Latest news with #AndyWarhol
CBS News
a day ago
- Entertainment
- CBS News
First Pittsburgh Walk of Fame honorees unveiled
Pittsburgh's Strip District is finally set for a star-studded upgrade where city legends will soon leave their mark. George Benson, Nellie Bly, Andrew Carnegie, Rachel Carson, Roberto Clemente, Michael Keaton, Fred Rogers, Jonas Salk, Andy Warhol, and August Wilson will have their names etched in concrete in one of the city's most bustling neighborhoods. "I love that they're going to do that," one passerby said. "Just a great idea." Keaton is expected to accept the honor in person. KDKA-TV's Mamie Bah spoke with the founder and executive director of the Pittsburgh Walk of Fame. "It just so happens the selection committee voted for a great variety of genres and sectors of people," said Nancy Polinsky Johnson. All who have earned their bronze stars will soon be on the sidewalk of the Strip District Terminal. "The point of the Pittsburgh Walk of Fame is to celebrate people who have really had an important role in American culture. We want tourists or people who come from anywhere around the world to walk along this way and just be gobsmacked," explained Johnson. It allows everyone to walk among the Steel City's greatest. "I love that they're going to do it. Anything with Mr. Rogers, I think we were so blessed to have him. The other ones, Andrew Carnegie fantastic, [and] Roberto Clemente a god here on our streets." The ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for Oct. 20. The plan is to close down the street for the ceremony.
Forbes
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Artificial Authenticity And The Humblebrag Industrial Complex
Andy Warhol poses with his beloved dachshund Archie in November 1973. (Photo by Jack Mitchell/Getty ... More Images) Getty Images A now-viral screenshot (below) of a satirical LinkedIn post from four years ago has been shared thousands of times—mocking the platform's ecosystem of manufactured inspiration, where every mundane encounter becomes a profound lesson in leadership. Yet scroll through your feed today, and you'll find posts nearly indistinguishable from the parody. We've reached peak professional performance theater, where the line between genuine insight and algorithmic optimization has dissolved entirely. And what's notable is that more and more people are now using AI to draft their LinkedIn posts, outsourcing their inner monologue to machines that have never had an inner anything. Posts today are more than twice as long as they used to be, and a 2024 study by Originality found that over half of these long-form English language posts on the platform were AI generated. LinkedIn hasn't just digitized networking—it has industrialized authenticity, outsourcing even emotional labor to algorithms and turning professional identity into a content genre. This goes beyond LinkedIn's occasional awkwardness or self-indulgence. It's about how professional identity itself is evolving in an AI-saturated world, and the economic stakes are higher than we realize. Screenshot of LinkedIn post by Lumko Solwandle Nathan Pettijohn Before LinkedIn digitized professional networking in 2003, career advancement relied on physical proximity and institutional gatekeepers. Professional relationships were built through alumni networks, industry conferences, golf courses, and corner office introductions—spaces that inherently favored those with existing social and economic capital. LinkedIn democratized access to professional networks while simultaneously industrializing the performance itself, making visible what was once private and measurable what was once intuitive. Today, LinkedIn has over 1 billion global members, with only 1% posting content weekly, yet generating 9 billion impressions weekly. This platform has industrialized what sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls "emotional labor"—the management of feelings to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display. Except now, we're outsourcing even that labor to artificial intelligence. The platform's ecosystem of " broetry "—those distinctive LinkedIn posts formatted with short, dramatic line breaks for maximum impact—represents something deeper than mere narcissism. The typography itself performs sincerity, mimicking the cadence of spoken vulnerability. When someone writes: "I made a mistake. And it changed everything. Here's what I learned..." They're not just sharing a professional insight. They're using visual formatting to simulate the pauses and emphasis of authentic emotional revelation, turning genuine human moments into content optimized for algorithmic consumption. LinkedIn's algorithm can identify robotic responses but remains surprisingly vulnerable to AI-generated thought leadership. When machines can successfully impersonate human professional insight, what does that say about the original insight? We've