"Los Angeles Unified officials repeatedly violated Proposition 28 — a state law requiring the hiring of arts teachers — misusing millions in state funds and denying promised arts instruction to students across the school system, according to allegations in a lawsuit filed Monday." - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
"The budget cuts ... will axe €150 million in the Ministry of Culture's funding, leaving museums, theatres, and festivals reeling. And it’s not just the central government making cuts – local councils have been stripped of €2.2 billion in state subsidies, prompting them to slash their own arts funding by (up to) 70%." - Euronews
Many creators of important cultural works sell (or give away) their interests early on, when the value of their efforts is still unknown and unknowable. Authors now have the unequivocal and unwaivable right to terminate any assignment after a certain number of years. For most authors, it’s 35 years after the assignment was made. - Variety
Trump, who has shown little interest in or knowledge of the arts before, has indicated that he wants to be more than an advocate or patron; he apparently wants a veto over content at one of the country’s preeminent cultural institutions. - Washington Post
“So we took over the Kennedy Center. We didn’t like what they were showing and various other things,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday evening, adding, “But we have, I guess, a whole new group of people going in." - Washington Post
“As a headhunter for large performing arts centers, don’t you think it will be difficult recruiting the next CEO to the Kennedy Center now that Trump is taking on the Chairmanship?” My irreverent but scarily realistic answer is, “There are plenty of people at Fox News who would be perfect for the job.” - Berkshire Edge
“Under the updated guidelines, the NEA continues to encourage projects that celebrate the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity by honoring the semiquincentennial of the United States of America (America250),” the NEA said. - Deadline
"The nine-hour, bombshell documentary was in development at Netflix for five years before the streamer reportedly pulled the plug in a deal with the superstar's estate.” - USA Today
“Employees are on edge about Zuckerberg’s next round of ‘low-performer’ layoffs that are arriving on Monday. And many are still reeling from his politically-charged changes to content moderation and DEI programs.” - The Verge
“The announcement comes more than a year after an investigation from CBC's The Fifth Estate reported that her claims of Indigenous ancestry were inconsistent with publicly available documents.” - CBC
Karla Sofía Gascón was a frontrunner for Best Actress, but “recently resurfaced racist, anti-Muslim and openly anti-diversity tweets have upended the Oscar campaign not just for Gascón but for every Emilia Pérez nominee.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
“Trump’s conflicts with Kennedy Center programs began when some honorees in 2017 threatened to pull out of events including him, following his handling of the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.” - Washington Post (MSN)
Trump plans to announce the dismissal of multiple members of the Kennedy Center board as soon as today, a group likely to include recent appointees of former President Joe Biden. - The Atlantic
These changes won’t necessarily stop artists from making work or museums and galleries from showing work, but they could be forced to rethink how they operate. - Artnet
"There is no sense that Labour has yet grasped the delicate interconnected forces that underpin the arts. It is not OK to shove everything together, from ballerinas to florists, into a thing called “the creative industries”. The arts are different, and they need attention." - The Guardian
