Rio Olympics’s Public Art Program Suffers Budget Cuts

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Gabriella Angeleti reports in the Art Newspaper from an article in O Globo that the arts program for the 2016 Rio Olympics—scheduled to begin this Friday—has lost funding for a public artwork by the Italian artist Giancarlo Neri. This is one of several installations that have recently been canceled by the country’s new culture minister, Marcelo Calero. The work, to be titled Bar Paris and comprising 1,415 chairs with lights attached, was going to be installed in a square in the Glória neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. Its budget of 632,000 reais, or about $200,000, would have covered the cost of materials, a space to store the work, twenty-four-hour security for the run of the project, and other such logistics.

Such budget cuts are coming soon on the heels of the Brazilian government’s previous attempt to close the ministry of culture entirely, as a cost-saving measure, earlier this year. The country has been undergoing an economic crisis, but after people protested the decision the interim president Michel Temer reinstated the ministry last May. Regardless, funds for cultural projects remain difficult to obtain. A statement to O Globo from the ministry said that some projects “are going through adjustments so that the principles of administrative efficiency and public spending are respected.”

In response, the artist posted a picture on his Facebook page that shows Calero by a pool and thanked the culture minister for “canceling all the cultural projects in 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, including ours.”