If the NEA needed any more reasons to look inadequate, Brazil just offered one: the government has decided to give Brazilian workers a stipend of $25 a month just for “cultural expenses” — that’s anything from books and movies to tickets to art museums.
Brazil
Brazilian Art Under Dictatorship
LOS ANGELES — Brazilian Art under Dictatorship, a new book by John Jay College’s Claudia Calirman, takes a look at the works of three artists: Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio and Cildo Meireles. These artists worked during the height of Brazil’s most repressive military regime in the late 1960s and early 70s.
Stumbling Upon India! While in Brazil
There is nothing quite like the feeling of being a tourist in a new country, and stumbling into a city or neighborhood there that makes you feel like a tourist in a completely different country. It’s a bit like a person who visits New York City for the first time and wanders into Chinatown — that small slice of Chinese culture in the great American metropolis can act like a tiny transport to another culture.
This is how I felt visiting the latest art exhibition titled India! at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, (CCBB) in Rio de Janeiro. A tourist in Brazil and a stranger to Portuguese, I became for a few hours a tourist lost within the art and history of India.
Colorful Street Art Gives Rio de Janeiro a Fresh Look
Graffiti in Rio de Janerio is some of the most festive, whimsical and lighthearted graffiti I’ve seen anywhere. Though the street art feels like it’s being taken seriously, the pervasive style is bold, playful, colorful, and full of bizarre scenes, stylized characters and undecipherable situations.
Brazil On the Rise
Brazil is one of the fastest growing economies of the “developing world.” In fact, so much so that it is now considered an “NIC” or newly industrialized country, a term used to describe being in between “developing” and reaching “fully developed” status. Today, Brazil is looking towards a future as host to major global sporting events, the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and the 2014 Soccer World Cup. Leading up to these events, global investment in the country is sure to rise, promising a healthy future for arts and culture on all levels of the spectrum.