Art for ‘Encanto’ by Lorelay Bové
World
A Decaying Art Gem Signifying Venezuela’s Divisions Could Now Help it Heal
CARACAS, Venezuela — In a decaying housing advanced crammed with garbage-strewn hallways, shuttered retailers and barren gardens lies certainly one of Latin America’s biggest artwork treasures.
The vaults above inundated basements comprise the area’s largest public assortment of Pablo Picasso’s works, in addition to lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} value of work and drawings by masters resembling Joan Miró, Marc Chagall and Lucian Freud.
Close by, 700 sculptures by iconic artists, together with Salvador Dalí and Fernando Botero, are crammed in a big room to guard them towards encroaching humidity.
That is Venezuela’s Caracas Museum of Trendy Artwork, or MACC, as soon as a regional reference for cultural training, that has fallen sufferer to financial collapse and authoritarianism.
Buoyed by Venezuelan oil wealth, the museum hosted exhibitions by internationally famend artists, purchased masterpieces and fostered groundbreaking native artists, projecting a picture of a assured nation rushing towards modernity and prosperity. Now, the museum’s underpaid staff and cultural officers are working to protect and exhibit the gathering after years of decay, technical closures and official indifference.
The museum’s decline illustrates the long-lasting impact of political polarization on nationwide tradition. A “cultural revolution” launched by Venezuela’s Socialist Authorities in 2001 turned each establishment right into a political battleground and divided residents alongside ideological traces, tearing aside the shared cultural heritage during the last twenty years.
“The tradition, like all the pieces else, grew to become divided,” mentioned Álvaro González, a Venezuelan artwork conservation skilled working within the museum. “We have now misplaced the moorings of who we’re as a nation.”
Because of the work of Mr. González’s crew and the Tradition Ministry, in addition to stress from Venezuela’s civil society and native media, the museum partially reopened in February to the general public after a two-year closure, reflecting the nation’s current modest, uneven financial restoration.
Staff have repainted 5 of the museum’s showrooms, sealed the leaking ceiling and changed burned gentle bulbs with fashionable fixtures. Museum officers says repairs are underway within the remaining eight rooms.
The renovated house showcases 86 chosen masterpieces from the museum’s 4,500 collected works. A go to by The New York Occasions to the principle storage vault in February discovered the museum’s most necessary works in apparently good situation.
Some officers consider MACC’s partial reopening will presage a wider restoration of the artwork scene, because the authoritarian authorities of President Nicolás Maduro abandons radical socialist financial and social insurance policies in favor of a extra average strategy designed to draw personal funding.
“The gathering of our museums is the heritage of all of Venezuelan folks, and that’s why it’s so necessary that the areas are in optimum situation for its preservation,” mentioned Clemente Martínez, president of the Nationwide Museums Basis, which oversees Venezuela’s public museums.
Nonetheless, a number of distinguished Venezuelan artwork specialists say the museum’s partial renovation masks deeper issues that proceed to threaten its assortment. They warn that the museum is not going to get better with out main new investments and a profound change in how the Venezuelan state views tradition.
A lot of the museum stays shut. The skilled technical workers is generally gone, having fallen sufferer to the political purges of the previous Socialist chief, Hugo Chávez, or having escaped the financial downfall below his successor, Mr. Maduro.
Years of hyperinflation gutted the establishment’s budgets, forcing a lot of the workers to to migrate or transfer to the personal sector, which pays in U.S. {dollars}. High MACC officers final 12 months earned an equal of $12 a month and the museum obtained a day by day finances of $1.50 to keep up its 100,000 sq. ft of amenities, in keeping with a former worker who spoke on situation of anonymity for worry of reprisals.
The Ministry of Tradition and MACC’s director, Robert Cárdenas, each declined to remark.
“Individuals can’t work indefinitely only for the love of artwork,” mentioned María Rengifo, a former director of Venezuela’s Superb Arts Museum, MACC’s sister establishment. “It’s very onerous seeing everybody who had devoted their lives to the museums go away.”
The financial hardships have pushed some staff to theft.
In November 2020, Venezuelan police officers detained MACC’s head of safety and a curator for collaborating within the theft of two works by the famend Venezuelan artists Gertrud Goldschmidt and Carlos Cruz-Diez from the vaults.
