Kennedy Center Replaces All Performances With 24/7 Livestream of a Single Folding Chair For “Ultimate Artistic Statement”
Meme historians are in stitches as the Kennedy Center’s latest “reimagined season” trended after a satirical announcement claimed they were replacing every show with a live feed of an empty folding chair to “explore the profound silence of institutional funding.” The joke exploded because it perfectly parodies real-life arts organizations that pivot to conceptual minimalism amid budget cuts—only for the punchline to land on the fact that the chair quickly got its own TikTok fan account, @InstitutionalSilence, which has already attracted more engagement than the Center’s actual programming. Art, it seems, is a folding chair in a dark room.