Hockney’s Death Dominated a Week of Cultural Reckoning

David Hockney’s death made his six-decade career the week’s defining cultural loss. The period also brought major losses across kinetic art, photography, and avant-garde theater.

Broadway’s awards and the Kennedy Center ruling showed cultural institutions reshaping public power and legitimacy. Carmen Maria Machado’s focus on power recurred across two days, elevating an unpromoted topic into a weekly thread.