reached a point where artificial authenticity reflects back on itself so thoroughly that it's difficult to recall what unmediated professional wisdom even sounded like. The Humblebrag Industrial Complex LinkedIn has transformed what was once a social faux pas into a legitimate digital marketing strategy. The platform rewards what sociologists might recognize as ritualized vulnerability—a scripted performance of authenticity that has crystallized into genre: "I'm humbled to announce..." (success disguised as modesty, the linguistic equivalent of covering a Ferrari with a tarp) "A stranger did something kind and restored my faith in humanity..." (virtue signaling through anecdote, usually involving coffee shops or airport encounters) "I was rejected from my dream job, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me..." (destiny disguised as disappointment, the professional equivalent of "everything happens for a reason") These posts function as modern parables, teaching us how to navigate professional success while maintaining the illusion of humility. But the economic implications are worth noting. Research by Edelman found that thought leadership influences decision-makers' purchasing behaviors, with their B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study showing that strong thought leadership content not only strengthens a company's reputation but also positively impacts RFP invitations and pricing. LinkedIn's audience has twice the buying power of the average online user, and four out of five people on the platform drive business decisions. This creates what amounts to the Instagramification of the cubicle, where every career move becomes content, every professional insight becomes engagement bait, every human moment becomes a potential case study in leadership. The performance actually matters—posts with 50 comments from engaged users prove far more impactful than those with 1,000 likes and no conversations, suggesting that authentic dialogue (however performed) still carries economic weight. Unlike other social media platforms where influence might translate to brand deals or Patreon subscriptions, LinkedIn performance has direct B2B economic consequences. Consider the case of Justin Welsh, who reports building "$10.3M+ in business revenue at ~86% profit margins" largely through LinkedIn content. His posts about entrepreneurship routinely generate hundreds of thousands of impressions and directly drive sales for his courses and consulting services. Welsh's success illustrates how LinkedIn has flattened traditional professional hierarchies—you don't need a corner office or MBA to influence industry conversations. The Shadow Audience Effect Erving Goffman once described everyday life as a kind of stage, where individuals perform identity for an audience. LinkedIn crystallizes this theory in digital form. What makes LinkedIn's artificial authenticity particularly powerful is what we might call the "shadow audience effect." For every person who reads and engages with your post, there are dozens more who scroll past, absorbing your message without leaving any digital trace. You're influencing people you'll never know you influenced, creating ripple effects of professional persona that extend far beyond the platform's ability to track. This invisible influence explains why LinkedIn content often feels like performance art masquerading as professional insight. The poster knows they're being watched by potential clients, employers, and industry peers, even if those watchers never engage. The result is calculated transparency—being selectively vulnerable through frosted glass. For younger professionals or those without traditional credentials, this can create a pressure to perform vulnerability as a career strategy, not as a path to connection. What LinkedIn has accomplished is the digitization of what Pierre Bourdieu called ' cultural capital '—the knowledge, skills, and tastes that signal social status. Professional networking was always about displaying and accumulating this capital, but LinkedIn made the process explicit, quantified, and globally accessible. Your post engagement isn't just social validation; it's the real-time measurement of your professional cultural capital in the marketplace. This is why so many users report career opportunities or new clients from posts that received little visible engagement—because the real influence lies in who's watching, not who's commenting. When Machines Learn Professional Authenticity The integration of AI into LinkedIn content creation represents an evolution in professional identity performance. AI writing tools now offer LinkedIn-specific templates—some trained on large datasets of high-performing posts—designed to replicate the cadence of professional inspiration. The AI learns the cadence of professional inspiration, the rhythm of humble bragging, the precise vulnerability-to-insight ratio that