Rick Karr
Rick Karr contributes reports on the arts to NPR News. He is a correspondent for the weekly PBS public affairs show Bill Moyers Journal and teaches radio journalism at Columbia University.
From 1999 to 2004, he was NPR's lead arts correspondent in New York, focussing on technology's impact on culture. Prior to that, he hosted the NPR weekend music and culture magazine show Anthem, and even earlier in his career, worked as a general assignment reporter and engineer at NPR's Chicago bureau.
Rick was nominated for an Emmy award for his 2006 PBS documentary Net @ Risk, which made the case that the U.S. is falling far behind other nations with regard to the speed and power of its internet infrastructure. He's also reported for the PBS shows NOW and Journal Editorial Report.
Rick is a member of the songwriters' collective Box Set Authentic. He lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with his wife, artist Birgit Rathsmann.
-
A new play tells the story of the 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in West Virginia. Songwriter Steve Earle used it as a creative challenge to write his forthcoming album, Ghosts of West Virginia.
-
Climate-change activists have launched a campaign to get the American Museum of Natural History in New York City to sever ties with board member Rebekah Mercer, whose family foundation has poured millions of dollars into funding climate change denial organizations.
-
The civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome" is now in the public domain. The music publishers that copyrighted the song in the 1960s settled the lawsuit on Friday.
-
For 50 years, an American economics professor collected dissident art from the Soviet Union. The abstract art pieces, considered nonconformist by the Soviets, have been donated to Rutgers University.
-
William Eggleston is renowned for making the art world take color photography seriously. He started taking pictures when he was a kid, around the same time he started playing piano.
-
Artwork by current and former detainees of Guantanamo Bay is on display at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. But what does the art represent and why did the college choose to display it?
-
The last known privately owned painting by Leonardo da Vinci is going up for auction. But it will probably go back into private hands because no museum can afford the price. "Salvator Mundi" is likely to sell for more than a $100 million.
-
The Guggenheim Museum in New York City announced late Monday night that it would be withdrawing three works from an upcoming exhibition of contemporary Chinese art over protests from animal rights groups.
-
The decision follows a year-long lawsuit filed by a documentarian against music publishers and folk singers, including the late Pete Seeger, who copyrighted the civil rights anthem in the 1960s.
-
The New York museum opened a permanent exhibition on the work of the late Jim Henson, including a Big Bird puppet, David Bowie's costume from Labyrinth and Muppets, all gifts of Henson's estate.