Artwork specialists say the gathering will stay in danger till the state begins paying residing wages, installs fundamental safety techniques and buys an insurance coverage coverage.
The museum’s fundamental works had been value a mixed $61 million in 1991, the final time it carried out an analysis. Immediately, artwork sellers say components of its assortment, such because the 190 work and engravings by Picasso and 29 work by Miró, are value round 30 instances extra, placing the mixed worth at lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} and making it a goal for crime.
The financial disaster has additionally devastated the museum’s constructing, which varieties a part of a social housing mission known as Central Park. Constructed throughout Venezuela’s oil growth within the early Nineteen Seventies, Central Park adopted the slogan “a brand new way of life” to represent the nation’s fast modernization.
The 25-acre advanced included colleges, swimming swimming pools, eating places, workplace blocks, a metro station, a church and a theater, together with lots of of luxurious flats in what had been the tallest buildings in Latin America till 2003. Most of the flats had been provided to working-class residents below closely sponsored mortgages.
Immediately, Central Park’s hallways and passages are spattered with rubbish, leaking water, used condoms and the stays of lifeless animals. The as soon as lush gardens are barren grounds punctuated with mosquito-riddled puddles. The underground parking has been deserted to the rising groundwaters.
Central Park’s decline has affected the MACC, which relied on the advanced’s central air con and upkeep finances to guard its assortment from humidity.
But, artwork specialists consider the best blow to the museum got here not from the financial downturn however the Socialist Occasion’s insurance policies.
After successful the presidency in 1998, Mr. Chávez, a former paratrooper born right into a poor provincial household, sought a radical break from the discredited conventional events, who had alternated energy because the Fifties.
Mirroring the slogans of his mentor, Fidel Castro, the Cuban chief, Mr. Chávez proclaimed a “cultural revolution,” searching for to raise Venezuela’s conventional music, dance and portray kinds on the expense of what he known as the elitist tradition of his predecessors.
One among his first targets was the MACC, which was based and managed since its inception by the seminal Venezuelan artwork patron Sofía Ímber. To Mr. Chávez, Ms. Ímber represented all the pieces that was improper with the nation: a member of a closed elite circle who had monopolized Venezuelan oil wealth.
Two years after taking energy, Mr. Chávez fired Ms. Ímber from the MACC on reside tv.
It was the primary time in 42 years {that a} Venezuelan president had intervened within the cultural facilities, presaging Mr. Chávez’s wider dismantling of democratic establishments.
“The museum represented a imaginative and prescient of the nation, an area the place creative excellence bolstered democracy and the free alternate of concepts,” mentioned María Luz Cárdenas, who was the MACC’s chief curator below Ms. Ímber. “It clashed with Chávez’s authorities mission.”
Mr. Chávez’s “cultural inclusion” insurance policies ended abruptly after oil costs and the nation’s economic system collapsed quickly after his dying in 2013. His successor, Mr. Maduro confirmed little curiosity in excessive tradition, focusing his shrinking financial assets on maintaining energy by drive amid mass protests and American sanctions.
“When crude costs fell, the whole financial system that supported cultural coverage had collapsed,” mentioned Jacques Leenhardt, an artwork skilled on the Faculty of Superior Research in Social Sciences in Paris. “The Maduro populist authorities, now penniless, did nothing to guard this cultural heritage.”
Mr. Maduro’s disaster administration differed tremendously from that of his allies, Cuba and Russia, who’ve largely shielded their creative treasures through the worst years of their downturns.
Immediately, the neat premises of Havana’s Superb Arts Museum distinction with the MACC’s dilapidation. Havana itself has turn into a global artwork vacation spot, as Cuba’s Communist authorities mounts exhibitions and festivals to earn onerous foreign money and enhance its popularity.
In distinction, Mr. Maduro by no means adopted Cuba’s cultural instance.
But, paradoxically, Venezuela’s financial collapse might now assist revive the nation’s cultural establishments, mentioned Oscar Sotillo, who directed the MACC final 12 months.
To outlive the sanctions, Mr. Maduro has during the last two years quietly began courting personal traders and returned some expropriated companies to their earlier house owners.
The pressured moderation is spreading into the artwork world. Adriana Meneses, the daughter of Ms. Ímber, mentioned the federal government had lately contacted her about accumulating financing assist for cultural initiatives from Venezuela’s historically anti-government diaspora, a improvement that was unthinkable a number of years in the past.
