christian ideology down the throats of faculty, students and staff.

Two Prosecutors: A stubborn young lawyer confronts the criminal methods of the Stalinist bureaucracy

Mon, 04 May 2026 02:05:19 GMT

Many thousands of devoted revolutionaries, including most of the leaders of the October 1917 Revolution, were put to death between 1936 and 1938 by the counterrevolutionary bureaucracy.

Inside Amir: Tehran, before US and Israeli bombs rained down...

Sat, 02 May 2026 03:22:12 GMT

One can’t help but wondering after two months of war and countless waves of bombing, and thousands of civilian deaths: Does that neighborhood still look like this?

Sri Lankan government blocks release of Tamil writer’s books

Fri, 01 May 2026 00:33:59 GMT

The JVP/NPP government censors Tamil writers under the guise of “national unity," while allowing Sinhala chauvinist and militarist propaganda to circulate freely.

Faculty, students oppose censorship of artist at University of North Texas

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 01:21:05 GMT

Sharp and legitimate criticism of Trump, of ICE, of Israel’s genocide, of the illegal war against Iran ... any and all of this is now termed a “disturbance,” a “disruption."

1,100 artists call for boycott of Eurovision over Israel’s Gaza genocide

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 17:03:01 GMT

The letter is a moving assertion of opposition to the ongoing genocide and the cultural devastation that accompanies it.

Book banning in the US: The right-wing effort to inoculate the population against critical thought

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 03:56:00 GMT

This is a concerted, organized campaign driven by ultra-right elements dedicated to forcing their anti-democratic and unpopular views on a largely unsuspecting public.

Michael Tilson Thomas, acclaimed American conductor, has died at the age of 81

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:55:22 GMT

Like his mentor Leonard Bernstein, Tilson Thomas was known for his communication skills and his ability to attract new audiences to classical music.

Artists group launches boycott of New York cultural center 92NY over support for war, genocide

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 02:57:38 GMT

92NO has called for a boycott by speakers and the public of events to protest the institution's support for the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the war in Iran and Lebanon.

Ricky and Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo): “Society is also something real...”

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:04:07 GMT

The two films present some of the same problems, some of the same problems that a good number of American (and not simply American) “small,” “realist” dramas exhibit.

The Strokes, David Byrne, Massive Attack, Tom Waits: Artists protest against the Iran war, ICE and the threat of dictatorship–“This ain’t no fooling around”

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 01:46:46 GMT

The accumulating outrage and horror are inevitably finding expression in artistic circles, with greater or lesser clarity depending upon the artist or group.

Disney carries out “massive layoffs,” while Sony, SnapChat, Artnet do their own job slashing

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 01:11:03 GMT

April so far has seen a wave of layoffs at Disney, Sony Pictures, at arts web platforms and in social media.

The Pitt: The medical drama whose social realism and honesty have gripped millions

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 02:09:58 GMT

The interest in the series is a sympathetic response to an unusually humane treatment of social life as a whole in the US.

6 films from Iran that should be seen by workers in the US and around the world

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 01:31:14 GMT

These films provide some insight into the problems of Iranian society and help transform the Iranian “devils” into humans very much like ourselves.

Reject the Writers Guild of America sellout contract!

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 04:13:58 GMT

The contract contains huge givebacks on healthcare, sub-inflation pay increases and no meaningful AI protections.

Censorship of artist Basma al-Sharif continues: Germany’s foreign ministry reprimands Goethe-Institut for showcasing her work

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 02:19:00 GMT

State censorship efforts are once again being directed against an artist with Palestinian roots. Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul’s (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) department has reprimanded the Goethe-Institut for allowing a work by Basma al-Sharif to be shown in an exhibition in Lithuania.

Art and the Influence of Revolution

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 23:38:07 GMT

No serious understanding of 20th-century cultural life is possible without considering the impact of the socialist movement and its decades-long struggle to raise the thinking and activity of the working class, culminating in the 1917 Revolution.

The consequences of extreme exploitation – Enjoy Your Stay and I Understand Your Displeasure

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:57:31 GMT

Both films underscore a central truth: under capitalism, personal decisions can be so severely restricted that they become almost irrelevant.

Gore Verbinski’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die–The solution to the world’s problems? Infect everyone with anti-technology allergy

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 02:43:23 GMT

It is a dreadful work. A libel against humanity, humanity returned the favor by largely staying away in droves.

Project Hail Mary—a hopeful (but somewhat wishful) adventure

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 02:14:42 GMT

The overall result is a charming but cartoonish pastiche that, while broadly appealing, falls short of its ambition to be a truly insightful film

Scenario (Szenario): A documentary normalises German militarism

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 01:20:44 GMT

The director says she had “real images of war in her mind” while filming and wonders about “what context I see them”—but “context” is precisely what is missing from her film.

Germany’s ultra-right culture minister Weimer continues his rampage against freedom of art and expression

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 02:31:02 GMT

Politically, Weimer’s views unquestionably overlap with those of the far-right Alternative for Germany, AfD.

Writers Guild of America suddenly announces new contract with studios

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 04:46:33 GMT

Without a strike authorization vote or full disclosure, the WGA leadership moves to impose a deal designed to block rank-and-file resistance.

US, Israel wreak further damage on Iran’s cultural heritage

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 02:19:42 GMT

The willful destruction of UNESCO World Heritage sites is a repudiation not only of international law but also of human civilization itself.

Book review: American Midnight: The Great War, a violent peace, and democracy's forgotten crisis

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 20:45:48 GMT

Adam Hochschild’s vivid, engaging account of the political subordination of the society to the needs of a ruling class waging an imperialist war deserves a wide readership.

Berlinale Retrospective: A look back at the fall of the Berlin Wall—“Lost in the 90s”

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 01:12:16 GMT

The burning problems of the present day, genocidal wars, dictatorship and increasing social decline, bring to mind the claims made in the period immediately following the end of the Cold War.