LA28 still not prepared for Cultural Olympiad, critics say at legislative hearing

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Set us as preferred With less than two years until the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles, serious questions remain about funding and coordination for the Cultural Olympiad, the arts and culture program accompanying the Games.The Cultural Olympiad is a measure of a host city’s commitment to the creative arts and can have a lasting impact on a region’s artistic legacy.The 2024 Olympics in Paris featured more than 2,500 projects over a period of three years.

And while Los Angeles arts organizations and neighboring cities are already commissioning work and developing neighborhood celebrations, critics say a more formal and cohesive plan has failed to materialize.At a legislative hearing Wednesday at the California Science Center, lawmakers pressed organizers for answers to a basic question: How much money will there be to support the Cultural Olympiad, and when will that money reach the artists and communities expected to bring it to life?Former Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, criticized the failure to mobilize cultural planning earlier.Los Angeles was awarded the Games in September 2017, giving it nearly 11 years to prepare.“I’m not trying to point a finger here, but it just didn’t happen,” he said.The delay had consequences, he warned: major artists book engagements years in advance, limiting what organizers can now arrange.“So that’s the kind of thing that we lose.

But that doesn’t mean that the Cultural Olympiad is a flop.”Yaroslavsky also described the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival as a catalyst for Los Angeles’ cultural growth.“It allowed us to think much bigger,” he said.“The urgency to share what our local communities can expect has been pressing, and many local cities and nonprofits ...