The federal government additionally lately started repairing Caracas’s iconic Teresa Carreño Theater and the Central College of Venezuela, a UNESCO World Heritage web site. Venezuela’s lauded state-run community of youngsters’s orchestras is negotiating personal sponsorships.
Caracas’s personal galleries are booming, as oligarchs and Western-educated officers make investments wealth in artwork, mimicking the life of Venezuela’s conventional moneyed elites.
“Artwork has this risk to transcend politics,” Mr. Sotillo mentioned. “And what’s a rustic if not its tradition? Heritage doesn’t have a worth.”
Ed Augustin contributed reporting from Havana, and Robin Pogrebin from New York.
World
Walt Disney Animation Studios World Premieres Whimsy & Talent Exhibition at 20th Animayo Gran Canaria Festival (EXCLUSIVE)
Walt Disney Animation Studios is paying tribute to female talent in art and animation at a one-of-a-kind exhibition during the Gran Canaria-based Animayo, Spain’s only Oscar-qualifying animation festival. From May 7-10, the exhibition Whimsy & Wonder will be exclusively on display at the fest.
Disney, an official sponsor this year, will celebrate the female artists who helped shape Disney’s visual storytelling for more than a hundred years. These include the trailblazing Mary Blair, who transformed the use of color in the 1950s, and the visionary women behind modern favorites like “Frozen,” “Encanto” and “Moana 2.” The exhibition is a homage to the women who have shaped the past—and are defining the future—of animation.
In the 1940s and ’50s, Blair (1911–1978, American), a celebrated color stylist and art director, brought a bold new vision to Disney animation. Her imaginative use of vibrant colors and whimsical shapes sparked a transformative shift in the studio’s style during the mid-20th century.
Whimsy & Wonder will offer a glimpse into the creative contributions of talented visual development and storytelling artists at Walt Disney Animation Studios, from films like “The Princess and the Frog” (2009) to Disney Animation’s most recent animated feature, “Moana 2” (2024).
Costume Design for Disney’s ‘Frozen 2’ by Brittney Lee (visual development artist).
The exhibition will showcase works by Blair and from six extraordinary artists at Walt Disney Animation Studios:
- Lorelay Bové (Spain/Andorra): Visual development artist on “Big Hero 6,”” Zootopia,” “Wreck-It Ralph,”” The Princess and the Frog” and associate production designer of Oscar-winner “Encanto.” Bové will also be present at Animayo to give a Masterclass and participate in an exclusive portfolio review session.
- Lisa Keene: Production designer and visual development artist on “Wish,” “Frozen” and classics such as “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King.”
- Brittney Lee: Production designer and visual development artist, renowned for her iconic costume design for Elsa in “Frozen” and the interior of Elsa’s ice palace.
- Griselda Sastrawinata-Lemay: Visual development artist on “Encanto”,” Moana,” “Raya and the Last Dragon” and associate production designer on “Wish.”
- Josie Trinidad: Emmy-winning director and head of story on “Zootopia” and “Ralph Breaks the Internet.”
- Fawn Veerasunthorn: Director of “Wish” and head of story on “Raya and the Last Dragon.”
Exhibition takes place in the Manolo Millares & Elvireta Escobio hall at the Centro de Iniciativas de La Fundación La Caja de Canarias, CICCA, which is also a sponsor of the fest.
Led by founder-director-producer Damián Perea, Animayo Gran Canaria 2025 will bring together more than 40 distinguished speakers and special guests, featuring artists, creators, and experts from prominent studios, production companies and academic institutions from around the world.
Expressing delight at the fact that Walt Disney Animation Studios chose Animayo to present this unique exhibition on the occasion of the festival’s 20th anniversary, Perea said: “The Walt Disney Animation Research Library has curated a one-of-a-kind exhibition that spans over a century of artistic inspiration. Without a doubt, it will be an inspiration for many of the girls and young women attending the festival, who will feel empowered by the six incredible female artists showcased in this exhibition.”
As it celebrates 20 years of creativity and impact in the Canary Islands, a burgeoning animation hub, this premiere marks a milestone for Animayo, the only Oscar-qualifying festival in Spain. Iran’s “In the Shadow of the Cypress,” winner of Animayo’s Best International Short Film prize in 2024, went on to win best animated short at the 97th Academy Awards this year.
