Good Morning,
Australia unveiled a $1.1 billion arts package today — fresh money for Creative Australia, the national collecting institutions, and cultural infrastructure (Limelight). At roughly the same hour in Washington, the Cultural Landscape Foundation sued to stop the Trump administration’s “American flag blue” repaint of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, executed without federal preservation review (AP). Disney filed a defiant 52-page FCC brief pushing back on White House pressure over Jimmy Kimmel and The View — a clean pivot from the Iger-era accommodation (TheWrap). Two governments, two theories of what culture is for.
Patronage is reshuffling elsewhere too. Luxury brands — Van Cleef, Chanel — have quietly become dance’s biggest funders, with all the ethical questions that implies (Dance Magazine). And after 36 years, Paris gallery Air de Paris is declaring bankruptcy (ARTnews) — another mid-tier commercial gallery the market wouldn’t sustain.
A pianist is suing the Melbourne Symphony over a canceled recital after he dedicated a new work to journalists killed in Gaza (ABC). And the Royal Scottish National Orchestra named Giedrė Šlekytė its first female music director (Bachtrack).
All of our stories below.