drives engagement. MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle observes : "Technology doesn't just do things for us. It does things to us, changing not just what we do but who we are." This shift is particularly evident in professional contexts, where AI-assisted content creation is reshaping how we construct and perform our professional identities. This shift in how we perform professional identity online doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's emerging in parallel with broader workplace transformations—remote work, pandemic-era burnout, the so-called ' Great Resignation ,' and the rise of solo entrepreneurship. As traditional career ladders collapse or morph into lattices, platforms like LinkedIn have become a kind of stage where we rehearse relevance. In a world where your job title might be in flux and your office is your kitchen table, broadcasting a coherent professional persona isn't just branding—it's survival. The implications extend beyond LinkedIn. As AI becomes more sophisticated at mimicking human professional communication, the premium on genuinely human insights—the kind that can't be replicated by algorithms—may actually increase. We might be witnessing the last gasps of performed authenticity before authenticity becomes the only viable differentiator. The Algorithm Made Me Do It Andy Warhol famously predicted everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes. LinkedIn offers something more unsettling: the chance to remain professionally relevant indefinitely—as long as we never stop performing. The platform has created a new form of professional purgatory where authenticity becomes a competitive advantage precisely because it's so rare. In a feed flooded with AI-generated inspiration and algorithmic optimization, the genuinely human voice doesn't just stand out—it becomes economically valuable. We've reached the point where being authentically yourself is the ultimate professional hack. But here's the deeper paradox: LinkedIn didn't create performed professionalism—it simply made it visible, measurable, and unavoidable. The platform exposed what was always true about professional identity: it has always been performative, from the firm handshake to the power lunch to the carefully curated resume. LinkedIn merely provided the stage and sold tickets to the show. The real question isn't whether artificial authenticity is corrupting professional discourse—it's whether we'll develop the literacy to distinguish between human insight and algorithmic mimicry. As AI becomes more sophisticated at replicating professional wisdom, the ability to offer genuinely original thinking may become the ultimate career differentiator. The humblebrag industrial complex will endure, but so will our fundamentally human need for genuine connection and meaningful work. The challenge is learning to sound like ourselves—even while writing on a platform (and perhaps with tools) designed to make us all sound the same. Just perhaps, the most human thing we can do is think thoughts worth writing ourselves.
RTÉ News
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
'Truly special' free art exhibition set for Northern Ireland
A "truly special" collection of Irish and international art will be showcased for free in Northern Ireland from next Sunday. More than 350 works by artists including Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Banksy, Julian Opie and Salvador Dali will be on display when Art and Soul returns to the Culloden Estate and Spa outside Belfast. The event will also feature a major outdoor exhibition of 90 large sculptures and installations set throughout the 12 acres of gardens overlooking Belfast Lough. More than 70 smaller, more intimate sculptures will be on display throughout the hotel interior. Art lovers can also discover works by celebrated Irish and international artists, including Ian Pollock, Eamonn Ceannt, Giacinto Bosco, Bob Quinn, Paddy Campbell, Sandra Bell and John Fitzgerald. The show is Gormleys' 13th major art and sculpture event, with the Culloden hosting the exhibition for more than a decade. Oliver Gormley said: "Art and Soul gives art lovers a unique opportunity to view these incredible works of art in the beautiful surroundings of the Culloden, the perfect setting to showcase some of the most celebrated artists of our time. "Adults and children will enjoy the event equally, and our previous events in The K Club, Russborough, and the Castlemartyr resort attracted over 10,000 visitors." Howard Hastings, chairman of the Culloden Estate and Spa, said Art and Soul brings "something truly special" to the venue. "We're thrilled to welcome guests to explore this exceptional celebration of creativity and culture in one of the most beautiful settings in Ireland," he said.
Mint
18-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
The worst performer in billionaires' portfolios? Trophy art.