The festival’s growing roster of sponsors are led by the Cabildo of Gran Canaria through the Presidency Department, the Society for the Promotion of the City of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the Department of Tourism, Industry and Commerce of the Government of the Canary Islands through Promotur and from the Canary Islands Institute for Cultural Development (ICDC), Gran Canaria Tourism, the La Caja de Canarias Foundation, and the Government of the Canary Islands. Animayo also relies on the participation of several production companies, studios, schools, and universities.
Concept Art for ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ by Griselda Sastrawinata-Lemay (visual development artist)
World
UN cash app for Gazans exploited by Hamas as terror group steals aid money meant for civilians
Protesters in Gaza target Hamas
For the first time since Hamas seized power 18 years ago, Gazans are speaking out against Hamas at great personal risk, Fox News’ Mike Tobin reports.
United Nations agencies’ monthly cash transfers to Gaza residents are inadvertently strengthening the Hamas terrorist organization, as the group and affiliated traders continue to control the money flow to the enclave, an expert on Hamas’ financial and economic operations said.
“Hamas exploits its role as the de facto ruler of Gaza to extract financial gains from aid money sent by U.N. organizations to civilians via apps still operating in the region,” Eyal Ofer told Fox News Digital.
“The aid system is being manipulated by Hamas and affiliated traders. Hamas does this largely behind the scenes, leveraging their control over large merchants, crime families, and using cash to establish a shadow banking system within Gaza.”
HOW ISRAEL’S WAR AGAINST HAMAS TERRORISTS WILL BE DIFFERENT UNDER TRUMP
Gazans at a bazaar set up to meet their basic needs amidst the rubble in the heavily damaged Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on the 3rd day of Ramadan, after Israel halted humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, on March 3, 2025. (Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images))
Each month, international organizations send significant sums into Gaza’s economy. The U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) transfers approximately $18.43 million, reaching 82,636 families, with each family receiving an average of $209, according to open-source data. UNICEF’s monthly assistance averages $5 million, helping to reach at least 20,000 families every month.
“I go to the market and meet people whose job is to provide cash in exchange for a fee,” Gaza resident Shahab Yousef told Israel’s news agency TPS-IL. “The fee is 20–30%. If I transfer 1,000 shekels [$271] I get back 700 [$190],” he said. “For big purchases, I pay digitally. But at the market, I need cash, and I lose 30 percent every time.”
Another Gaza resident, Nidal Qawasmeh, expressed similar frustration to TPS-IL. “These people are charging 30 percent just to give you cash. I just want to take care of my family, but everything costs me more because of this. Prices are insane.”
The specific amount received per family every month is around $270 (or 1,000 New Israeli Shekels), which was calculated as 80% of the Survival Minimum Expenditure Basket, UNICEF told Fox News Digital. Smaller organizations like UNFPA and others also contribute, bringing the total to about $39.66 million per month, reaching 60% of Gaza’s households, according to open-source data.
A man holds a wad of Israeli shekels in Gaza. (Majdi Fathi/TPS)
Despite the scale of direct financial aid, which reaches over half of the enclave’s population, Gaza’s severe food insecurity and high inflation (91% and 118%, respectively, as of January 2024) underscore its importance. However, the way this money circulates within Gaza is far more complex. “Hamas controls much of the cash that enters Gaza through various channels,” Ofer told Fox News Digital, “People who receive money via mobile apps must convert it into cash to use in local markets, but this involves hefty fees, with many money changers tied to Hamas or its allies.”
TPS-IL reported that Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar recently warned that Hamas’s economic strength in Gaza relies on billions of shekels in cash, paid as salaries and quickly reclaimed through taxes on merchants. In a letter to Bank of Israel Governor Prof. Amir Yaron, Sa’ar urged the cancelation of the circulation of 200-shekel bills previously introduced into Gaza, saying that experts believe the move would severely damage Hamas’s financial network. The Bank of Israel rejected the proposal, citing technical reasons and claiming that implementation was not feasible.
Ofer’s research found that the fees can range from 20% to 35%, meaning recipients lose a significant portion of their aid just to access it. “In videos from Gaza, you can see traders refusing to accept app funds and forcing customers to convert them into cash, knowing they will lose at least 20% in the process,” he said.
