This Week’s Highlights:
Canada’s new budget lets artists earn up to $45,000 a year from their creative work tax-free, through a new Canada Creative Credit (CBC). It also raises the Canada Book Fund for the first time since 2001 (Publishers Weekly). Meanwhile, the UK put up to £15 million behind National Theatre Nationwide, which will send shows to 400 schools and sell thousands of £10 tickets to young people (WhatsOnStage).
The Kennedy Center is dropping Tessitura, the nonprofit ticketing system it used for decades, for Ticketmaster. Richard Grenell, Trump’s choice as its president, sat on the board of Ticketmaster’s parent, Live Nation, while the deal was negotiated. Live Nation paid him $260,205 last year; the Kennedy Center paid him nothing (NPR).
London firms are selling fake art portfolios, with artwork made in China and forged reviews, to wealthy migrants applying for the UK’s Global Talent visa. The full package costs more than £100,000 (ARTnews). Artnet, the auction-data company, became official art partner of Kalshi, a betting platform, supplying the sale results that decide which bets pay out (ARTnews).
M. John Harrison, 81, won the Booker for The End of Everything, the first winner to come out of science fiction (The Guardian). The Met’s sold-out Lincoln in the Bardo, Missy Mazzoli’s opera of George Saunders’s novel, streams free on YouTube through Wednesday, the company’s first free YouTube broadcast (TheaterMania).
All this week’s stories below, organized by topic.