It turns out Andy Warhol is no match for Jay Powell. Expensive paintings are proving to be more sensitive to interest-rate hikes than even sophisticated investors expected. A bubble at the top of the art market has burst. Auction sales of paintings that cost more than $10 million fell 44% last year, and continue to be depressed in 2025, data from ArtTactic shows. The shift in the market was clear at Sotheby's New York auction in May, when a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti with a $70 million asking price didn't attract a single bid and had to be pulled from sale. This is odd. In 1993 and again in 2010, Yale professor William Goetzmann analyzed more than two centuries of art-auction results, finding that painting prices are correlated with the stock market and act as a good inflation hedge. So based on history, the high end of the art market should be doing OK with the S&P 500 bobbing around record highs, but the correlation appears to have frayed. Is weakness at the top of the art market a sign that very wealthy collectors are growing concerned about the future? Tariffs and uncertainty about the economy may be making them wary of tying up millions of dollars in illiquid assets like paintings. But billionaire collectors are hardly down on their luck. At the start of 2025, they controlled $15.6 trillion of wealth, according to the Art Basel & UBS Art Market report—a record high and up 80% from 2019 levels. A possible explanation is that a vogue for treating art as an asset class that took hold after the 2008-09 global financial crisis has made the market more sensitive to interest rates. When money was cheap between 2009 and 2022, the ultrawealthy pumped cash into rare paintings. Specialist databases that compile decades of auction results also made it easier to quantify the risk of investing in paintings, and to identify hot artists that could be flipped for profit. Sales of high-end art exploded over this period: The value of art sold at auction for $10 million or more increased by 700% between 2009 and 2022 versus 12% for works priced below $50,000, the UBS report shows. Art attracted a new, financially minded buyer. 'Think about the big collectors today. They are wealth creators like hedge-fund founders and private-equity managers. These people understand how to deploy capital and manage their liquidity," says Drew Watson, head of art services with Bank of America Private Bank. Wall Street collectors, including Daniel Loeb and Steven Cohen, bought works by post-war and contemporary artists like Warhol, Willem de Kooning and Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose paintings soared in value. These collectors manage their art acquisitions strategically. The private-banking arms of JP Morgan, Citi and Bank of America offer art-backed loans to clients. Before 2022, collectors could borrow about 50% of the appraised value of their blue-chip art collections at a sub-3% rate. Cash that would otherwise be tied up on the walls of penthouse apartments could instead be put to work in higher-yielding investments like the stock market or real estate. The arbitrage worked until higher interest rates pushed the cost of an art-backed loan close to 8%. Finding an investment that can deliver a return acceptably above this rate is harder today, which has damped the appeal of buying art. While dedicated collectors are still spending, speculators are gone. The wealthy can now find better returns on their money elsewhere. European equities are up 21% this year, and private infrastructure funds have gained 13%, according to BlackRock's investment-return map. Art doesn't reprice daily like stocks and bonds, but the value of some art is down anywhere from 20% to 40% from peaks, especially works by very contemporary artists that speculators were flipping for profit. The ultrarich are allocating less of their wealth to art as a result: 15% in 2024 compared with a peak of 24% in 2022, UBS notes. Ironically, banks that offer art-backed loans are doing fine. The size of Bank of America's overall art-lending book is up 12% this year compared with the same period of 2024. This isn't necessarily a bullish sign for the art market. Borrowing against an existing collection can be preferable to selling it into a down market, even though a credit line is costly these days. High interest rates have made the pitfalls of investing in art obvious again. Paintings are illiquid, they generate no income and are expensive to insure and store safely. They also cost money to sell. Top auction houses like Christie's take at least 10% of the final hammer price in commission and other fees. And art is vulnerable to shifts in taste. Baby boomers who favor abstract expressionists and pop art may find it hard to offload their collections to younger buyers. Millennial and Gen Z collectors aren't showing interest in the same artists. Cultural signals have moved on: Warhol's screen prints of Jacqueline Kennedy or Marilyn Monroe may not carry the same potency for coming buyers. Impressive art collections have brought the ultrawealthy cultural clout and bragging rights. As for investment returns? Don't expect them to tout their success anytime soon.
Wall Street Journal
18-07-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
The Worst Performer in Billionaires' Portfolios? Trophy Art.
It turns out Andy Warhol is no match for Jay Powell. Expensive paintings are proving to be more sensitive to interest-rate hikes than even sophisticated investors expected. A bubble at the top of the art market has burst. Auction sales of paintings that cost more than $10 million fell 44% last year, and continue to be depressed in 2025, data from ArtTactic shows. The shift in the market was clear at Sotheby's New York auction in May, when a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti with a $70 million asking price didn't attract a single bid and had to be pulled from sale.