Peter Gallo, an international lawyer and former Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) investigator at the U.N., told Fox News Digital, “If an investigator in Israel can figure it out, the aid agencies either knew or should have known. Twenty to thirty percent is just ridiculous. That’s extortion. It’s what some have politely described as a ‘revolutionary tax.’ In fairness, the aid agencies might argue they had no alternative, It is the cost of doing business, but it would have been better if they were honest about it from the start.”
HAMAS TERROR GROUP REPORTEDLY BUCKLING UNDER FINANCIAL STRAIN AMID ISRAELI MILITARY GAINS AND GROWING UNREST
Palestinians shop for food and clothes at the local bazaar as daily life continues in the shadow of war in Jabalia, Gaza, on January 15, 2024. (Photo by Mahmoud Shalha/Anadolu via Getty Images) (Photo by Mahmoud Shalha/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A spokesperson for UNICEF told Fox News Digital, “UNICEF is aware of the cash liquidity crisis in Gaza and the continuous shortage of hard cash, which is a direct consequence of the banking system’s inability to function amid the ongoing conflict.
“Since May 2024, UNICEF has introduced fully digital cash payments via e-wallets, which do not require hard cash at any point. By using e-wallets, recipients of humanitarian digital cash transfers can purchase goods such as food, hygiene items and medicine without ever handling physical money,” the spokesperson said.
“The use of digital e-wallets can be accessed through an app and works on the most basic smartphones. When implemented, these digital cash payments via e-wallets eliminate the need for cash conversion and, consequently, the payment of any fees. The UNICEF humanitarian digital cash program adheres to the highest standards of neutrality and impartiality. No external party, actor, or agency—not even the beneficiaries themselves—has any role or influence in the design or implementation of the program, including the composition of the beneficiary list, payment schedule, frequency and amounts.”
World Food Programme (WFP) aid at the Erez west crossing on the Israel-Gaza border. (IDF spokesman)
The spokesperson claimed: “More than 1.8 million people—close to the entire population of Gaza—are grappling with extreme food insecurity, with at least half of them being children. . . . Acute malnutrition among children is rising at alarming rates. The UNICEF humanitarian cash transfer program is, simply put, keeping children alive in the midst of a war not of their making by providing them with access to essential items for their survival. UNICEF’s monthly budget for humanitarian cash transfers in Gaza averages USD 5 million to support approximately 20,000 families. We estimate that these parameters are too small to significantly impact the local economy.”
The World Food Programme didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said, “This is yet another example of Hamas showing a complete disregard for the people of Gaza – and exploiting systems and infrastructure to sustain their murderous terror machine.”
“Turning a blind eye is not acceptable. The U.N. Security Council has been addressing terrorist financing since 2001, yet aid agencies continue to ignore the fact that Hamas is making a profit off this money flow, despite international efforts to stop terrorist financing,” Gallo said.
New Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen stated on Sunday that US comments regarding the mineral-rich Arctic island had been disrespectful, emphasising that Greenland “will never, ever be a piece of property that can be bought by just anyone.”
His comments came after a meeting with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen at her official residence on Sunday, on the second day of a three-day official visit.
Nielsen’s remarks were in response to US President Donald Trump’s repeated state interest in taking control of the strategically important territory.
During the press conference, Nielsen said “the talk from the United States have not been respectful.”
He continued, “the words used have not been respectful. That’s why we need in this situation, we need to stand together.”
Greenlandic political parties, which have been advocating for eventual independence from Denmark for years, recently formed a broad-based coalition government in response to Trump’s ambitions regarding the territory.
The Greenlandic government stated that Nielsen’s three-day visit, which began on Saturday, was aimed at fostering future cooperation between the two nations.
“Denmark has the will to invest in Greenlandic society, and we don’t just have that for historical reasons. We also have that because we are part of (the Danish) commonwealth with each other,” said Frederiksen.
“We of course have a will to also continue investing in Greenlandic society,” she continued.
Nielsen is scheduled to meet King Frederik X on Monday, before returning to Greenland with Frederiksen for a royal visit to the island.
When asked whether a meeting between them and Trump was in the works, Frederiksen responded, “We always want to meet with the American president. Of course we want to. But I think we have been very, very clear in what is the (Danish commonwealth’s) approach to all parts of the Kingdom of Denmark.”
Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark.
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